What religions require the use of Grey matter?

Question

What religions require you to think for yourselves, and come to rational decisions, and deal with your own mistakes?
HMMMM????

Answer 1

All Hail to the Most Beautiful and Scrumptious Queen of Australian Mischief...Ariel!!

I couldn't resist! Thanks for all the support and fun in recent posts!

As to use of one's brain in religion, I follow Witchcraft and that definitely requires a lot of thinking, but I don't really think of it as a religion as much as a craft, or a path. The word religion gives me the heebee geebeeies these days. I would venture to guess that Buddhism requires some thinking, paganism and Wicca ask you to think about your life and your path....

In an effort to be fair, and as a former Christian, I pondered how much thinking I was required to do. Not much. The real thinking came when I broke out of the box and asked myself the serious questions about its validity and the truth set me free of it.

Great question sister!
Bright blessings!
Lady Morgana

P.S. I may come out of my short retirement, but I am going to try to ask questions other than those that are aimed at trying to get the Christians to see logic. That is a futile effort, I'm afraid.

Answer 2

Funny, my husband and I were discussing something along these lines last night. Just a little background, you've probably seen me enough around here to know that I'm a Christian. My husband was an atheist when we met, became agnostic about two years ago, and recently came to the point where he is now a theist.
Anyway, so he was telling me that all religions are harmful, because they cause people to worry about whether they're being a good "example" for their religion.
I disagreed with him, pointing out that if that were true, there would be no such thing as a moral atheist. The only difference between an atheist and any religious person (taking away the obvious, like one believes in God or gods and goddesses, and the other doesn't) is that the atheist tries to be a good person for humanity's sake, while the religious person does it for their God (or gods), AND humanity's sake. We all have the capacity to be good people (AND deal with our mistakes), but we may go about it in different ways.

I know this was a roundabout way to answer your question, but the way I look at it, ALL religions (and lack thereof) should require the things that you listed. The problem is PEOPLE don't always require those things. Religion is only as effective as we make it. And we...definitely are far from perfect.

Answer 3

I don't know what would make you think that any religion or philosophy requires you to NOT deal with your mistakes?
Are you just saying this to seem atheistic and cool?

A religion that many people absolutely LOVE to pick on is Catholicism. It of course requires you to deal with your own mistakes because you are required to go into a confessional and actually talk about them, and come to terms with them. If you are trying to imply that by confessing them you aren't dealing with them, that's not true. A Catholic knows that when going into the confessional that if the confession isn't sincere, and if they aren't truly dealing with the mistakes and reconciling within themselves, that God will not forgive them.

It's funny you use that as an example because... well. You seem like an athiest to me. Between someone who has to talk about their mistakes on a regular basis, and someone who can actually have pre-marital sex without feeling any guilt, it seems as though your philosophies are the ones that ignore dealing with mistakes.

And I think you meant to say what western religions require the use of grey matter, because Buddhism is considered a religion as well. And OF COURSE that requires someone to think for themselves and come to rational decisions. The whole religion is based entirely upon meditating in an attempt to reach nirvana, or a world free of suffering. It takes a lot of though to reach that, if people ever do.

I am not a Catholic, I am not a Buddhist, I am not an athiest. I don't belong to an organized religion, so I am not biased. I just feel like questions like these are so hypocritical. You are implying that all religious and spiritual people are mindless sheeps, while you probably can't give a solid example for why you feel this way, except a few people you may have come in contact with.

A few people do not define a whole religion. Also, a whole religion does not define EVERY religion. Your question was so ambigious, you grouped every single religion together. I would say they are all VERY different, even groups that would both be considered christian such as Catholicism and Christianity.

Answer 4

Religion is an over-used word. Since religion relates to the socialized group practice of a faith ... we should better ask, what faith requires the use of your brain?

Unfortunately that rewording really doesn't help much either since faith is a personal matter, and as we can see from those around us, it doesn't require us to be mental giants or midgets (although for Christianity, mental midgetness does help) ... faith just asks us to believe.

I have run into deep thinkers in a lot of different faiths. I have also run into a lot of idiots. While I am not Christian, the Bible has an interesting passge where we are instructed, "that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kngdom of Heaven." I sometimes think that this illustration can be extended from just rich men (who were normally educated), to include all people of education, learning, and intelligence. Peole of long ago were highly illiterate, used oral tradtions, and relied on educated people such as Rabbis, to hep them understand and simplify the thornier issues of life. Now, here we are in the 21st century, where we can scarcely concieve of someone who can't read, write, and reason ... or if we can, they are mostly subjects of ridicule.

Maybe one of the biggest obstacles to belief in any faith, is our own egotistical view on the importance of our individual selves. We have been trained by our American environment to seek self-satisfaction, instant gratification, and to worship at the altar of self realization (intelligence). This is the reason why so many people who could benefit from professional counselling ... never go. They believe that if they are rational enough to UNDERSTAND their problems or issues ... then they should be intelligent enough to SOLVE their own problems or issues. But that's not the way the human mind and psyche works. We have to talk about our problems ... confess them ... to steal a phrase from the Christians. Not to be forgiven, but to forgive ourselves.

So which faith requires the most brain power ... none of them ... or all of them. Take your pick. But if you are intelligent ... be wary of your own intellectual powers. Some times you don't have to be analytical ... you just have to be.

Blessed Be.

Solar Indigo

Answer 5

As always, Buddhism would be a good start. Can't very well master your own mind (as required by the eightfold path) without using it, can you now?

I oppose the claim that atheism does, by the way. Not so much because it's not a religion, but mostly because the atheists answering this question have already demonstrated mindless repetition of the claim no religion requires thought is wholly acceptable to them.

Answer 6

That is a difficult question to answer, I think in general all faiths want you to deal with your own mistakes and most want you to think for yourself. However there are individual organized religions that would prefer you follow blindly like a lamb and not think for yourself. But from my own experience, the non Abrahamic faiths tend to be more about thinking and accepting responsibility instead of blaming external entities for things going bad.

Blessed Be )O(

Answer 7

Wicca, Astrua, Druidism, Paganism in general. I'm sure there are more but these are the ones I know of. Much of what attracted me to Paganism was the fact that knowledge and learning is an important factor. You are encouraged to learn about other faiths.
I also find many Atheist and Agnostics are very educated and tend to have done much research to support their beliefs.

Answer 8

Without quoting scripture to you let me just say that I am a Christian and I use my "Grey" matter quite a good bit thank you. I use it to read and interpret the Bible. I also use it to read good literature, the newspapers, the latest nursing journals. I use it to calculate math problems and dosing of medications so that I don't give my patients too much of a drug or the wrong drug. I use my brain a good bit every day. Just because I am a Christian does not make me any less intelligent than you believe yourself to be. As for my mistakes. I take complete responsibility for every mistake or bad choice I have ever made and I have made a few in my 48 years. I don't blame God for my mistakes and I don't expect him to work magic and pull me out of them. I do pray and look to the Bible for guidance. God expects us to make our own choices and then to accept the consequences of our decisions. God bless and have a great day.

Answer 9

Wicca does. And quite specifically, the law of thelema, which is not part of the Gardnerian Wicca which usually goes by that name, but anyway.

The law of thelema says that you are totally responsible for the consequences of your actions, both the intended and the unintended. So you really have to think about your decisions, because there is no getting away from the responsibility. And of course failure to act is also your responsibility.

Answer 10

My God requires that. He doesn't want you to take someones else word on it, he wants you to find it out on your own. Why do you think so many still question? If you would just go out now and look for the answers, I'm sure you would find them.

It says:
Ask and you shall receive--this is not about material things--it is about knowledge.
Seek and ye shall find--this is about God and knowledge.
Knock and it shall be opened unto you--this is about knowledge.

Hmmmmm.