Consider religion at its most basic level...?

Question

Religion is defined as a set of common beliefs and practices held by a group of people, often including a complex mythology and faith.
"Religion is the organization of life around the depth dimensions of experience — varied in form, completeness, and clarity in accordance with the environing culture."

I contend that religion, at its base, is simply faith. Despite the many and varied differences between every religion that exists on earth, each religion has at least one thing in common - faith.

My question is this -

How do you define your personal religious beliefs? I don't mean to incite a riot, or have people firing back at each other. I'm curious about your basic faith.

(for a religious comparison paper I'm working on... :)

The Encyclopedia of Religion defines religion as "The organization of life around the depth dimensions of experience — varied in form, completeness, and clarity in accordance with the environing culture."

Another question -
Do you regard religion as a social construction, as progressing toward a higher, objective truth, or as an absolute truth?

Answer 1

I'm a follower of an unemployed, traveling teacher, who wandered from town to town teaching a new way to understand God.

Godspeed you on your journey.

Answer 2

My personal religious beliefs are centered on my faith, I believe because I had a radical change of heart towards the greater good, spreading of the Gospel Jesus Christ and a feeling of radical love. This conversion has lead me to where I am today, centered and held fast to my religion, my tradition and what I believe to be true.
By the way religion and faith are not one in the same, you can have faith in someone, because faith is nothing more that a trusting belief. You believe what you are being told to be true therefore you have faith in the something to be true. So you dont have a religion for the news caster, but you have faith that what he/she is saying is true, because you trust that it is so.
Religion is the answer to a love conversion that occurs in most humanity that encompasses faith, a belief system and the history of that faith, tradition and scripture.
God bless and I hope this helps.

Answer 3

If you want to look at beliefs and convictions- I believe in NOTHING spiritual. I DO believe that everyone deserves a right to practice what ever faith they wish without someone else of another faith interfering or invading upon someone else's right to practice what ever faith they wish. Its really that simple- Don't step on my feet, and I won't step on yours.

That's the sort of stuff that makes two completely different people with all different beliefs consider a peaceful relationship with the other over a punch in the nose.


Open Late

Answer 4

In my case, I'm reasonably sure that my beliefs are a mixture of the things that I was taught as a child, the things that society demands of me, things that have happened to me personally in my life, and the things I learned through reading about many topics. I consider my basic faith to be Reform Judaism with some of the more positive things that I learned from a Christian upbringing (I converted to Judaism at age 42), with a bit of Native American spirituality and thinking thrown into the mix.

Answer 5

it is founder the "prophet"/warlord Muhammad... Muhammad replace right into a slave-possessing (33:50), warlord (8:a million, 33:27) who unfold his faith with the sword (9:5). His “e book from god” (4:eighty two) is composed of many very own, often sexual and tailored reward for himself (33:50-fifty 3) as properly as medical errors (sixteen:15, sixty seven:5, 86:7). He secure his very own slender-minded, generalizations while speaking approximately women human beings (4:34, 2:228) and his very own enemies, the Jews (2:ninety six, 5:eighty two). Muhammad granted sexual rights to husbands (2:223) and allowed spouse-beating (4:34) and polygamy (4:3). The Quran did no longer ban slavery, allowing Muslims to prepare slavery (30:28), as properly as sexual-slavery (23:6, 70:30), victimizing 1000's and 1000's of folk, for over 1000 years (advert 610-1962 for Saudi Arabia). The Quran says which you're no longer forced to transform (2:256) yet then it threatens you with the humiliating “infidel tax”, the “Jizya” (9:29), dying, mutilation or expulsion (5:33) and an eternal hell (4:169) in case you don’t.

Answer 6

What ever set of beliefs a group of people believe, it is not religion unless the religion originates from God the creator of universe.

God sent a Prophet to every group of people or society to guide their life and to teach them what is right and wrong, The Prophet may have been a Holy man, a Philosopher, a priest, a teacher, a chief or - what ever else. God says in Quran that He sent total of 124,000 prophets to all the people living as a society any where on this planet.

The originator of religion had to have some connection with God through direct revelations on his heart, visions from God or messages from God through an Angel. If all of these are absent from the originator of so-called religion, then it is a cult and not a religion.

Answer 7

Where did you get your definition? Words and there definition is very important to me (i don't have them memorized though) and i have never read in any dictionary (which i just did) the definition you give. Religion in all the definitions i have read has some belief in a deity as the creator of the universe.

You are right that faith is need to believe in any religion but it is a faith un-founded on fact. If the believer did not have this faith then they would not believe in any religion. They might even have to use reason, logic and scientific thinking and thus be sane sensible people.

I am Atheist and anti-religious. I have seen so much harm that religion has done.

Many try to make Buddhism into a religion which it is not, no deity (God). Those that make up their own definition of religion are usually religious and do not like the fact that Buddhism is so sane but doesn't have any God to believe in so they change the definition of religion and make up other lies, like Buddha was believed to have been born from a cow and other nonses.

What i am getting at is that to be honest you must leave Buddhism out when it comes to religion.

Anyway good question.

Good luck

Religion
re·li·gion

re·li·gion [ri líjjən]
(plural re·li·gions)
n
1. religion beliefs and worship: people’s beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life
2. religion particular system: a particular institutionalized or personal system of beliefs and practices relating to the divine
3. personal beliefs or values: a set of strongly-held beliefs, values, and attitudes that somebody lives by
4. obsession: an object, practice, cause, or activity that somebody is completely devoted to or obsessed by
The danger is that you start to make fitness a religion.

5. christianity monk’s or nun’s life: life as a monk or a nun, especially in the Roman Catholic Church


[12th century. Via Anglo-Norman religiun , from Old French religion , from the Latin stem religion- “obligation, reverence,” of uncertain origin: probably formed from religare (see rely).]


-re·lig·ion·less, adj
get religion to stop flouting the rules, regulations, customs, and expectations of society (informal) to become a believer or join a religious organization, and, usually, start to lead a life that follows its teachings (informal)
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

The Case Against Religion
by Albert Ellis
Before we can talk sensibly about religion – or almost anything else – we should give some kind of definition of what we are talking about. Let me, therefore, start with what I think are some legitimate definitions of the term religion. Other concepts of this term, of course, exist; but what I am talking about when I use it is as follows.
According to Webster’s New Word Dictionary, religion is: “(1) belief in a divine or superhuman power or powers to be obeyed and worshipped as the creator(s) and ruler(s) of the universe; (2) expression of this belief in conduct and ritual.”
English and English, in their Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychological and Psychoanalytical Terms (1958), define religion as “a system of beliefs by means of which individuals or a community put themselves in relation to god or to a supernatural world and often to each other, and from which the religious person derives a set of values by which to judge events in the natural world.”
The Columbia Encyclopedia notes that “when a man becomes conscious of a power above and beyond the human, and recognizes a dependence of himself upon that power, religion has become a factor in his being.”
These, then, are the definitions of religion which I accept and which I shall have in mind as I discuss the religious viewpoint in this paper. Religion, to me, must include some concept of a deity. When the term is used merely to denote a system of beliefs, practices, or ethical values which are not connected with any assumed higher power, then I believe it is used loosely and confusingly; since such a nonsupernatural system of beliefs can more accurately be described as a philosophy of life or a code of ethics, and it is misleading to confuse a believer in this general kind of philosophy or ethical code with a true religionist.
Every Atheist, in other words, has some kind of philosophy and some code of ethics; and many Atheists, in fact, have much more rigorous life philosophies and ethical systems than have most deists.
Someone Is Religious
It therefore seems silly to say that someone is religious because he happens to be philosophic or ethical; and unless we rigorously use the term religion to mean some kind of faith unfounded on fact, or dependency on some assumed superhuman entities, we broaden the definition of the word so greatly as to make it practically meaningless.
If religion is defined as man’s dependence of a power above and beyond the human, as a psychotherapist I find it to be exceptionally pernicious. For the psychotherapist is normally dedicated to helping human beings in general, and his patients in particular, to achieve certain goals of mental health, and virtually all these goals are antithetical to a truly religious viewpoint.

Answer 8

That question could be answered eloquently and completely with a few words, or in a whole book. I'll try to describe my faith using a few words ( I'm Agnostic/Atheist btw).

My faith is: malleable, undefined, open to suggestion, interpretable depending on the character of the context.

Answer 9

Well, I'm a non-theistic Pagan. I view the gods as archetypes capable of empowering people to change themselves for the better through internalization.

I practice magic, which is to say the natural use of symbolism, self-hypnosis and positive reinforcement in order to enact internal change. I don not believe in the supernatural, as I have never experienced anything that I would call supernatural. And no one who has ever claimed contact with such things has been able to objectively substantiate them.

Answer 10

Faith which is a gift from God allows us to pursue the virtue of religion and in so doing gives justice towards God and His Glory

Answer 11

I am not a church goer, but I have a deep relationship with God. I don't thinki am comfortable in most churches I am familiar with, because I don't think that they al speak to me. But you see, I speak directly to Him. I don't believe God ever said I needed to follow a middle man to get to Him, so I develop my personal relationship with God and you know what? He has proven time and time again that not only does He listen to me, but He is always here for me when I need Him. Actually , for some reason, I felt I had to say this; I would like to have a BETTER relationship with God; like many, I have talked and prayed so much about Me , in hopes that he would know me, but I haven't done all of necessary work to get to know Him. He made me a talker so, I would like to learn to Listen to Him more, I think there are plenty of times God talks to us but we are so busy doing everything other than listening, that we miss out on some truly wonderful blessings. Blessings....