THEWAULRUS

Religion

Everyone has heard that word a thousand times in their life. It starts wars and brings people together for greater good. There is no generic definition for it, nor there ever will be one. I will try to formulate a good definition and explain my opinions towards religions. I will try to cover to my full potential the Christian Faith, Judaism, Sikhism, Islam, Hinduism, Scientology and Polytheism. I might be wrong when I call the following two religions, but they do have things in common with any other religions. I am, of course, talking about Atheism and Agnostic beliefs.

So what makes up a religion? A strong common spiritual belief is the first part of it. You cannot have a religion without it. Then a religion needs followers or else it becomes extinct. People create religions for two reasons. To calm themselves down by saying that they will live on, even after their body’s death because their soul is immortal. The other one is to explain the unexplainable. People try to organize their thoughts in that way. Today’s science has proved or disproved many religious beliefs. Humans know a lot more in these modern days. Because of that, some things that you could not explain before are very easy and simple. And even after everything is explained, religion will not cease to exist because of those explanations new ones will flourish.

There are few bad and good things about a religion, a faith. First of all you need to find one that fits your beliefs. If a religion does not fit your beliefs, There is no point of joining it. People often join religions they have no idea about. Second important thing is to never be a blind follower and never doubt your religion. You have to look at the facts, not some silly old myths. And third of all is that all of your holy books have been written by mortals and mortals tend to lie and exaggerate. You cannot disregard your holy writings, but read between the lines. A good thing about religion is that it brings people of different race and opinions under one common roof. It unites us all, but the price for that are wars against other religions.

I will start with probably the easiest one to explain, Atheism. Atheism is a belief of absence of any Deity/Deities. People do not believe in god, nor do they believe the Holy books or churches. It was first practiced in France during the 16th century. Even though Atheism is not an organized religion, the part that it has a strong common belief and a lot of followers make it a form of religion. Atheism was a practiced religion in the Soviet Union. People believed only in themselves and their communist leader. Many churches were robbed and destroyed during that time period. Atheism does have a point in it. The point is that humans are the ones who created the concept of God or whatever you want to call it. Another good point atheism makes is that you should believe and depend only on yourself.

Agnosticism can hardly be called a religion. It is the most open-minded of philosophies, in that an agnostic does not believe in anything; he does not even ascribe to a doctrine of unbelief, like an Atheist. A true agnostic does not assume to know the answers to the supreme questions of the universe (why are we here, how did we get here, what put us here . . . ) – he does not say that there is a god or supernatural being involved with the answers to those questions, but he also does not say there isn’t. The definition of agnosticism is very easy: Agnostics keep an open mind toward everything in the universe, and rely on solid proof or logical scientific theories to formulate their opinions.

Polytheism is probably one of the earliest and greatest religions of all time for a few reasons. It was practiced widely in the old days. Usually around Middle Eastern countries and Africa. The reason this religion was created was to explain the unexplainable. Everything magnificent in those days was given a spirit/god. Then they were named and given human characteristics. The gods in those religions made mistakes, like humans. They were worshipped by their people, but they did not like all of their gods. For example, some people favored one god and hated all of the others because the other gods weren’t good to them. In religions today gods are depicted perfect and a lot of them don’t have human characteristics. One of the other interesting about this religion is that some of the bible’s events happened in this one too and very written down as well. Polytheism is not a single religion. It is a concept of existence of many gods. There are a lot of religions that could be put under this categorization. Many myths come from Polytheism.

Scientology is a very recent religion created from Dianetics in 1952. Dianetics was basically a help-yourself system. Scientology has a few interesting beliefs. The first and most important one is that a human is an immortal spiritual being. That is a proof that religions are created to prevent the fear of death. The other major beliefs are that psychology and psychotherapy are evil and abusive. Every human is basically good but becomes tainted by pain and suffering he has to go through. Scientology stands for "the study of truth." One of the statements that scientology makes is that “true” is only what you have observed yourself. In that religion no one is forced to believe anything, because it operates on the theory “You have to see it to believe it.” Scientology does make a few good points, but some parts of it don’t make any sense. Scientologists believe in auditing which, as they have claimed improves IQ and many other spiritual things. It is a very young religion and they believe of resurrection of soul. Those beliefs are also found in some Indian Religions.

THEWAULRUS

interisting... why none has anything to say? oh my! Comment on it!

}SoC{Sumguy

interesting, what do you have to say about Christianity and Islam?

__________________
"And now you've seen his face,
and you know that there's a place
in the sun, for all that you've done.
For you and your children.
You always wanted to beleive.
Just ask and you'll receive,
beyond your wildest dreams.
And you already know how this will end...."

THEWAULRUS

Much... my friend.. go to freewebs.com/religioncontroversy
I posted the whole nine yards about every religion that i care bout..there...

THEWAULRUS

Sikhism is a very interesting religion. It began in sixteenth century in Northern India. The Muslims started to forcibly convert Hindus to Islam. The Hindus wanted to stop that, so they decided to pick out the most aggressive Hindus and turn them into protectors. That is how the first Singhs were created. To distinguish them they would wear turbans, orange robes, a sword and they would have long beards. It is the only religion ever created specifically against Islam.
Hinduism is the oldest major organized religion in this world. It is mainly practiced in India. They believe is reincarnation of the soul. Most Hindus consider cows and snakes sacred. They worship the nature and try to be at peace with it. Most Hindus also believe in Karma. Karma is a system where beneficial events are derived from past beneficial actions and harmful events from past harmful actions. A large partition of Hinduism does Yoga. Islam and Hinduism are mortal enemies. That is the reason Sikhism was created.
Judaism is the first of the three most powerful religions the world has ever seen, the other two being Christianity and Islam. It is arguably the first truly monotheistic religion, and its followers believe that the universe was created by and is still controlled by a single omnipresent and omnipotent entity, who is also said to be totally benevolent. The religion was founded over the course of thousands of years, during which time the Jews were separated into tribes and led a nomadic existence in the deserts of the Middle East. The Jews claim that they are God’s chosen people, or “children”, and believe that Abraham (the leader of the main tribe of Israel) formed a pact, or covenant, with God. These beliefs, along with many rules and regulations formed through hard experience in the desert, were incorporated into the Jews’ religion, and recorded in books like the Torah, which encompasses the body of the Jews’ religious beliefs, and the Talmud, which records into many massive volumes the majority of the Jewish laws, which were entirely oral before it was written.
Islam is the third of the three “main” monotheistic religions that the world has seen. It is an evolution of Judaism and Christianity, and true Muslims recognize Jesus as a prophet rather than the son of God (or God himself). They think Mohammad was more important than Jesus because he was the “last” of the prophets. Islam has been labeled as evil since the beginning of the Holy Crusades till this day. Christianity tried to eliminate them in the crusades. The Knights Templar failed at that task. The Hindus actually created a wholly new branch of religion to fight off the Muslims. Nowadays the Taliban terrorists use it to back their actions up. They say that they were predicted in the book of Qur’an. Some people believe that the Islam Churches actually sponsor the Al Qaeda terrorist group. I think it’s wrong to label Islam like that, but there are too many fanatics in that religion who cause that to happen. I, myself know a lot of Muslims and they are not bad people. But groups like Al Qaeda are the ones that give that religion a bad name.
Buddhism translates to the teachings of the awakened one. ( It’s referring to Buddha) It is a very peaceful religion. You have to purify your mind by meditating, and living a virtuous and moral lifestyle. In Buddhism, the goal is to reach a certain state of mind called Nirvana. (Nirodha) The religion follows the Four Noble Truths. They basically state that everything is suffering and you must rid yourself of humanly possessions and worldly attachments in order to reach Nirvana. The religion is currently practiced around India and Tibet. This is one of the most peaceful religions in the world. No wars have been started that involved this religion.

It’s finally the time to explain one of the most practiced and influential religions of all time. Yes you’ve guessed it right—it’s Christianity! Christianity was made from Judaism. Its history is covered with wars, greed and suffering. It has also been the bringer of good morals and unity. Christianity became a religion in 27 C.E. It was started by the disciples of Christ. The holy book of the faith is the Bible. It is made from the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is basically the Torah. Christianity branched out into many different faiths because some people would disagree on what the Bible meant time from time. This faith gave life to the first Holy Wars or Holy Crusades, whatever you want to call them. The whole point of them was to reclaim the Holy Land. (Jerusalem) Those attacks were lead by the Knights of Templar, who were the most dedicated Christian warriors ever known to man. But they were accused of heresy and tortured into signing a confession proving their heresy. Heresy was a large thing back in those times. During the medieval times Christianity has killed a lot of people by accusing them of being a witch or a warlock. The Christians were defeated by the Muslims soon after the death of Knights Templar and have never regained the Holy Land.

Hundreds of years later the town of Constantinople was attacked by Russians. At that point of time it was the stronghold of Christian Faith. For over a hundred years Russians would attack the city and break through its defenses. But one day the ruler of Russia at that time decided to stop all of the bloodshed and converted the entire country to Christianity. But Christianity’s leaders could not control Russia as they had planned.
Christianity’s concept of hell differed from place to place in the beginning. In cold regions hell was a cold icy desert. In the desert where Christianity first started hell was perceived as a fiery inferno, where your soul would burn and be tortured by the devil. Then those theories were combined and they became what are now known as the Nine Rings of Hell.
The Americas became colonized faster because there were more religion “splits”. Missionaries started to quickly spread the religion to the natives. Strife quickly erupted between the missionaries and certain native tribes who perceived that the missionary’s were trespassing on their ancient land.
Today’s Christianity is split into many, many branches. The main branches of modern Christianity are Protestantism and Catholicism. Christianity’s beliefs did not change much over the time period since it was created. Christianity’s Ten Commandments are probably the best rules set by a religion.

}SoC{Sumguy

kinda like the KKK and Christianity, eh?

i think that was a pretty good summary of the history of those religions.


*sigh*, the crusades were so pointless and against christian principles.

__________________
"And now you've seen his face,
and you know that there's a place
in the sun, for all that you've done.
For you and your children.
You always wanted to beleive.
Just ask and you'll receive,
beyond your wildest dreams.
And you already know how this will end...."

George

I have to agree with all of that.

There are so many groups within different religions that misrepresent it so much it's hard for me to understand why anyone would believe in any of it.

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THEWAULRUS

yea that is very tru

mplltt

I noticed that many years of christian school I was approached with the church because it was a part of the school. In fact the school did what the church wanted, essentially the church and the school went hand in hand. I came out west and since it has been ingrained in me (almost close to my every movement was judeo-christian save for the questioning absolute religious truth) I went to church out west in Arizona. Now you may say, this asshole is a christian from the start, yet I refute your direct statement. If I may retort. I go to church in order to see where the establishment is going with much of life. I find that there is a lot to learn, yet I am taught the same 3 messages: 1) progress is earned and not developed, people who make progress have earned the right all their life so a) church leaders and b) the old gentry (ie establishment) are the ones that make progress; every person in the church is progressless, stupid (ignorant), and generally worthless. 2) the world is supposed to be destroyed and so we are all supposed to hate the world, its inhabitants and every bit of progress (you see how circular this is starting to get *I like it that way*) 3) The establishment is the only subset of people that are to be respected, loved and feared. (HAHA) The establishment is out to get us. We are all pawns to the establishment and there is no progress because they have all thought they have seen everything and therefore there is no more progress. They believe that they are so old they have tried EVERYTHING, and therefore there is nothing else on earth that can possibly be tried and that there are no people on earth that can make anything new or learn anything that is different. People that are making progress are all to be poked, annoyed, told that if they are so great then how come they can't control the establishment, all their ideas have to do with sex and they are going to take sex away too; as if I care. The establishment is out to destroy the people that are making life easy on us and are out to make us all a part of their 3 problematic messages. I am an agnostic for life, and there is nothing that the establishment can do to me in order to turn around anything that I learn. There is nothing that the establishment can do to take away my desire to learn or my willingness to comply to school. The establishment is not going to bring God into engineering, the establishment is also not going to be able to start anything unwholesome in placing God in Engineering so they can start up their 3 messages again. The establishment will not use our machines against us, the establishment will not ruin progress through making elementary logic all that we study and most certianly will not be able to use the whole stack of solutions in order to compile a blood bath. I am sick and tired of being a pawn to the establishment. I am never going to church alone again. I am sure that when I am with friends, it is possible to watch the establishment move in order not to be destroyed by malignant narcicistic old people (ie establishment).

__________________
Thank you, I am impressed that you are forgiving enough to approach this line of reasoning.

}SoC{Sumguy

whoa, what kinda church do YOU go to? Thats a pretty screwed up church!

__________________
"And now you've seen his face,
and you know that there's a place
in the sun, for all that you've done.
For you and your children.
You always wanted to beleive.
Just ask and you'll receive,
beyond your wildest dreams.
And you already know how this will end...."