Sum up your religious belief

To paraphrase the [SIZE=-1]Svetasvatara Upanishad ...[/SIZE]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]Nothing under heaven can arrest the progress of the human soul on its long pilgrimage from darkness to light,
from the unreal to the real, from death to immortality and from ignorance to wisdom.

Nothing can keep the spirit of man from God.
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taijasi
 
This is not easy to do, but here are two quotes:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being,
with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive
achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
-- Ayn Rand

The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity
with excellence or virtue...Moreover this activity must occupy a complete
'lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and
similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely
blessed and happy.
--Aristotle


eudaimonia,

M.
 
Namaste all,

thank you for contributing to this post, i find it quite interesting.

of course, it is difficult to do since our views are not so easily encapsulated :)

good work!

metta,

~v
 
I believe most of what the great prophets and spiritual leaders have taught us. I have some unsettled matters on my beliefs, and that's why I'm here.
 
I've gone through a rather convoluted process of reflections growing out of fairly incorrigible re- and rereading of Stephen Jay Gould's and others' work on evolution. What I'm left with is a curiosity as to whether or not so-called "civilization" among humans isn't fully as much a part of "nature" as our rawest and most self-centered instincts. The dichotomy claimed by many between "nature" and "civilization" may not even exist. "Civilization" may instead be part and parcel of our "nature" -- one and the same when it comes to humans.

If our rawest and most self-centered instincts have indeed played an "evolutionary" role -- and most would claim they have -- then isn't it probable that the more sophisticated "civilizing" trend toward "feeding and clothing the hungry", etc., is also just as intrinsic a building block in evolution? If so, can one determine what it is that has made that latter caring process tick through the millennia?

Well, going by the paper trail that we now have, fragmentary as it is, it would appear that the earliest extant expressions of concern for the hungry, the left out, the abused and the neglected always emerge from within a context of some highly individual and innovative slant on deity as well! Coincidence? Or is there an intimation that this possibly "evolutionary" concern for the neglected and abused among us can not emerge at all in any intelligent species absent some kind of awareness of this thing called deity as well?

If -- a big "if", granted -- self-generated and peer-bucking and new-minted professions of sensitivity through the ages toward the afflicted and the abused are an intrinsic part of human evolution, then is it possible that the context where these earliest professions uncannily appear -- alongside self-generated and peer-bucking and new-minted engagements with deity -- are just as intrinsic to evolution as well? And if these engagements with deity are indeed part of evolution as well, then what might that say about the reality or non-reality of deity itself? How logical is it that a possible building block in humanity's evolution would be based on some self-evidently pathbreaking spin that is mere fiction? I would view that as rather unlikely. Instead I would view it as more likely that, if new-minted awareness of deity is part of evolution at all, then deity itself is (probably, though not certainly) as real as the waxing and waning of all species here on earth.

Operacast
 
Well, I used to know the answer to this one... hold on... um Wow... 20years of study and meditation and geez... I have no idea, I mean I thought I understood it all, was fairly confident and could even argue my points successfully, but now I'm older and I thought by now I would have gained prajna, but oh well, I work when I need to I sleep when I'm tired, when hungry I eat, and well, I'm very happy. So I guess my religious beliefs are up in the attic somewhere next to the grateful dead eight tracks...
 
Mine is:-

Love yourself before you can love others. When loving others, do so with all your heart. Appreciate everything you have, good and bad because they're life's lessons and without them you can't be all that you are. Behave lovingly towards yourself and others even if that feeling isn't reciprocated because at least you know you've done the right thing. You can't always be liked by others but you have to learn to like yourself and you can't do that if you behave fearfully and from hate.

A bit of a mouthful but that sums things up for me.
 
~Jonathan~ said:
Mine is:-

Love yourself before you can love others. When loving others, do so with all your heart. Appreciate everything you have, good and bad because they're life's lessons and without them you can't be all that you are. Behave lovingly towards yourself and others even if that feeling isn't reciprocated because at least you know you've done the right thing. You can't always be liked by others but you have to learn to like yourself and you can't do that if you behave fearfully and from hate.

A bit of a mouthful but that sums things up for me.
Click to expand...

Hi Jonathan, Welcome to CR. :)

cheers,
lunamoth
 
Re: what is your relegion?

what is your relegion?................."They will all be taught by Jehovah."—JOHN 6:45.
(Isaiah 54:13) And all your sons will be persons taught by Jehovah, and the peace of your sons will be abundant.
(Micah 4:2) And many nations will certainly go and say: "Come, YOU people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths." For out of Zion law will go forth, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem.
(Isaiah 2:2) And it must occur in the final part of the days [that] the mountain of the house of Jehovah will become firmly established above the top of the mountains, and it will certainly be lifted up above the hills; and to it all the nations must stream................. i would say it is elavated in a spiritual way. and firmly established.
 
Geee sum up my beliefs...

Seeing that this world is spiritually dynamic and we are constantly making new discoveries and miracles are happening everyday in the way we perceive things..

Baha'u'llah the Ocean of Glory and Beauty summons me...

- Art
 
I experience myself as living within a cosmos, not a chaos. All things have meaning and value, even if the meaning is often veiled.

And at the heart of everything is mercy and grace - not judgement and sacrifice. And the closer we ourselves live according to mercy and grace, both towards ourselves and others, the greater our clarity of understanding becomes. And that our "understanding" becomes embodied and expresses itself in our on-going lives. (Perhaps, the more true understanding, the more spontaneous)

There was a time in my past when my mother had become senile, she had reverted to childhood and spoke as a six year old. She suffered a car accident, then a stroke. I remember holding her hand and she said...."Why is this happening to me? I've been a good girl." The memory haunts me and breaks my heart.

Yet I think "explanations" - even "beliefs" - are a blasphemy against Reality-as-is.
 
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