What's a religion?

[Shredder]

I think religion is not good for humanity always lead to perversion. Better way is "to belive" without fanatic

[AntonBRaxas]

Faith, Spirituality, Religion.

Your Faith is what you undeniably accept as truth without question, and sometimes, without logic/rationality/reason.
Your Spirituality is what you accept as truth and attempt to meditate upon/practice said truth within your mind/heart/spirit.
Your Religion is what you use to identify your Faith and Spirituality among humankind.

Not a perfect explanation, but blahblahblah. I posted my opinion piece. I want a cookie now.

[neráida]

I think a religion is any set of beliefs that a person puts their faith in enough to live by them.

[Pathway Machine]

What do you think a religion is?

That's a real good question to me because my perspective is, apparently, an odd one on the subject.

I think that to be religious, in the most basic sense of the word, means to behold to a strict set of beliefs or principles. Everybody is religious. That's my thinking.

Atheists tend to disagree with me on that, insisting, incorrectly in my opinion, that a religion has to have a deity. Some religions don't. Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism for example. Even, arguably, Shintoism and Hinduism don't think of their millions of Gods in the strictest sense of a deity as the Abrahamic religions or atheists. But even the Bible writers were henotheistic rather than monotheistic.

But your question was, what do I think a religion is? What constitutes a religion in my mind is organization, massive adherents, and cultural or traditional structure. Organized religion.

[anunitu]

I think perhaps you seem to believe that connection to mystic energy MUST involve a structured and rule orientated body. I would differ with this,in my experience one can connect with out a ruling body to direct your path. That is to say any personal truth(taken with a grain of salt) is possible,but social controls seem to really hate individual thought and belief.

The house(any house) is not holy just because you speak of a deity within its walls. The idea of holy is more within the hearts and minds of those who may not even speak of it.

[Pathway Machine]

I think perhaps you seem to believe that connection to mystic energy MUST involve a structured and rule orientated body.

Very well said, anunitu.

I'm not familiar with the term mystic energy, is that similar to what I would call spirituality? My thinking is the exact opposite. I think that spirituality is a personal responsibility, and a structured and rule orientated body retards individual spirituality. This is why I, both as an atheist and later as a Bible believer, have always loathed organized religion. First of all it transmogrifies the original teachings. It always becomes syncretistic to the point of jeopardizing its meaning. No religion that I have known has ever remained true even to itself. Taoism and Christianity are the most obvious examples of this. The possible exception would be Shintoism, but only because it has always been syncretistic.

I would differ with this,in my experience one can connect with out a ruling body to direct your path. That is to say any personal truth(taken with a grain of salt) is possible,but social controls seem to really hate individual thought and belief.

I agree completely.

The house(any house) is not holy just because you speak of a deity within its walls. The idea of holy is more within the hearts and minds of those who may not even speak of it.

I would agree with the first part of the above quote, but disagree with the latter part of this statement, if not just because I'm mean ol' wanker then because I don't really buy into the idea that any sincere heart or mind would seek, much less find, anything holy in the houses of organized religion for reasons we discussed in this thread. It's a stagnant pool of spiritual tyranny that has more to do with power and money; social and traditional control and repression than anything holy. In my opinion, experience and observation.