What is religion?

I'm just recovering from a spirituell state of emergency, while trying to make sense out of it, I noticed loads of people are currently going through similiar experiences.
So I thought I share what I got so far.
Every word as soon as it is thought, spoken, or written is fiction.The human brain invented many symbols, representing a meaning, but never mean anything in itself. For example, in math numbers stand for quantities, in language we try to describe our realtites with words and in art I try to express my feelings. All humans all the time work on these levels, you can find that in eastern philosophies too, there is the lowest animal like realm of needs, then we got our reason, or mind the gate for connecting to others, the harbour for the symbols we use and perceive all around us all the time, and the more subtile darker, or occult realm of emotions and intuition.
What religion does and always did is trying to describe what we don't know. What is a fact? If I feel something, it's hardly knowledge. Believing also is per definition: not knowing. So a fact is an attempt to build a web making knots between the touchable, recreatable and as always: the symbols describing what we try to prove. I have an idea, I use symbols to see if it works in theory, I create something with measurable impact on it's environment, of some sort. And as a reward I gain the nice feeling of success, contribution and pride. Faith is required to make the step from "having no idea" to the birth of a new thought. Whom do I believe in, when I start searching for inspiration? Myself. Does this make me god? No.
Religion is and was a very wealthy pool for inspiration, yet we have to take it as what it really is: symbols for the unexplainable. The phrase "son of god", we burden on Jesus H. Christ Superstar, is also just a symbol, if you boil it down, it comes to: "Inspired person, with his roots in the needs of his surroundings". He was where he was and who he was, because he was a part of life. That's not much different from the cyanobacteria, without it there wouldn't have been O². Are these bacterias holy, or special, or just a part of the one real mystery: life?
The religious ship is sinking, because there are hardcore-believers out there making it impossible to have ones feet in the needs of ones surroundings, without some serious bending of facts and feelings. It has become a pervertion, from celebrating life and contributing to the thrive of all, it became a prison and worship of death, the complete standstill of evolution. Religions should guide our spirituell parts on our journey through life, help us becoming the best we possible and not just make us feel bad, because we love the wrong gender, or have a thing for weird stuff, like facts and believe in ourselfes.
The second you start to see more in a written thought, or spoken word than just fiction, you left the divine. What is fiction? Our hive-mind, the place were we express and share our experience, always subjective, never recreatable and in it's essence untouchable.
So I say: God is fiction, life is real and love is our only hope.
Amen.

Religion is primitive superstition used to oppress.. control .. justify theft and mass murder ..

a reply to: Peeple
God is the un named! Prior to any concept, word or idea GOD IS!!
Imagine for a minute what life would be if there were no words or symbols. You might realize that there is only ever what is happening. Even when the words and thoughts return it might be seen that the word or symbol is what is happening like subtitles appearing on the screen.

The screen is God. Without the screen being present no show can appear.

a reply to: Expat888

But without religion all that's left would be esoteric and psychology to describe spirituell experiences and I don't like either, because they don't fit with my personality and experience. My ideal religion would be a safety web, a guideline to tame reality and get it in tune with emotions and imagination. I believe I know, humans have a spirituell side and need a way to express and categorise it, without getting called crazy, or hippy.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Well that's a typical you. Unfortunately my world is a bit more complex. God is a concept. A description for the gap between the explainable facts, my intuition and the ideas I come up with to describe it. Just a symbol. So without me describing it, there would still be life. That's not the same as god. Or maybe life is god? But who'd believe that?

originally posted by: Peeple My ideal religion would be a safety web, a guideline to tame reality and get it in tune with emotions and imagination.

Every individual is seeking safety - because an individual knows there is no happy ending - there will be death for the individual.
In life one sees things (individual things) come and go, so it is assumed that one will go too.

Religion was invented to help people (individuals) find relief but there can be no relief when one has bought into the 'concept' of individuality - separateness.

The only cure for the fear (you want safety) is the realization of oneness - or wholeness.

Oneness/wholeness cannot be achieved but it can be realized.

originally posted by: PeepleThat's not the same as god. Or maybe life is god? But who'd believe that?

God is life!! When this is realized there will be no 'who' - there will just be life - the kingdom shall be revealed.
Does this moment have to be believed?
If I was to 'tell' you about tomorrow or yesterday you could either believe or not believe but this moment is true. Is this moment fiction? Or is it only fiction when it is told in symbols and words?

The thing is 'this moment' is ever changing so cannot be told but it is known.
The knower and the known arise as one - but what it is cannot be conceptualized - it is prior to conception - it is the immaculate conception - the seeing and knowing of This (the actual happening) - it cannot be spoken.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

That's not true, in many religions death is not what it is in Christianity, like Hinduism for example. Or way bevor, when people found comfort in Samhain, when their loved ones came back for party each year.
What is fear? Fear is doubt. Of course I have to believe in something to get over doubt, because there is no absolute certainty in nothing that isn't touchable. So you just replace the doubt you get when you realise your unique with a superstiton, just replace the symbol achieve, with realise and your world is in balance. That doesn't make it a fact. You still have to invest some maintenance into holding up your shield against doubt. That's what religion has in it's core: A system to keep me investing energy in entertaining unapplyable ideas.
Seems like a waste,the opposite of what it should be, like religion is ment to be the wind allowing me to fly, while misinterpretations and sticking to way too literal taken symbols turned it into gravity that keeps me grounded instead. We have no spirituel culture, that's the problem. We splitted the observation of our souls into different areas, the factual based psychology, the mind-bending out there angel and demon version for those just fresh out of the dark ages and the pseudoscientific psy-sciences. It just seems like we focus on our needs and forget the garden is not just there to feed us, but also to delight us.

originally posted by: Peeple
My ideal religion would be a safety web, a guideline to tame reality and get it in tune with emotions and imagination.

What is it that you want to keep safe? I can only guess that your answer would be....... 'Me, I want me to be safe'. When do you feel frightened? Is it when you listen to the thoughts about 'me'?
It is the 'separate me' which you fear for! Really there is no separate me. All the fear felt is caused by the protection of that 'separate me'. The 'separate me' is just a bunch of ideas about the past and the future. But in reality you are not past or future.....you are now.
Imagine that there is only now and now is constantly appearing different - now is moving but now never goes anywhere.

God is seeing and knowing now.

a reply to: Peeple
Why not just forget religion?!!
Forget what you have read. Forget the words and symbols which tell stories about what is not actually happening right here and now.
What is there when all words are forgotten??


This is wholeness but words seem to divide this into past and future and This that actually IS is missed.

Who lives in the past and the future?? An imaginary, dreamt up person. What is dreaming?? When does all dreaming happen?

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Okay, so I am now. My now, contains me and I have memories and goals, every now, reaches into before and after, there is no such thing as a definite now, just an approach.
What I fear is not a seperate me, but a me going no where, I fear nothing. We're all little pharaos and we are afraid to get lost in nowhere, our lifes are just an attempt to build our own pyramid. That's why you and so many need the basis of god, or a oneness, this is your system of wasting energy, you spend all your wishes and dreams on a canvas that's essentially a waterfall. But you will only realise when you dive in. So there are two options, I can get lost in trying to explain what is, like you said, un-named and get washed out of the fabric of reality, or I accept: It just doesn't matter. If there is god or not is entirely unimportant to the fact, I have a mind and it works in beautiful and sometimes scary ways. I am a part of this planet, no matter how much I try to deny it, a seperate me is impossible, as long as I breathe. And then we don't know, because no one ever returned from the death to tell us what's after. Is this scary? Of course, it is ment to be. We fear what we don't know, because we doubt it will be good to get disconnected.

originally posted by: Peeple

What is fear? Fear is doubt. Of course I have to believe in something to get over doubt, because there is no absolute certainty in nothing that isn't touchable.

Why believe in some 'thing'? 'Things' are of the world and that is why you get tossed around (emotions) - you 'imagine' things - you think things into existence. You hear of 'things' like Christianity or Hinduism and these things are all mental ideas. What is all that happening in??

People want to believe in some 'thing' and people want to be some 'thing' - the individual is obsessed by things. But deep down there is a feeling of emptiness that one tries to fill with 'things'.
It is only when that emptiness, that nothingness is realized (known and felt) it is found to be the ground of all that is. It is seen that the void is the reality of all things that there will be peace and wonder.

The space of awareness that all existence appears on is totally overlooked but the realization of it will remove all doubt.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Because it matters. Things are matter, I need them to survive, I can't live on nothing. Well at least as long as I still matter...

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: Itisnowagain

Okay, so I am now. My now, contains me and I have memories and goals, every now, reaches into before and after, there is no such thing as a definite now, just an approach.

You state 'MY now'. You say your now reaches into the past and future - yes 'your individual now' but there is no individual now. Your now is a delusion. There is no you and now!! There is now and it is arising as what is happening.

What I fear is not a seperate me, but a me going no where, I fear nothing.

Oh yes.............. of course you fear the end of you!!! The individual cannot know God. Just as the raindrop cannot know the ocean!!!
The separate me pretends it is by reaching into the past and future - Satan was cast out of presence. All the time you forget that the dreaming of the past scenes and future scenes happen presently. God casts his light as a scene (imagination playing imaginary past and future) the person who is the main character does not exist.

How can one rest with God if one is frightened of not going anywhere?
God is the stable one out of which motion arises.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: Itisnowagain

Because it matters. Things are matter, I need them to survive, I can't live on nothing. Well at least as long as I still matter...

'Things' only seem to materialize because of the idea that 'things' are real.
Check out what is really real.
Could life appear to be, if there was no experience?
Life is made out of hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting........and words make things.

Experience is real.

originally posted by: Expat888
Religion is primitive superstition used to oppress.. control .. justify theft and mass murder ..

Bingo. In fact to control us away from our true selves to some ordained collective. 'Ordained' by the control freaks.

Having said that OP, There is a likeness of thought that stems from and leads back to the soul that we all possess (the real us) and all the language, writings, and symbolgy stem from that sameness in every one of us.

When we find that similarity, we can pleasantly agree without organizing into something less holy and more sinister.

We don't have to go anywhere to get it, we already have it. We don't have to organize some religion outside our beings, we all carry it already.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Yeah, sorry no. Your approach denies the fact that with or without god, life is. Your a bit too stuck in something that sounds like your god makes you deny reality and the wealth that comes with awareness. If everything is just an illusion without future and past you left what matters. Will say, reality is a fact and I was trying to point out: we need a religion that is a companion and not one that asks me to deny the material world, but something that helps me cope with all the questions I currently can't answer. Like, what happened to me, why I was able to do what I did, what is left if it was just my personal spirituel experience and had no connections to reality... It's impossible, even if I try, my actions root in the past and make way for my future, there is no now and there is no god in my past. I root in matter, in reality, I am a product of actions and ideas from others reaching into my past and creating my future. The question is: what is this illusive web that cradles all life and not what name do you give it.
We already had this now discussion and I can't agree with you.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: Itisnowagain

Your approach denies the fact that with or without god, life is.

God is life!! When this is realized there will be no 'who' - there will just be life - the kingdom shall be revealed.

There is just life, just aliveness but there 'seams' to be a 'who' it is happening to - there isn't - when this is recognized it will be seen that there was only ever God - this is God realization.

The 'who' is lifted away - rapture comes to mind - all that is left is life.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

See we can argue all day what god is or not, the fact remains religions have failed us. Instaed of providing a school that helps us determine what we go through when we embark on a spiritual endavour, it just invented more symbols making it impossible to take anything out of it.
What I want is a place where I can discuss my personal revelations, without being forced to accept the same reality as yours. It will never be the same, the one will always be just as illusive as the now, because we have different pictures in our heads while using the same symbols to describe what we mean.
I just see huge problems for my ego, if I try to follow your path. to say God is life, is like saying biology is math, to me. I don't feel the urge the press all into one. I am looking for shared truth while appreciating the individuality of every grain of sand. Besides, what is life? At what point is something alive? Is there a life without matter? How can god be alive, when nothing lives? Or do I have to bend my mind he is nothing and all in one, which is not even in theory possible? I guess I see where you're coming from, because someone said the big bang happened when nothing was there, but come on, how likely is that? Nothing is an illusion, there is always something and if it is just gas. But space with it's huge emptiness between the planets, still consists of tiny atoms.

a reply to: Peeple
Is there a path to what there is already?

How can god be alive, when nothing lives?

I did not say that 'God is alive' - God is life - life is God - what else is there?

There is an assumption that there is a you that will one day not have life.
The present is arising as one. There are not two - it just seems as if there are but when the two become one the kingdom is revealed.
The knower and the known are one eternally.