posted on Jan, 10 2011 @ 02:05 PM
Hi everyone. This is a thread topic I've been meaning to start for a while. Ever since my earliest memories I have always been fascinated by (or to
be closer to the truth: obsessed with) the topic of religion and God, and how everything fits together. Whew... I know that's a big one. The reason
I am posting this, is that the last few years my worldview has gone through a lot of major changes. I'm sure most people have been through a lot of
this process, so with that in mind, I'd like to ask the question:
If you could invent a religion, what would it be?
Most of us are familiar with the basic big guns of dogma running out there, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam. This isn't meant to be a war of
whose religion is best, or whose holy book trumps the next guys. It's just asking very simply, and honestly: from where you stand now if you could
start from scratch and create a religion, what would it be like?
I'll go first. I'll warn you guys - this whole topic has been a long time coming for me. So, in order to give you an understanding of my own
version of religion, I thought I would create a brief preface explaining how I got here. Okay, it's long and it's very dry. If you'd rather not
slog through it, I'll understand. To make it easier to just cut to the chase, I'll put my preface in this post, so if you want to just skip to my
list of ideas, simply go to the post I'll be making right after this.
Again, this isn't meant to create an argument about whose religion is right or wrong. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there more
intellectual than I am that could tear my current belief system to shreds. Instead, please look at this as a clean white space for everyone to freely
share a list of their views of what would be their own religion, if given the opportunity to create one.
Thanks! So, here I go:
Pre-face:
After studying the body of the world's religious beliefs through the history of man, I have come to conclude that each one has arrived as a
consequence of attempting to make sense of the human animal becoming aware of itself in the material world. The dichotomy of stress resulting from
survival instincts versus the harsh facts of life, have naturally caused disharmony in the awaking higher awareness of man. The evolution of the
higher self, and higher brain functions have produced a mindset that cannot settle on disharmony. All things must be resolved, in order to become
removed from nagging uncomfortable thoughts. We are a thinking animal. However, our brain does not filter its calculations based on logic alone.
Whether right or wrong, our current condition is that when cognitive evidence is not available, our brain in an effort to rid itself of the feeling of
"dissonance", will create new facts based on predetermination, add them to the evidence at hand and attempt to create a sphere of "belief" in
which it can safely inhabit.
All things being equal, most of the world's religions come out as being more similar than dissimilar. The two which differ the most from the rest
being Christianity and Satanism/Atheism. Christianity, which requires belief in Jesus alone, as a sacrifice from God to atone for his creations
fallen nature to attain salvation and freedom from this material world into the next life. Satanism/Atheism, which dispenses in an external God, and
replaces it with worship of the self, to attain the fullest amount of pleasure and personal power in this life, as there is no afterlife, reward or
punishment for deeds done.
To return to my original point: all religions have come about as an attempt to create a belief system of "Harmony", in an effort to resolve the
dualistic state mankind has awakened to in the stressful material world.
Main issues being: death of consciousness, loss of loved ones, sense of overall purpose in a randomly changing landscape, knowledge of origin,
connection with a higher source, and supernatural rescue from threatening situations when no other resource is available.
It is evident at this point that each of the world's religious books was written by man, possibly inspired by the will of God. Every leader of every
religion claims to have the authority that their dogma is the final truth - the only one revealed by God. But, because of the failure of each of
these religious books to become the final outline - self evident and convincing to all of humanity - they reveal their own origin. Because of their
incompleteness, it is evident that no such books were ever written by Gods own hand. Each writing at best contains kernels of truth in its attempt to
create a sensible worldview, but there is simply NO EVIDENCE that any said writings are the absolute spoken will of any possible higher entity. Such
supposed evidence was created by the authors in an effort to substantiate their views upon others.
Organized religion is a result of man's social nature: the need to belong to a larger group in order to find security, and the need to control larger
groups from a leader. All religions are headed by men, not a supernatural deity. To believe so would be to reduce such a deity to the framework of
man, and subject him to being fraudulent and prone to error.
Efforts to postulate any one religious book over another by claims of prophecy have been revealed through the collective light of evidential study to
prove false. Miracles in support of such documents, are only supported themselves by hearsay within the group of believers. Again, there IS NO
EVIDENCE whatsoever of the appearance of supernatural occurrences affecting the natural world, outside of the claims of myths and stories.
Recently, in the 21st century, an opportunity has taken place that was never before available to the individual religious seeker. Free knowledge.
Knowledge gained from evidence of the entire summation of mankind's recorded history. This knowledge is commonly available now to all through the
invention of computers and the Internet. Never before has this opportunity to gain personal insight been available to each and every individual.
Religious texts that were held in secret for only the highest priests to delve out bits of "insight" to their followers, are now splayed out, fully
revealed with each detail cross-referenced to the whole. Each religious texts statements of belief can be viewed as a chart compared and measured
with all others. For the first time in history the light is shining on all of our acquired insights into what the "Truth" may possibly be.
Disclaimers that the claims of any specific religion cannot be deduced by reading the words of their books alone, because their contained truth is
hidden and can only be revealed by supernatural revelation, can be refuted by simply looking at those claims in the light of reason and natural
evidence. Any truth will only stand when its foundations are not torn down by internal conflict, contradiction and proven factual errors. Conjecture
and apologies to twist such contradictions into resolution should be discarded.
The honest searcher who attempts to step into this deep ocean of acquired writings, has the burden of seeing through all the murkiness, by
conscientiously purging the huge weight of predetermination that each of us is steeped in depending on our demographic cultural origin of birth. It
is no small task indeed to remove the self from these imposed filters, in order to gain a clearer view of any insights that may be available from the
history of man's religious writings.
Disclaimer:
The following thoughts are mine and mine alone, based on my current intellectual experiences, and like all belief systems, are subject to change
depending on future evidence and events. It is each person's natural right to decide whether there is or is not a supernatural deity overlooking us
all. At this point in time the evidence comes out to be pretty much equal either way as the observer chooses to view it, as God is not directly
detectable by any of the senses connected to our brain. It is only by deduction of the overall panorama of reality that the individual either falls
one way or the other in a personal belief of a supernatural higher realm. Possibly, in the future, revelations of knowledge may come that will
undeniably change the nature of these ancient questions.
Personally, I myself (admittedly including my own personal frailties and weaknesses in deducing the truth out of background noise) have weighed the
balance, and deduced that there IS, a higher order behind things, and that we have been placed here by the initiation of a higher deity that is
outside of natural forces. That statement out of the way, returning to the purpose of this document, I will attempt here to list what my current
beliefs of overall supernatural purpose are, although I am aware that just by the act of stating such a list, I thereby become responsible to either
acting or not acting on such beliefs, and the restraints that result from the act of believing such.
This list was created after many years of reading, studying, and self reflection. As such, the act of creating such a list reveals the possibility of
error, or that Truth itself may not be apparent or attainable to either this individual or to the collective human mind at all. It is an attempt to
resolve the current condition one finds himself in, balanced against the historical writings of others who have attempted the same journey.
I fully acknowledge that because of my own susceptibility to error, that any of the below statements of belief may be wrong. The bottom line is that
none of us at this point can ever be fully sure that we know what the final truth is. We simply don't have enough information. Unlike others who
have claimed that their revelations are the direct result from God, and demand that they MUST be followed, under threat of falling into error, or
divine punishment (as in the Apostle Paul), I have created this list of beliefs simply because they have thus proved to be self evident to my own
experience, and internal moral resonance, and that they give my own life purpose and comfort of meaning....