Re: Purpose of Religion
i believe in God, but i dont think i have gained anything valuable from organized religion except confusion and conflicts. how much faith u have is between God and urself. moral guidelines are culturally based.
Re: Purpose of Religion
you have to understand the relevency of certain things, that is if you can understand it.
Re: Purpose of Religion
Serious reply.
I dont know what God is? When I was young I was told of this superbeing called Allah and told to do certain things (praying, reading Quran, etc). Whenever I was in need I asked Allah and he responded, maybe it was the subconscious boost or in reality (I use that word cautiously) but it helped. There were times when I was down and asked Allah and he didnt respond, yet sometimes he did, while this was going on I was growing up in age. I veered away from religion in one part of my life I dont know why. But somehow twist of fate brought me back to praying to Allah after an absense of about 10 years, something was missing though, the power was not there, the candle was out. I veered away for another 3 yrs. Then one day I was out and about and I saw a very ordinary thing (an event) beautiful in nature, made me wonder of the origins of animal kingdom, planets etc. I was bewildered, amazed, excited. I said my prayers the next day and the candle was lit, we were back on line. I told my wife about this event the next day and you are not gonna believe this but it repeated, I was amazed I had seen God/Allah, But I dont know what God is. I have my own concept and that is good enough.
Re: Purpose of Religion
^
there r many ppl who have their own concepts....
but u cant guarantee that its the right one....
Re: Purpose of Religion
If someone believes in God then he/she also have to follow God's commands as well. By not following an organised religion, God's commands can't be fulfilled which really condradicts their claim of believing in God.
Re: Purpose of Religion
^
not if he doesnt believe that God has authority to command his life....
Re: Purpose of Religion
do you really think allah mase a contract with muslims that you should be loyal
to me and you will be rewarded .rest of the humans dont matter to him.
Re: Purpose of Religion
In that case such belief is very weak and almost not existing. Off course it is impossible for me to carry out a fair discussion as a Muslim. Anyone who follows an organised religion is going to have a biased opinion on this topic.
Re: Purpose of Religion
as a matter of fact thats exactly not what i think…
Quran 2:62
*Lo! Those who believe (in that which is revealed unto thee, Muhammad), and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabaeans - whoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right - surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve. *
but the point is to believe in Allah…
and then do the right things…
not to say ok i believe a god called Allah exists, but i’ll decide what to do in my life and not him…
Re: Purpose of Religion
OK can you guarantee that yours is the right one. I am talking guarantee here.
I dont follow organized cults/religion so here are my two unbiased nickels; Religion is basically a boot camp. Once the concepts are clear it is upto the individual to seek higher learning about Superbeing/ God/ Allah etc. To be constantly in a boot camp is basically acknowledging that one is not ready to graduate and seek for himself the answers. God/ Allah etc gave us a brain to reason and question, so why not question and seek answers till one is satisfied, rather than follow blindly.
So religion is bootcamp and God is a state of mind. As long as your mind is at peace you have found god; religion or bootcamp is different, similar but different. Marine Boot camp(Judaism) is different than navy (Xtianity) versus Army (Islam), versus Coast Guard (Hinduism). They all teach you discipline and similar things but in their own contexts. Once you graduate from bootcamp its upto you to stick with the basic discipline while learning/masterng more or just be a regular.
Re: Purpose of Religion
i don't belive in god or spirituality. I was born in muslim family, but stopped believing in God when i was 18-22. It was gradual process (leaving religion). I think it was spurred by looking at ppl having immoral but religous lives. It kind of disappointed me in religion. What good is it anyways, especially, if i can be a good human being without believing in god?
Years after leaving Islam, I dont have any feeling that I missed anything. I went thru trouble time in my personal life ( emotional and economical problems), but I never had the urge to ask for any spiritual help. It never crossed my mind.
On moral values, I feel myself more accountable to the society and my near and dear ones. I dont lie or break promise, because I want ppl to belive in me and trust me. So it is a new paradigm shift.
Negative things that I felt: I always make my parents belive that I am muslim, because otherwise they would be heart broken. If mom asks me to go to mosque for friday prayers, I oblige her.
Re: Purpose of Religion
Can you guarantee that yours is right?
Re: Purpose of Religion
I never said that people who don’t follow organised religion can’t have unbiased opinions.
Your opinion sounded pretty biased to me.
Religion is based on faith, and faith is blind. It’s a fact whether you agree or not. Islam means “submission”
Definition of submission: The act of submitting or surrendering to the power of another.
So when you submit yourself to Allah you don’t ask question and find reasons for everything. If you do then it’s not called faith it’s called reasoning.
No we ask question till we die. How the heck we suppose to ask those question and get answer from GOD? Do you think that God will come to us and talk to us in our dreams? No! That’s why we have books of God to answer those questions and thus organized religion to follow those books.
Re: Purpose of Religion
Good for you. I thought this thread was not about atheism but people who believe in God but don’t follow organized religion.
Re: Purpose of Religion
AS I am not trying to argue with you, I am a firm believer of 109:6. But as they say in Pakistan “Akalmand keh liye Isahara he kafi hota heh” Well I dont consider myself “akalmand” but what I witnessed made sense to me. It was not even witnessing, more like I had awoken from a deep sleep and it just made sense to me. everything fell in place, like a jigsaw puzzle was complete, what freaked me out was the fact that it repeated a day later in a complete different place. But anyway just my personal experience.
Back to God or no god religion or no religion.
Re: Purpose of Religion
lostsoul - just a quick comment. It seems as though the people let you down and not God/Allah or the religion. We are given a guideline to follow with our religion and the option to follow it. We know what the consequences are (hell) and what the reward is (heaven). Then God/Allah in his infinite wisdom allowed us to chose our fate.
People not following the word is not God's fault, but the fault of the people. Why place the blame on the religion or God?
Re: Purpose of Religion
I don’t think it is possible for every spiritual question to be answered in a book that relates to men that lived thousands of years ago. God speaks to us and through us. God is in our hearts and in our souls. If we block all that out and concentrate our spirituality instead on such things like how to bathe, eat, travel, direction we pray, relieve ourselves, fight, have sex, etc we are focusing on physical activites, not spiritual. Spirituality is not an academic course that requires a textbook. Humans, souls and God are more complex than a science lesson. IMO if there ever is an organized religion or scripture that is the end-all, complete truth - it will not have references to fighting, wars, killing, slavery and the history of one specific (and comparatively insignificant) corner of the world as is the case with the abrahamic religions.
Re: Purpose of Religion
^ well again it depends what religion one follows. Buddhist might agree with you more on this because they tend to focus more on spirituality than other religions. I agree that you can't get all answer of all spiritual questions from Bible or Quran because these religions especially Islam is a complete way of life and pragmatic. One doesn't have to leave an organised religion to ask spiritual questions. One can still follow organised religion and be spiritual at the same time.
Re: Purpose of Religion
^ I don;t understand this concept of parroting "complete way of life and pragmatic"..if anything this belief makes it actually highly unpragmatic. If i go down the path of asking about economic and financial postulates under this "way of life" theory..many holes are there in Islam, thus making it a failure in that respect. There are some beautiful messages in Islam...but like all other religions, the failings are there too. Doesn't mean the path is not valid for some..but it is not as universal as most keep drilling here.
Re: Purpose of Religion
Nah…ppl didnt let me down. Nor did God (because he is not there).
It is just that religion or no religion, ppl remain the same. If they r corrupt, they find excuse one way or the other. Religion doesn’t teach anything. It tries to reinforce some basic moral rules, but even it fails in its effectiveness.