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REALITY Impossible to quantify, but interesting to contemplate. ______________________________________
Religion
For most, religion is a very personal and touchy subject. We'd like to believe we are choosing the definitive path to salvation. We need to convince ourselves that our view of the world and after life is correct.
The only problem is which flavor of religion do we choose?
In our neck of the woods, Christianity is the preferred choice. If we move a few thousand miles east, Islam is preferred. Surprisingly, neither has a majority following with Christians receiving about 31% of the world and Muslims about 23%.
Even if we are totally convinced Christianity is the way to go, what flavor of this do we choose? Catholic, Lutheran, Christian Science, Mormon or something else?
If we believe it really doesn't matter which brand of Christianity we follow, then why do we have so many? It's doubtful that many Catholics would believe that the Pope is not on a higher plane than the rest of us, but many other Christian groups would not subscribe to this thinking. There are probably Christians who don't believe communion or baptism is important. There are Christians on both sides of abortion, war and capital punishment.
The truth is when it comes to religion there is essentially one for each person because no two people hold the exact same beliefs. Everything is nuanced.
The question becomes "what does God want?"
Probably the best place to start is where there is almost unanimous consensus.
Most people believe we are made in the image of God. What this essentially means is that our innate instincts have meaning. In other words, without the belief that we are made in the image of God, we would have no jumping off point on how to behave. There would be nothing telling us we should be loving, caring and kind instead of hateful, murderous and deceitful. So, the vast majority, almost everyone, in one way or another believes we are made in the image of God because this is where we get the rule book for our behavior.
Our instincts tell us that we should be unifying not dividing. This, in of itself, completely flies in the face of religion because, if there is more than one, it becomes exclusionary. Religion leads to division.
It also leads to paranoia and uncertainty because it's such a huge decision and there are so many options.
Our innate instincts are at odds with the ritual and divisiveness of religion because religious rituals to an outsider don't look inviting. They look like a way to distinguish one group of people from another and not in a positive way. There is nothing unifying about many religions having many different beliefs.
It's hard to have complete conviction in a practice that a very small percentage of the people on earth have in common with you especially when it is of grave importance to be right.
We should focus on the beliefs we feel everyone holds true.
God would want us to constantly be working on ways to get along and make the world a better place. Our instincts tell us this. Because we are made in the image of God, we know certain things are true. Love, kindness, humility, compassion, gratitude are all things our inner soul tell us to be true in the most pure, untainted way.
These are some of the topics:
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