Could It Be

[liquidharmony]

I've been thinking a lot lately about the connections between different religions. In the end they all seem to have very similar outcomes if followed as taught. In the pursuit of a glorious afterlife, people in turn live a rather peaceful and happy life. Just like a martial artist is taught that in order to break a board, he must focus past the board.
The thought still somewhat boggles my mind so its hard to say it clearly. Could it be that the gods that are worshiped in the many religions around the world simply be putting a face on life. through worshiping these gods, one will be taught to respect, appreciate and essentially worship life. I know that when i live my life in a way that worships all life, I have never been more at peace with myself. Could heaven or any other beneficial afterlife merely be an unattainable goal to keep followers on the right track throughout the coarse of their life.

[CSwriter1]

I am concerned that religions begin with negative ideas of sin, and promises that another life is better than this one. I perfer spirituality.

I just learned something new called spirit championing, or something like that. It means listening, and holding our own tongue. Trusting all we need is within ourselves, and the best thing we can for anyone is help him/her find his/her inner healing powers or inner answers by keep all our comforting words and advise to ourselves, and asking questions like, "what was that like for you" "How do you feel about that".

This is all about we are spiritual beings having a human expereince. Personally, I can't imagine a better experience. I spent an eternity in a personal hell, praying to wake up dead. Trust me I know human suffering. But if life weren't challenging, who would want to play the game?

I think it is just dreadful to teach we are born in sin, and there is a supernatural being of evil and demons, and we are to subdue earth, and over come evil. This isn't exactly enlightening, even if the analogies do speak of truth. People need to be enlightened before religious teaching has a higher meaning.

[liquidharmony]

Doh! I just realized this should have went under religion, sorry everyone. Is it possible to switch it over?
cswriter1, I too have preferred spirituality over religion all my life, but I recently went through a stage where as a result of some major events in my life, I was strongly drawn to study religion ( outcast syndrome.) I than reverted back to spirituality.
I like what you said about spirit championing. It kind of goes with my theory that " everyone will find themselves if you let them."
A lot of times I feel selfish when I think I can find the words to help someone and don't say them. I have the problem of thinking that just because it works for me it could work for everyone. Sometimes my tongue is dangerous to myself and others even with good intentions.

[scameter]

I don't think it's about a seperation of religion and spirituality; to me, religion is entirely underlined with spirituality, as is mythology, and religion is simply spirituality wearing a coat of mythology. The only difference between religion and mythology is that religion is mythology in action; it is practiced, followed and believed in, and taken as a leading part of the lives of many, many people in the world. Mythology, on the other hand, is more of an intellectual, philosophical avenue, and when investigated, it is studied from an objective, almost scientific standpoint of attempting to find literary aspects of the human mind and character within it. Mythology simply takes aspects of being human and puts it into a story, as with all literature. For instance, the story of of Tyr, the most brave of all Norse gods, and his hand getting bitten off by Fenrir. The Norse gods had taken Fenrir, an evil dog-like divine creature, to their lands and had chained him. Fenrir was not aware of why he had been chained, and simply thought it was a game. So, if I am recounting this correctly, Tyr then went up to Fenrir and said that he could put his whole hand into Fenrir's mouth without fear. So, Fenrir opened his large, sharp-toothed mouth and Tyr stuck his hand in entirely without fear, only to have Fenrir bite it off, leaving him always to be known as Tyr the One-Handed. This shows that bravery is not always the most intelligent quality, even though it is so often revered, and possibly correctly so. The moral of the story is not apparent, or even necessarily life-changing, but it is there, because the creators of it were human, and everything we create we put a little of ourselves into; the only difference with literature is that it is specifically designed to have part of us in it.

[liquidharmony]

I don't think it's about a seperation of religion and spirituality; to me, religion is entirely underlined with spirituality, as is mythology, and religion is simply spirituality wearing a coat of mythology.

If I read this right, I think it is what I was trying to say. Thank you for the words i could not find.

[scameter]

:P No problem.