By now you have heard that a judge in California has ruled that saying the Pledge of Allegiance in Government Schools is Unconstitutional.
If you haven’t, well, welcome back to civilization.
What, exactly, constitutes “religion”?
Is it going to church?
Well, my grandpa has always said that going to church no more makes you religious than going into the garage makes you a car.
Is it believing in what is in some book?
I don’t think so, because I know people that believe in those UFO books and nobody is claiming they worship aliens.
No, religion is the WAY one lives their life and the creed to which one stridently adheres. The most rabid people I know are religious extremists and atheists, but, as Mark Twain once said, I repeat myself.
You see, atheism, not to mention secular humanism, is a religion. People that adhere to the belief that there is no creator are, in effect, adhering to a religious code.
Religion doesn’t mean that one fervently believes there is a creator, religion IS the belief system through which one lives their life. It affects the decisions they make day to day and moment to moment.
Recently another judge ruled with this very argument.
“Atheism is [the inmate's] religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being,” the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said.
Even the Supreme Court of The United States of America has said the same thing:
The Supreme Court has said a religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being. In the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, the court described “secular humanism” as a religion.
So, with that little tidbit out of the way I ask you this;
Is this not proof that the ACLU is promoting one religion over another?
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Thank you for pointing out that atheism and humanism are religions. Few seem to be aware. In both cases, there is no evidence – people are merely execising their faith in the unseen.
I think it takes a greater leap of faith to assume there IS no God. Who can take a walk through a forest or look at something under a microscope and reasonably consider that it all happened by accident when everything is interdependent?
You asked a good question, “What is religion?”
Let me throw out a possible answer, “Religion is the awareness of an unresolved question in regards to one’s existance.”
For your toughts and comments.
Nice point Paul, but in the heads of Christians, Muslims, indeed, any religion the question IS resolved by the BELIEF that there is a creator.
Just as the question IS resolved in the minds of Atheists and Humanists, who have chosen to believe there is no creator, therefore we are all here due to nature taking its’ course.
Unresolved question arise, I believe, for those that have no faith and no opinion as to how we came to be or why we are here.
Thank you for your comment.
Once we establish a belief system, that resolves somethings but never the basis for the belief (faith). Faith is an ongoing choice.
And, at least in the Judeo-Christian faith, there is that passage that goes something like ” … cannot know ways of God”–sorry, the exact phrase escapes me).
So I am taking a broad view of this question.
Actually I think you’re trying to intellectualize something that’s written in the hearts of man.
Religion
n 1: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; “he lost his faith but not his morality” [syn: faith, religious belief] 2: institution to express belief in a divine power; “he was raised in the Baptist religion”; “a member of his own faith contradicted him” [syn: faith]
Faith is believing in something you can’t see. That’s not really a matter of an awareness of an unresolved question, because if you have faith, there is no question. You believe because you have faith. You have faith because you believe. I don’t know which came first, I just know I’ve had faith in God–a higher power–the omnipotent, the powerful, the creator of all things, since I was a child.
It is the faithless who have unending questions; these are the people who live in a two-dimensional world and have no vision; believe only what they see, or can touch.
I had a friend who worked as a nanny for two lawyers. They were gone all day, leaving early in the morning, getting home late at night. She began to play with them–imaginative games–like “let’s fly around the room because we’re butterflies”. The kids were elated, and they followed her in wonder and excitement. Only, the next day, her employers gave her a stern talking to. Games like that were not allowed.
I can’t imagine living a childhood where I couldn’t let my imagination run free–where I couldn’t dream, where the only things I was allowed to think about were what was concrete and never the abstract.
There is a whole spiritual world out there that sadly, people like that will never ever have an inkling as to what it’s all about. And it’s difficult to convey what it’s about to someone who is relatively myopic.
Cao,
Say that I am 2-d. The 3-d world that I cannot see, I do however see a projection. What moves in 3-d traces out a path in 2-d. That path must be consistent with the 3-d happenings, yet it does not fully describe the truth of the entire path.
Following the projection we come to intersections that do not occur in 3-d–proverbial forks in the road. One fork is faithful, the other consistent yet backwards. We approach those forks with a question and continue on our path from thereon with the same question in mind–did we take the true path?
Eventually, as we go on we may find that we must have been correct or perhaps we were not as we see further projections that may or may not be consistent with the path chosen.
P.S. I am looking for Beta testers at my site for a blog analysis project that I am just starting. It looks like your site has the variety and volume to be a good candidate.