Question to people who follow a religion from the past.

[Spirit of Light]

I have a question I want to ask you.

If you are a believer of religions/spiritual teaching or philosophy from the past and I mean a thousand years and older.

Question: do you believe that you should live your life exactly the same way, think exactly the same and abandon a life of today because the teaching you follow was first taught 1000-5000 years ago?

Or do you believe it is right to follow and believing in that teaching but use it to live a righteous life today with it's challenges?

 

[crossfire]

Live in the present. Remember the past. Hope for the future.

 

[JustGeorge]

No, I don't believe its necessary to copy life as it was thousands of years ago to follow an older religious practice. Time moves on.

Its interesting to look at why a practice may be done, though. Did adherents of this religion do a specific thing in the past for health/safety? If so, is it applicable today? If not, what's the religious significance of the practice in question? If it can't/shouldn't be practiced now, can we amend our practice to encompass the meaning of the lesson it was originally trying to teach?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Stagnation while useful, isn't really practical in a religion.

Everything changes in due course.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I have a question I want to ask you.

If you are a believer of religions/spiritual teaching or philosophy from the past and I mean a thousand years and older.

Question: do you believe that you should live your life exactly the same way, think exactly the same and abandon a life of today because the teaching you follow was first taught 1000-5000 years ago?

Or do you believe it is right to follow and believing in that teaching but use it to live a righteous life today with it's challenges?

I guess that would depend on whether the believer thinks that the source of their religion had the foresight to anticipate what things would be like today.

 

[Vinayaka]

Then was then. Now is now. Although there is some wisdom from long ago, today is what's relevant. If it's somehow useful now, sure. An example is the ethical scripture, the Tirukkural, written 2200 years ago. There is some great stuff in there like the value of honesty, but also a lot of stuff not applicable to today. So use wisdom to choose what's useful.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I guess that would depend on whether the believer thinks that the source of their religion had the foresight to anticipate what things would be like today.

Well, this one still stands as philosophy: "Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not." Protagoras.
Notice measure is subjective preference, not objective evidence. In other words it is a description of cultural and moral relativism.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

What about those of us who follow a religion from the future? Just asking, you know... for a friend.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What about those of us who follow a religion from the future? Just asking, you know... for a friend.

Star Wars or Asimov's Foundation might work.

 

[JustGeorge]

Then was then. Now is now. Although there is some wisdom from long ago, today is what's relevant. Itf it's somehow useful now, sure. An example is the ethical scripture, the Tirukkural, written 2200 years ago. There is some great stud din there like the value of honesty, but also a lot of stuff not applicable to today. So use wisdom to choose what's useful.

In an article called 'Honoring the Art of Homemaking' in the book 'What is Hinduism?', the traditional chores of a woman are presented from an artist's point of view. However, the beginning article states that while some of these actions are irrelevant today, we can adapt their meanings into everyday life(some suggestions given were imbuing family meals with love while cooking, or printing fresh kolams to hang on fridge doors). I really liked this interpretation of taking the old and adjusting it to fit the now.

 

[Spirit of Light]

What about those of us who follow a religion from the future? Just asking, you know... for a friend.

Ohh that will be a new OP....in the future

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Sorry, I only practice future religions. I'm time traveling.

 

[Trailblazer]

What about those of us who follow a religion from the future? Just asking, you know... for a friend.

What religion is that?

 

[mangalavara]

Its interesting to look at why a practice may be done, though. Did adherents of this religion do a specific thing in the past for health/safety? If so, is it applicable today? If not, what's the religious significance of the practice in question? If it can't/shouldn't be practiced now, can we amend our practice to encompass the meaning of the lesson it was originally trying to teach?

In the Markandeya Purana, there are one or two chapters on pious customs, and one of the pious customs is to never be naked while bathing. My initial reaction to reading that was, ‘What am I supposed to wear in the shower??’ Then, I thought, ‘Wait a minute, people back then did not have private showers! The purpose of the custom was obviously to conceal their privates from people in public.’ With private showers or bathtubs in today’s residences, the practice is already amended. The whole West is practically Hindu.

 

[Vinayaka]

In an article called 'Honoring the Art of Homemaking' in the book 'What is Hinduism?', the traditional chores of a woman are presented from an artist's point of view. However, the beginning article states that while some of these actions are irrelevant today, we can adapt their meanings into everyday life(some suggestions given were imbuing family meals with love while cooking, or printing fresh kolams to hang on fridge doors). I really liked this interpretation of taking the old and adjusting it to fit the now.

Yeah, I like that book, but I'm biased.

 

[pearl]

Or do you believe it is right to follow and believing in that teaching but use it to live a righteous life today with it's challenges?

Any such teaching must be interpreted to apply to your life today.

 

[JustGeorge]

Yeah, I like that book, but I'm biased.

I like that book, too, and I'm not biased.

 

[Lain]

I have a question I want to ask you.

If you are a believer of religions/spiritual teaching or philosophy from the past and I mean a thousand years and older.

Question: do you believe that you should live your life exactly the same way, think exactly the same and abandon a life of today because the teaching you follow was first taught 1000-5000 years ago?

Or do you believe it is right to follow and believing in that teaching but use it to live a righteous life today with it's challenges?

It depends on the thing being discussed. We do not have to dress the same way, use the same language, etc. But the moral commands are fundamentally the same, the contents of the Faith are the same, and so on. They can not be changed and shouldn't be. A "righteous life" is going to be the same in essence in all times and places, for human nature is the same to me.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Sorry, I only practice future religions. I'm time traveling.

BillandTedism.

 

[Sundance]

I have a question I want to ask you.

If you are a believer of religions/spiritual teaching or philosophy from the past and I mean a thousand years and older.

Question: do you believe that you should live your life exactly the same way, think exactly the same and abandon a life of today because the teaching you follow was first taught 1000-5000 years ago?

Or do you believe it is right to follow and believing in that teaching but use it to live a righteous life today with it's challenges?

On the one hand, I think it is absolutely not necessary to live exactly how people did in classical antiquity in order to practice Stoicism. The whole world has changed so much in the 2,000+ years since the days of Zeno, Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. For example, the popular religious dispositions in their times were comprised of traditional Pagan religions. Fast forward 2,000 years, past the rise and fall of Christianity, modern Western society is, sadly, all but averse to traditional religion of any sort.



On the other hand, as to the general religious nature of the ancient Stoics, beginning with our conviction that the whole Universe constitutes a single, Divine Power which providentially orders all things, I don’t see why this conception couldn’t (and shouldn’t) be sincere adhered to today. Indeed, I myself question two other things in connection:

#1, Why shouldn’t some of the traditional religious conceptions and practices of classical antiquity be revived in the modern West? Like the Oracle at Delphi, or temples to Zeus and Athena and to Apollo and to Minerva, or the Mysteries of Isis and Mithras?

#2, Why has modern academic philosophy become so “sanitized” (i.e. secularized)? Why couldn’t room be made in our times for Socrates as he was, or a Pythagoras, or a Plato, or an Epictetus?