Please either use the standard meanings of words, or provide your definitions.
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What does your Abrahamic religion give you?
- Thread starter icehorse
- Start date
Please either use the standard meanings of words, or provide your definitions.
I used my scriptures as a guidance. Not everything in the Bible is a law or a teaching: A lot of them are stories about the men and women who followed God. I also use prayer as a guidance, and I've observed the power of prayer: It's happened too often, in my view, to just be a coincidence.
What I truly believe in is God.
Sorry you think that. I'm genuinely curious, hence the OP.
From where I sit, the most cogent answers so far could be far better answered with philosophy and some basic human rights. I've heard nothing that leads me to believe that adding some middlemen clergy or some unprovable supernatural components would improve on universal morality. And in fact there is some evidence in this very thread that adding those religious components takes people further from morality, not closer.
I agree that spirituality is necessary and positive. I agree that morals and ethics are necessary and positive. I'm just genuinely puzzled as to why those things need to be wrapped up with religion and all of its typical baggage.
I'm not ridiculing anything, I'm simply not understanding the answers. There are some thoughtful, lucid posters on this thread and still, I'm not getting it...
As I just mentioned, I'm truly curious. There are many definitions of "god", can you give me a sense of what you mean when you think of god? Did you come to this idea of god through scripture? If not, how did you come to it?
ether-ore
Active Member
My faith provides me with an understanding of where I came from, why I am here, and what I can expect after this life is over. It provides me with a moral compass and a fellowship with an ethical and like minded culture and community. I do indeed derive comfort from the understanding that as long as I do all that I can do to abide by God's precepts for my own happiness, that through the atonement of Jesus Christ, I will have joy and eternal life. My faith gives me to know that the only things of value here in mortality, are love, the knowledge and experience gained and family relationships (which because of the sealing power that God has restored to the earth) will last forever. Except for these things... we come into this world with nothing, and it is certain that we will take nothing out of it.
Levite
Higher and Higher
1. My religion provides a framework within which to construct a coherent moral, ethical, and spiritual praxis. It provides me with community, culture, comfort, as well as challenge and provocation to both education (self and others) and social action. And probably other things I can't think of at the moment.
2. You say that you are "primarily interested in hearing from folks who mostly believe in their scripture and their clergy," but in following posts, you seem to be equating that defition with what basically amounts to fundamentalism. I am not ultra-Orthodox (our version of fundamentalism), but I would absolutely say that I believe in Torah and in the Rabbis. And I would suspect that many other liberal/progressive religious people would say the same, or the equivalent in their religious tradition.
3. Both here and, if I recall correctly, elsewhere as well, you seem to intimate that to not be a fundamentalist or absolutist or literalist or whatnot is to "water down" one's religion, or to merely indulge in "cherry picking." Yet Judaism certainly, and some other religions (or at least sects thereof) do not involve paradigms of such rigid theological duality. Aside from the fact that I cannot quite understand why you seem to insist on this duality of authentic=fundamentalist/liberal=watered down when some of the very religions you apparently critique do not insist on it, or even reject it. And I cannot understand why you would insist on this duality when liberal/progressive religions-- which are often quite philosophically rich and theologically nuanced-- tend to address the very points that seem to bother you about religion. It kind of comes off like you are dismissive of liberal religion because it deprives you of the opportunity to hate it properly.
Levite
Higher and Higher
FWIW, me too.
Levite and ether-ore,
Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Levite, I can understand how you'd come to that conclusion, but it doesn't capture where I'm coming from...
You both mention morals, so I'd like to know, if not from your scripture, how does your religion convey morals to you? For example, I can completely understand being brought up in a community that has a strong moral sense, and having that sensibility pass along to new generations. But I wouldn't attribute that to religion, I'd attribute it to community. So perhaps what's confusing to me is when folks give religion credit when the credit is due to community?
Levite
Higher and Higher
First of all, remember, Jewish scripture is active, interactive, and both evolving and growing. I think a lot of folks read "the Old Testament" and, because they are reading it decoupled from its complete Jewish context, they believe it to be static, and thus cannot understand how anyone can consistently take moral guidance from 3000 year old text. But Written Torah is designed to be read through the lens of Oral Torah, which constantly evolves and expands as we add to it-- which we believe is what God intended. So there are centuries upon centuries of legal, meta-legal, sociocultural, philosophical, theological, liturgical, and mystical sacred texts and scholarship that offer us a rich pool of different theological, ethical, and spiritual concepts upon which we can refine our understandings of how best to observe the commandments and to embody what we believe God wishes us to be. And Jewish thought absolutely does evolve with the ages, and does (carefully and cautiously) take in ideas from outside Jewish culture to aid us in thinking about Torah and how to interpret it.
Second of all, I believe you are creating a false duality between religion and community. For Jews, at least, those two are one. Judaism is a socioreligious ethnicity: not only a religion, not only an ethnic culture, not only a nationality, but something that inextricably intertwines all three kinds of identity. There is no Judaism, no Jewish identity without religion: even our greatest Jewish secularists were educated in religious text and tradition, and were extremely facile in understanding their secularism as existentially being generated in response to Jewish religion, in understanding Jewish religion as being the historical and traditional wellspring of Jewish culture. Those Jewish secularists who have attempted to truly excise Jewish religion and all that comes with it from their lives have generally failed to retain anything that might meaningfully be called Jewish in their identity-- usually they are left with just half-understood jokes and a lot of Jewish kitsch.
I'm sure it gives you something that is accurate and/or worthwhile as well. Don't give up.
This would be an interesting thread if the people who understand religion by the parameters implied by the OP participated in it.
But for the most part, they participated little or not at all.
Abrahamic religions are so eccentric that I have been asked in the past not to call Judaism by that name, which I am inclined to agree with.
The core oddity as I see it is that while even Judaism, and to an even greater measure Christianity and Islam often make a point of claiming that they need their scriptures and often also their dogmas to even exist, let alone to have their worth, I have concluded that this is not even remotely true.
Instead, Judaism seems to me to be much like Shinto in its true worth and strength. It is both cause and consequence of a mighty, fertile sense of community and commitment that is as close to a precious gift and a source of miracles as I expect to ever find.
Christianity and Islam have a much harder time of it, because both religions spend an impressive amount of their energies attempting not to be valid religions but instead centers of diffusion of hollow beliefs, fears and superstitions. To a truly embarrassing extent they are indeed their own worst enemies, which often shapes their adherents into anxious seekers of external foes.
While there are many very worthy adherents in all three faiths, and many of those seem to sincerely believe that their scriptures and traditions are their strength, I very much disagree with that belief.
But for the most part, they participated little or not at all.
Abrahamic religions are so eccentric that I have been asked in the past not to call Judaism by that name, which I am inclined to agree with.
The core oddity as I see it is that while even Judaism, and to an even greater measure Christianity and Islam often make a point of claiming that they need their scriptures and often also their dogmas to even exist, let alone to have their worth, I have concluded that this is not even remotely true.
Instead, Judaism seems to me to be much like Shinto in its true worth and strength. It is both cause and consequence of a mighty, fertile sense of community and commitment that is as close to a precious gift and a source of miracles as I expect to ever find.
Christianity and Islam have a much harder time of it, because both religions spend an impressive amount of their energies attempting not to be valid religions but instead centers of diffusion of hollow beliefs, fears and superstitions. To a truly embarrassing extent they are indeed their own worst enemies, which often shapes their adherents into anxious seekers of external foes.
While there are many very worthy adherents in all three faiths, and many of those seem to sincerely believe that their scriptures and traditions are their strength, I very much disagree with that belief.
masterp48hd
New Member
I'm an atheist, but i can see that most of the believers around me believe because they were indoctrinated that way and they never really thought about their beliefs, or because it gives them confort and some kind of purpose in the sense that we aren't just here to reproduce and die, so basically comfort
Hello again, Icehorce (here comes Smart Guy 
)
To me, religion provides discipline and hope. Emphasizing the need to perform some practices like prayers, pilgrimage, fasting and charity at specific times gives me a strong sense of discipline and responsibility, and having an after life gives me hope that death is not the end of everything but a step which is this life, to live my life right to earn the good ending in the after life.
The above are there in this life without religion, no doubt, but without having them taught to us with emphases in their importance, without encouragement and incentive by a strong law like a religion, a law that comes from believing and wanting to follow, what are the chances to keep those teachings and take them seriously in comparison?
I'm not saying the above is reality or truth, I'm only taking it as my reality and my truth. No pressure or disrespect to non Abrahamics. I love you all
)To me, religion provides discipline and hope. Emphasizing the need to perform some practices like prayers, pilgrimage, fasting and charity at specific times gives me a strong sense of discipline and responsibility, and having an after life gives me hope that death is not the end of everything but a step which is this life, to live my life right to earn the good ending in the after life.
The above are there in this life without religion, no doubt, but without having them taught to us with emphases in their importance, without encouragement and incentive by a strong law like a religion, a law that comes from believing and wanting to follow, what are the chances to keep those teachings and take them seriously in comparison?
I'm not saying the above is reality or truth, I'm only taking it as my reality and my truth. No pressure or disrespect to non Abrahamics. I love you all
Hello again, Icehorce (here comes Smart Guy
To me, religion provides discipline and hope. Emphasizing the need to perform some practices like prayers, pilgrimage, fasting and charity at specific times gives me a strong sense of discipline and responsibility, and having an after life gives me hope that death is not the end of everything but a step which is this life, to live my life right to earn the good ending in the after life.
The above are there in this life without religion, no doubt, but without having them taught to us with emphases in their importance, without encouragement and incentive by a strong law like a religion, a law that comes from believing and wanting to follow, what are the chances to keep those teachings and take them seriously in comparison?
I'm not saying the above is reality or truth, I'm only taking it as my reality and my truth. No pressure or disrespect to non Abrahamics. I love you all
Howdy Smart_Guy!
I would summarize what you're saying like this:
"I use religion to reinforce my good behaviors and to remind me to stay disciplined." Does that sound about right? Kind of like your religion is your mentor or your coach? If so, that's kind of interesting.
But wouldn't you agree that ultimately your sense of knowing what's right and what's wrong came more from your community?
^ This.
Yes, that kinda explains it. I do see religion as some kinda mentor.
I don't disagree that my community (that happens to be a religion influenced community, by the way) gave me a sense of knowing what's right and wrong. But simply knowing what's right and wrong does not make us do what's right and avoid what's wrong. We are humans with the power of choice, and the weakness of temptation. What ultimately controls us to do or do not do is our resolve. People do wrong things knowing it is wrong and still do it anyways because they wanted it, because they chose to, and because they followed the temptation. Having something strong like religion affect this resolve will only make it even stronger to control in addition to what community teaches.
Non believers noticed how religion makes some believers become radical and insistent for what they, the non believers, criticize believers for, and blame it on religion. The same thing also applies to the good things believers would insist on like never miss giving charity to the poor, choose not to rape defenseless victims or robe unguarded merchandize, which could be a part of the same religion. I believe non believers should start looking at those good things as well instead of just noticing what they don't like believers do. Otherwise it would be a double standard.
I of course do not imply that non believers do not have discipline and/or similar good things just because the don't follow a religion. All I'm saying is that that's the case for me and I see religion as a part that plays a strong roll in it.
Jay,
I think Luis summed things up quite nicely, do you have any responses to Luis's post?
Second, did you read my response to Luis's thread, I think it's really a fine idea to separate Judaism from the other Abrahamic religions. It's almost as if Levite and Luis and I are having an actual conversation!