'Religion' in our lives.- Page 4

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:00pm

"What bigger questions have ever been answered by faith?" -- Sister George.

"ANSWER: Quite a few. Why are we here? Why do we live? What's the point of it?"

Besty, those questions aren't answered by faith to everyone, just to comment.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:03pm

I disagree, Jane. Those questions are the very essence of faith.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:04pm

But faith may answer those questions to the faithful.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:05pm

...and not everyone will have the same answer(s).

I have faith in that.

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:06pm

I know you disagree, Besty. You have faith.

Those questions are not answered for me that way, and I'd say many other people too.

[Sister George]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:07pm

I think you're right and I am struggling to distinguish between the two.

What is your definition of the difference between organised religion and religion?

And how have the questions of Why are we here? Why do we live? What's the point of it? been answered through religion as opposed to been answered through organised religion?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:08pm

ANSWER: Quite a few. Why are we here? Why do we live? What's the point of it?

But those are more questions. Those aren't answers.

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:16pm

then, WHAT ARE THE ANSWERS? lol.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:19pm

Phyllis, the question was ""What bigger questions have ever been answered by faith?"

I gave you the "bigger questions."

I'm not telling you the answers. If I did, I would be saying (in effect) here's what you should believe. These are THE answers to those questions. That's what "organized religion" tries to do.

You need to search for these answers (YOUR answers) yourself. You can do it through art, through science, through love, through friendship, even through organized religion... many ways. But ultimately you're are searching your own soul for the answer.

Not my soul or anyone else's. That would be an "organized" answer to a question of faith. I'm not interested personally in organized religion. (...except for the "show" as my dad calls it. They put on a good show, with the robes and the singing, and the nice flowers and candles. All that incredible artwork and music... It's a good show!)

Sister George, religion can be personal as well as organized. You don't have to join a group of any kind to validate your answers. You just have to have faith in them. That's all.

Updated On: 10/14/08 at 05:19 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:21pm

If you are Christian, the point is to deny yourself to the point of misery so that you may be rewarded in the afterlife.

If you are Jewish, the point is to follow a strict set of rules for the sake of following those rules, as there is no textual certainty of a Jewish afterlife.

If you are Muslim, the point is to REALLY live in misery, take it out on all those around you for a reward of lust and gluttony in the afterlife.

And whichever one you are, the others are wrong.

Updated On: 10/14/08 at 05:21 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:24pm

What if you're best12barsian?

Or Phyllis Rogers Stonian?

All you've done is give me examples of "organized" answers to those bigger questions.

Organized religion creeps me out, in general. Honestly, if they practiced their own fundamental (not literal) beliefs, they'd be okay. It's when they try to impose those beliefs on others... that's when "organized religion" goes to Hell.

Updated On: 10/14/08 at 05:24 PM

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:27pm

Oh, I have those answers. I believe we're here because we evolved to this. We live because we were born and the only alternative is to die. While we're here, I believe the purpose is to try to make your life and those you love as happy as can be.

Simple, but I'm a simple kind of gal.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:32pm

I'm glad you have your own answers to those questions, Jane.

I'm more complex(I guess) and want to take it further than that.

"I believe we're here because we evolved to this."

Why did we evolve to this? What was the point?

"We live because we were born and the only alternative is to die."

But why were we born in the first place (the VERY first place)?

"While we're here, I believe the purpose is to try to make your life and those you love as happy as can be."

Can't argue there, but why do we have the desire to do good in the world or evil? Why do we need to effect each other?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:35pm

What was the point?

I don't think there has to be a point. Maybe you could invoke Darwin here, but I think the point is there is no point. You're born, you live, you die. As it was in the beginning, as it ever shall be. World without end (until the button is pushed)

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:39pm

But WHY do we live at all, Phyllis?

Dig back deeper into the history of forever.

Where did "life" start? Why is there "life?"

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:40pm

let me try to answer those, Besty.

Why did we evolve to this? Well, because according to which animal we evolved from, that animal (fish, for instance) took to the land. Why? another predator forced him out of the water. So take it from there.

There was no point in evolving. It just happened scientifically. See the above fish leaving the water and so on.

We were born in the first place because we evolved with a sexual desire, and then a baby came out!

Some of us have a desire to do good in this world and some do evil because the brain is a complex organ. We don't understand it, but it makes some people nuts, some evil, and some loving.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:41pm

But WHY do we live at all, Phyllis? But WHY do we live at all, Phyllis?

An accident of chance known as the Big Bang theory. I just don't believe any genie in the sky orchestrated it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:45pm

Dig back deeper before this scientific linear evolution. Even to the amoeba level.

Why did "life" start?

Why are we here??

[Sister George]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:46pm

Thanks for the response best12bars, I think I understand and appreciate your answer.


On a simple matter of semantics is 'religion' the correct term for the 'personal' faiths we live by, whether they be derived from science, experience, art etc. (and I'm presuming by this you mean that personal faith can include an absence of god)?

I looked for the Oxford Dictionary definition; -


• noun 1 the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. 2 a particular system of faith and worship. 3 a pursuit or interest followed with devotion.


And I'm not sure what you described quite fits into any of the three definitions?

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:47pm

"An accident of chance known as the Big Bang theory."

What came before the Big Bang?

...trillions of years before the Big Bang?

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:47pm

Bestly, the amoeba level came after the big bang.

I gave you all the answers in my last post!!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:48pm

Why did "life" start?

Why are we here??

You're pulling out the double question marks, so I really wish I had the answer you want, but I don't think I have it.

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:49pm

..trillions of years before the Big Bang?

this is the question I've always asked. There is no answer. the human brain doesn't have the capacity to imagine trillions of years before that. you can't imagine nothing.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:49pm

"...and I'm presuming by this you mean that personal faith can include an absence of god."

Yes, Sister George, if that is what you have faith in, then this is your faith.

It can't be proven scientifically any more than any other faith... therefore it is purely a belief of faith that there is no God.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/14/08 at 5:56pm

Sister George, I'm not sure what dictionary you're using when presenting those definitions of religion. Reggie already gave us a different dictionary definition earlier in this thread that doesn't fit into those three neat categories either:

"A trip to the dictionary tells me that religion is "the service and worship of God . . . commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance; a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices." "


That last definition works for me.