A Million Lessons are learned around Religion. None are about God.
By bird123
@bird123 (10658)
United States
October 30, 2009 9:49pm CST
When we speak of religion, the first thing that comes to mind is God. Religion is man's attempt to understand God. Each religion teaches their version of God. Is this all that religion is teaching???? There are a million lessons learned around religion and none of them about God. All you wonderful people out there, it's time to tell me what you have learned.
I'll start it off with some of what I have learned. Let's not assume that all the lessons learned through religion are bad. I have learned that the basic core of religious people is goodness, no matter how it comes out. I have found lots of charity volunteers who are doing great things. Of course, you might have to listen to their version of God while they are helping, but that doesn't take away from that basic goodness.
Now for something not so good. Religions deal in good and evil. They all define righteousness. This allows people the opportunity to feel superior over others. This can create an army of problems. They can be judgemental, demeaning, hateful when challenged, and constantly trying to demonstrate their superiority over others, inflating their egos, and creating importance only in their own minds.
Like with all issues dealing with humans, none of it is black and white. We are all a mosaic of different shades. Please tell me your view. What have you learned? What are they teaching? What are the solutions? There are billions of different views in this world. Our fix is the interaction of us all. Feel free to be yourself. I could never hate you for what you say. After all, you are a child of God. You are special no matter what you believe or say.
2 responses
@Sweetchariot (1718)
• United States
4 Nov 09
In my religion, we are taught all about God and his son, Jesus. We are taught, the basic fundamentals of our faith.. who is God, and what his son, Jesus did for mankind. We are also taught the way we should live, by the examples of Jesus, and in how he lived. We are taught that in our schools, and in our church...to love one another, as he loves us, and to reflect that in our every day life.
But at the same time, we are taught that we are all sinners, and all that we can do is to strive to be better every day; if we were already perfect, we wouldn't need God.
The truth is...this way of life is a journey, a journey that cannot be achieved over night.
The young children believe and attend services out of obligation because that is the way they were taught. Often when they reach their teens, they question all that were taught and leave on their own accord because they didn't understand the journey they were on.
As adults, we come to more and more of an understanding, sometimes thru life experiences, good or bad misfortunes, and they find that there is someone who seems to be with us thru it all. And most often those adults turn back to their religion and faith with more interest in trying to live God's way, and learning more and more about what they previously took for granted and never understood.
All of these stages of one's religion is part of the journey.
The misunderstanding of most people, is that they think that those people who belong to a Religion should be perfect, act out with love 100% of the time. And that is not possible. No one can achieve that way of life, because we are not God, we are not Jesus. With his help, we can only try, and we must pick ourselves up over and over again after everytime we fail.
Often, non believers meet up with those who were raised in a religion but have no interest in it, and don't physically and spiritually take part in that journey. It is those people who mislead the non-believers into thinking that all people of faith act the way they do.
That is why it is so crutial not to judge another's life. Because no one really knows what lies beneath their surface.
@bird123 (10658)
• United States
5 Nov 09
You are right. It's all a journey. I think it is wrong to label God's children as sinners. It has an evil about it. It demeans people especially young children starting out. Our mistakes and bad choices are part of the perfect learning system that has been created into this world. You say that a person can not love unconditionally. I think that is wrong. You have to remember, love can come in many forms. I loved them enough to go through the drama so they might learn or at least have the truth. Granted it takes great understansding to love unconditionally. It takes lots of lessons in an extended journey toward knowledge. We make judgement calls everyday but to judge or demean others is hate. One can never know what you would do if you were walking in their shoes. Interaction is crucial regardless. It brings great knowledge to us all. Whether people believe in God or not is not important. We are all children of God regardless of beliefs. Believing has never been important to God. Thanks for dropping by sweetchariot. Thanks for all your comments.
@raynejasper (2322)
• Philippines
31 Oct 09
..hi.. religions are suppose to be doorways to understanding and acknowledging the great sacrifice made by God for us.. It is suppose to be focusing on teaching people how to draw nearer to God.. However, this time, religions are competing with each other just to gain the most number of people to join their congregation and I don't feel good about this..
