Religiousity
30 06 2008This installment of the Thinking Parents Wiki:
“If you had to pick a new religion, which one would it be, and why? You can not pick any religion that you have been part of in your past, and you can not pick none of the above. You can be as serious or as fanciful about this as you want.”
The only religion that I’ve ever “belonged” to, by force of course, was Roman Catholicism. I did appreciate the tradition and the relative glamor of the service, in comparison to others, but I was in constant rebellion against the teachings and beliefs, probably because of the example of my sainted mother, who popped BC pills to prevent child number 7.
To me, belonging to a religion has meant that one must believe what it teaches - all of it. There’s no picking and choosing. I don’t want anything that is even faintly associated with the myths of Judeo-Christian. I don’t want to worship a supreme being, even if that being is myself. I don’t want to worship the earth, or the moon, or a distant galaxy. I plainly don’t want to worship.
However, I like the idea of a universal set of ideals (or one idea) that allows everyone the freedom of belief or beliefs, without pushing those beliefs on everyone else. No judgment of beliefs, as long as they don’t hurt anyone else. I suppose the Golden Rule is pretty close. Can it be made into a religion?
The Religion of Ethical Reciprocity
One commandment:
Treat others as you wish to be treated.
Be unconditional in both love and forgiveness. Practice grace and kindness.
If life were so simple….
I’ve been thinking about this one on and off since COD announced the theme, and I pretty much have to agree with what you have to say about worship and reciprocity, even if I can’t pronounce it properly.
If life were so simple indeed.
It’s a shame that “philosophy” ever got reduced down to mere god worship, isn’t it?
I took a very interesting quiz on beliefnet a long time ago. (Belief-O-Matic)Here it is:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html
I took it a few times and kept coming out either buddist or quaker. I consider myself to be Agnostic (”I don’t know and neither do you.”)
L. at Schola wrote something very similar on The Golden Rule, and as I wrote in her comments, I’m quite intrigued by a new Canadian book by a United Church minister (who was, when I heard her on the radio, lambasted by self-styled “true” Christians), “With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe” by Gretta Vosper, who’s the founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity,
http://www.progressivechristianity.ca/ccpc/index.php
Gives one hope, especially on rather hopeless days…
I’ve considered myself a spiritual agnostic for years.
I’ve never consistently “practiced what I preached”, but for July, I’m sure going to give it a try. It’s the month I have to spend a forced week of togetherness with both my teens and about 250 others, plus thousands of strangers (the public), in the confined area known as “the county fair”. I’ll see how it goes.
That’s a helluva test for the golden rule doc, good luck!
Well, we’ve always figured the golden rule was a large portion of Christianity, but it appears to have been forgotten by a lot of people.
(not you, you know the ones I mean)
I’m a Pastafarian - belonging to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
http://hahnathome.com/?p=432
The main reason I skipped this one in my own blog is that the golden rule is something few will argue against. Choosing another religion would mean choosing something other than the golden rule, which I’m not really prepared to do.
I’ll Amen to that, however, some people’s idea of what treatment deserving of each other may be is not always what I would go for. It seems to be the norm these days for people to be disrespectful to each other and act as though its a wonderful way to live! Can’t stand this attitude!
Hubby did a comparative religious study once, to find out just what they all had in common. The common thread was, “Love each other.” Nothing else was found in all the religions he studied. Good idea to me!
Annette