Religious tags: Really needed?

Posted: 13 years ago
How do you know you're a Hindu? How do you know you're a Muslim? How do you know you're........

Is religion something that can be handed down through generations? How is it that two people having nothing in common in their ways of life or morals can belong to the same religion? 



From what I understand, essentially your religion is your way of life, moral code and how you, if at all, regard the supreme force/being.

How can anyone be born with a religious tag?! Shouldn't the process be that first you'll know the things around you through senses, experience, thought, reasoning, intuition, reading and other ways of cognition, and you'll be able to choose your way of life for yourself? It'll be up to you how you'll regard the supreme force/being, if you're interested in it at all. You need to be helped and guided by the the people around you, of course. Your genetic code, along with the above factors, will have a bearing on your moral code. And all these factors will keep changing all your life making you change along with them, if you don't close your mind.

If you're doing everything yourself to find your path of life, where does a predefined stagnant religion come in? Logically, every grown-up individual has his/her own religion. It can be said that there are as many religions in the world as the entire human population minus the ones in their tender or formative years.

There are busy people, poor people and those unfortunate people who cannot read. They don't get the opportunity to go deep into the contents of "their" religions. They make do with mechanical observance of some rituals without knowing their meanings, their inherent insecurities, fears and desires making them do that. So, majority of people, even the most religious-looking ones, are not religious in effect. This makes religious tags all the more irrelevant.

I cannot see the need of this prevailing system of grouping and tagging people as Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc. This has proved to be divisive and dangerous time and again, and led to absurdities like a criminal and a scrupulous person belonging to the same religious group. Doing away with this system doesn't mean everyone is becoming an atheist, but rather it means widening of the scope of true religious knowledge, as different belief systems merge into one.


And the best thing that will happen, if we remove our religious tags, is many "religious" warmongers, rioters, terrorists and the like will be out of work. 😛
Edited by mind-googling - 13 years ago
Posted: 13 years ago
These days I see each life form as just a mathematical set containing certain beliefs.
😛
Edited by karandel_2008 - 13 years ago
Posted: 13 years ago
Well certain human beings are generally egoistic and love to dominate and control others. If they cannot make use of religion then they will come up with other ideas to do the same.
 
Basically we should not care what religion anyone follows or are just philosophers or atheists. Most important is that they are good human beings.
 
eg. I hate it when some people say that persons from a certain religious order are not allowed to drink etc and they themselves keep drinking. Such rules should apply to all equally and anyone indulging in the same crime should not point fingers.
 
 
Posted: 13 years ago
You are barking at the wrong tree, MG.  You take away religion from mankind --- they will find something else to obsess over. 
 
 
 
Posted: 13 years ago
Originally posted by Gauri_3


You are barking at the wrong tree, MG.  You take away religion from mankind --- they will find something else to obsess over. 
 
 
 

Looks like you just read the bold part.
Edited by mind-googling - 13 years ago
Posted: 13 years ago
Originally posted by mind-googling



Probably, you didn't get what I said.
 
 
 
May be you did not get what I am saying.  And I did skim over the entire post.  However, quoting the bold part here.
 
[quote=mind-googling]
 
And the best thing that will happen, if we remove our religious tags, is many "religious" warmongers, rioters, terrorists and the like will be out of work. 😛
 
[/quote]
 
warmongers, rioters and terrorists will still rage their war,and leash the terror over some other issue. 
 
Religion, as such, is not bad.  It is the politics of religion that sucks.  You take religion out, politicians will find race, gender, caste, creed etc. to divide and rule.
 
Hope that helps you.
Edited by Gauri_3 - 13 years ago
Posted: 13 years ago
Originally posted by mind-googling


How do you know you're a Hindu? How do you know you're a Muslim? How do you know you're........
Same way I know I am a Gupta, Saxena, Parikh, Khan, or Horton.

Is religion something that can be handed down through generations? How is it that two people having nothing in common in their ways of life or morals can belong to the same religion? 
Why can't it be handed down through generations?  If two totally different people can come under the same umbrellas in the name of nation, political affiliations, education, profession and what not then why not religion?



From what I understand, essentially your religion is your way of life, moral code and how you, if at all, regard the supreme force/being.
Not just my religion.  As far as I know, pretty much all religions teach the same thing.  Only interpretations differ --- interpretations that are made by humans based on their vested interests.

How can anyone be born with a religious tag?! Shouldn't the process be that first you'll know the things around you through senses, experience, thought, reasoning, intuition, reading and other ways of cognition, and you'll be able to choose your way of life for yourself? It'll be up to you how you'll regard the supreme force/being, if you're interested in it at all. You need to be helped and guided by the the people around you, of course. Your genetic code, along with the above factors, will have a bearing on your moral code. And all these factors will keep changing all your life making you change along with them, if you don't close your mind.
Once again - when all religions teach the same thing then why is it a problem whether one follows their parents' religion or chooses the one they want to follow? 

If you're doing everything yourself to find your path of life, where does a predefined stagnant religion come in? Logically, every grown-up individual has his/her own religion. It can be said that there are as many religion in the world as the entire human population minus the ones in their tender or formative years.
You are assuming here that no one lets their religion evolve.  Not all hindus are equally hindu - know what I mean! 

There are busy people, poor people and those unfortunate people who cannot read. They don't get the opportunity to go deep into the contents of "their" religions. They make do with mechanical observance of some rituals without knowing their meanings, their inherent insecurities, fears and desires making them do that. So, majority of people, even the most religious-looking ones, are not religious in effect. This makes religious tags all the more irrelevant.
Again, holding religion responsible for human shortcomings - aren't we😛

I cannot see the need of this prevailing system of grouping and tagging people as Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc. This has proved to be divisive and dangerous time and again, and led to absurdities like a criminal and a scrupulous person belonging to the same religious group. Doing away with this system doesn't mean everyone is becoming an atheist, but rather it means widening of the scope of true religious knowledge, as different belief systems merge into one.


And the best thing that will happen, if we remove our religious tags, is many "religious" warmongers, rioters, terrorists and the like will be out of work. Tongue
Addressed in my previous post.
Posted: 13 years ago
Originally posted by Gauri_3


May be you did not get what I am saying.  And I did skim over the entire post.  However, quoting the bold part here.
 
 
warmongers, rioters and terrorists will still rage their war,and leash the terror over some other issue. 
 
Religion, as such, is not bad.  It is the politics of religion that sucks.  You take religion out, politicians will find race, gender, caste, creed etc. to divide and rule.
 
Hope that helps you.

I never said that we should take it out. I just said religion should be either ONE for all or ONE for each. :) 
Posted: 13 years ago
Originally posted by mind-googling


 
I never said that we should take it out. I just said religion should be either ONE for all or ONE for each. :) 
 
You did talk about taking the "tags" out altogether - did you not?  I see it akin to taking the religion out. 
 
This post of yours is contradicting your initial post here.  "ONE for all" would be like forcing it down on everyone whether they want it or not.  "ONR for each" would be like forcing everyone to come up with their own version even if they like someone else's and want to follow it.  Whatever happened to your claims about having a choice?   
 
Once again, you are seeing religion/religious tags as the main problem where as I see the human angle as the root cause of the problem --- brings us back to you meowing at the wrong tree.   
Posted: 13 years ago
I like labels. You can put them in boxes, stick on the labels and neatly organize. Without these labels people are like an endless mob, everyone blended together, no differentiation, no organization. It is confusing. Like when you see a bunch of monkeys, you really have no clue who's who in the zoo. Chaos might work in nature. But as civilized humans we need to sort people in their boxes and organize. Makes good sense.

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