religion : divider or unifier

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   pisean282311posted 14 years ago

   religion's idea was to spread humanity , moral values , brotherhood and such thing but do you think religion has divided people more than unified them?...

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      earnestshubposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Religion never intended to spread anything other than fear and obedience to a never seen never heard entity that resembles the ball bearing bird in logic!

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      errum fattahposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      i dont think religion means to spread people, cuz religion is a peace. And it says to be unite but u know many fool ppl had taken it as wrong way, like the one above..

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      Beelzedadposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Religion has always divided people, to the point of fathers and sons, mothers and daughter, brothers and sisters hating each other in favor of their gods.
      
      Religion only unifies tribal warfare groups.

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         mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         The spiritual life requires all detachment. Once man understands god for himself and not by hearing or reading  someone else's interpretation then he sees god in all, the equation changes ,there is no such thing as detachment as well.

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            Beelzedadposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            I have no idea what you said.

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      qwarkposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Pisean:
      As man evolved, his awareness of the surrounding world created feelings of anxiety and fear.
      Being abjectly ignorant and but a few steps above the "intellect" of base animal life, conscious confusion caused him to begin a very "human" activity: "to question."
      Curiosity was the perpetrator.
      Imagine the wonderment that that developing human mind must have been experiencing!
      Sophistication led to more questions.
      The simple could be understood, but death was puzzling.
      Primitive man imagined "powers" beyond his abilitiies to comprehend.
      He created structural icons to represent these fancied supernatural "entities." "They" were used to create superstition and try to allay their fears of the unknown.
      Ignorant of the reason for the natural occurrence: "death," they conceieved the notion of immortality.
      Those who "passed" were buried and sent to abide in the metaphysical world of the supernatural.
      "religion's idea was to spread humanity , moral values , brotherhood and such thing..."...is and was not true.
      The primitive concept of monotheism has irrevocably fragmented mankind!
      The result will, eventually, be disastrous.

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         mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         The religions will unite balance will happen.

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      paarsurreyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Hi friend pisean282311
      
      Religion is a unifier; it is the politicians who divide and fight in the name of religion;always.
      
      Thanks
      
      I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

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      mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The aim of religions is for mankind to unite spiritually, one.
      
      Sadly now there are many religions and the problem is they fight with each other over the superiority of their prophet or religion  by quoting some text or the other .Somehow they will not see the oneness in all.
      
      Today the need is to unite these religions these great paths set by the masters  to guide man to their true self, god.

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      topgunjagerposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      it unifies the stupid people and it unifies the smart people, which side are you on?

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   pisean282311posted 14 years ago

   fattah you are getting personal with earnest..we are here for discussion and not passing personal judgments..

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   ilmdamailyposted 14 years ago

   Realistically, the answer is both.
   
   The interesting question for me is what is the implied value of unity?
   
   I've noticed this trend in almost all political, ideological and religious thought. Unity is accorded an (unjustified I think) position of virtue. And I can't for the life of me figure out why.
   
   What is the value of being like the fellow next to you? I've always been intensely suspicious of notions of unity, and even more so of the people who depoly them in a functional sense. To my thinking, disunity is vastly more useful. The different perspectives and values that get shared by people who are completely different is far more emotionally and intellectually nourishing than some sort of monotone unity of thought and values.
   
   Am I alone in this view?
   
   Would love to know what people think!

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      pisean282311posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      i am not talking in terms of unity ,the way u defined..i agree with you ..every person must do his thinking and since every human is different one can't always think alike or similarly..if that happens we would loose individuality..

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      Ashmiposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      ilmdamaily,........It is a fact that underlying all manifestation there is an essential unity that binds everything together. Nature is constantly striving to reach unity, balance and harmony. Life is only worthy of the name when it acts in unity with nature herself.
      
      Unity does not mean we have to think and feel alike. It implies that in essence we are the same but in memories and appearance different. The problem arises when we take appearance as being more important than essence.
      
      Diversity depends on union. The play of the opposites and the beauty of variety is possible because of the unifying element that embraces all that is.

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   Ashmiposted 14 years ago

   It's not religion that divides people. The essence of all traditions is the same. What divides people are their fear of the unknown coupled with ignorance of their own faith.

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      earnestshubposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      How can you say that with a straight face?
      
      There are thousands of people reading and studying religion their whole lives who all hate each others guts!

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         Ashmiposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         They do hate each other but not for the reasons they think they do.
         
         It's a bit like saying guns are a problem. They are not, the mind behind the finger trigger is.

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            pisean282311posted 14 years agoin reply to this

            as u said people misunderstand their own religion , thats the whole point of the discussion...has religion been an unifier or divider?..if people misunderstand their own religion since years ..has it worked for or against humanity?

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               Ashmiposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               I dare say we are inventive enough to find another reason to hate each other. Enemies whether real or imaginary there are aplenty.

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                  pisean282311posted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  i think u r right in ur observation..

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                     Ashmiposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                     The "problem" with religion started when the rituals and ceremonies took on more importance than the teaching of self-surrender and loving others as ourselves. Somewhere along the line we lost the meaning of what the original teachers where trying to say and teach....greed and vanity is a great corrupter as well as a divider. You know what they say; divide and rule. Ignorance is to blame.
                     
                     Organised religion lacks true teachers, therefore people are confused and have grown sceptical and cynical. Too many contradictions and no one to clarify them.

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            ilmdamailyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks Ashmi - I love the answer. Not an angle I had thought of before, but you're right - that does make sense. That ties in with much of my own reading regarding unity of consciousness, nonlocality and quantum theory.
            
            I guess in the context of these comments then, perhaps a better way of phrasing it is that religion has the potential to divide (as well as unite!), though spirituality tends to unify more than divide in the sense we are talking about here.
            
            In regards to hate - that also poses an interesting question to me - do people here think that hate is unnatural? If we accept that unity is the natural state of affairs, then how do we explain the random occurrence of hate?
            
            Certainly there have been people I have met, and come to know, who I have in fact hated. I can't even put a finger on it - it's nothing to do with religion or belief, just some people that you have an inherent friction with from the moment you meet them, and it gets worse as long as you know them.
            
            My own view I guess is that hate is not necessarily a bad thing. The best of men are those who not only love what is good, but hate what is bad.
            
            I think people here might have trouble distinguishing between the unity of spirit which you mention, and a "political" sense of unity...though we'll see:-)

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               Ashmiposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               Hate as we know it is completely artificial. It is not natural to hate. We tend to hate what is unpleasant and love what is pleasant. All is relative to the individual and therefore based on prejudice.
               
               Animals in the wild do not hate those who wish to eat them. They have a natural fear born of instinct. Humans hate out of personal likes and dislikes. It is all illogical and usually distorted in proportion to reality. The mind exagerates and distorts reality.....hate as love are grossly misunderstood.

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         Pandoras Boxposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         

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   Onusonusposted 14 years ago

   When I join my fellow church members to provide services for the less fortunate, there is a unity felt and a unshakable bond is developed between all of us.

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      Ashmiposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      We are ONE in being.......the feeling of being in me is the same as the feeling of being in you......Consciousness is one but each of us are a unit of expression of that consciousness making us unique...Impersonal Consciousness; some call it God or the Absolute Supreme. Words do not reach it, nor do they matter.

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         mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         nice.

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   Pandoras Boxposted 14 years ago

   I think that religion no longer has the power to unify, and I think the concept of religion no longer really has a constructive place in society.
   
   When people were divided, when tribes lived separated from one another, each tribe could make up whatever stuff it wanted, and they did. Other than a few skeptics in each tribe -who would either be killed or cast out, or learn to keep his mouth shut- it was fine within the tribe. The priest would tell his group of followers what 'god' had revealed to him, and since of course 'god' wasn't talking to anybody else, everyone would just have to believe the priest. After all, his 'god' thing explained so much about the mysterious and frightful world around them, and promised them victory over their enemies, and generally some form of afterlife wherein they would be able to be with all of their dead loved ones once again.
   
   But generally whenever differing tribes crossed each other's path, there'd be trouble. Because of course each tribe wanted to believe that their 'god' was the best.
   
   We all know where this has led.
   
   In today's world and going forward -barring some devastating world disaster that separates the people of the earth once again- we simply never can achieve a peace or a unity through these outdated methods again. The 'god' concept is becoming superfluous.
   
   I will grant that perhaps once upon a time they served a purpose, helping to maintain peace and loyalty and servitude within the tribes, but certainly never among them. Which makes it a dangerous thing to still be playing with in our time of modern weapons. We might say it always was a dangerous thing to play with, which in fact seems evident. 
   
   It can strengthen the unity within a particular tribe, and still does if you replace tribe with sect, expelling all those who disagree. But it never has been a unifier of differing tribes or peoples, and it never will.

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   The Paulposted 14 years ago

   All this talk about being ignorant of "true," religion, of misunderstanding religion being the *real* divider...
   
   ...It's all bullshit.
   
   The truth everyone prattling on about "true" religion doesn't want to admit is that there is no true religion.  There never really was any sort of prophet or messiah, no god wrote your holy books.  Ideas come together to form gods, then break apart again. 
   
   There doesn't exist "true" religion any more that there exists "true" political views.  Each person's religious beliefs are their personal convictions, and nothing more.
   
   All the division that exists within the supposedly unifying force of religion is a symptom of this.  If there were actually some core, some divine revelation or god to rally around we would see religions all approaching an identical set of beliefs and practices as each group of people came ever closer to understanding the divine.
   
   Instead we've got billions of people are convincing themselves things they strongly fear or wish for are actually divine inspiration, and so they're all running off in different directions, and every religion tears itself into an ever greater number of pieces, giving us more and more lines to divide ourselves with and fight across.

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      Jeramiposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      If the Bible is to be "believed" you would think that this kind of thing would have been described in prophesy someplace???

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         The Paulposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Ha!  If there's a prophecy near the back of the Bible somewhere where it says, "Seriously though, the rest of this is just a lark.  There's no such thing as a god but people will continue to believe in a wide variety of gods for centuries to come," I've missed it.

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            mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            God exits .

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      mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      There are many her on this forum from different religions who have a very good understand of the divine.

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         The Paulposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Well that can't really be true, can it?  If they all had a good understanding of some real thing they'd all agree about it.

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            mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            I didn't say everyone.

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               The Paulposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               Ah, yes, of course.  We can tell the true seekers from the mad and blind by whether or not they agree with you.

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                  getitriteposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  TRUE! 

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                  mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  I am an enlightened one and have proved it with my work.
                  If a person ranked over the Bible,Quran and Bhagwat Gita doesnt know god who does?

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                     earnestshubposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                     Absolutely nobody!

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                        mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                        

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      getitriteposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      Yep!

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   marinealways24posted 14 years ago

   There is a simple answer that doesn't require a book response. It divides the outsiders while giving the illusion of unification to it's believers. Notice most religious text separate/divide by saying believers will be rewarded with heaven while nonbelievers are punished.
   
   Simple psychology to control simple minds.

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      mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      This is the truth .
      The whole purpose of life is to find ones source or god a state of absolute bliss. Coming here is is the torture the talk about.
      
      "When we finally come to our senses we never return to this material world this painful playground we mistakenly call home." Krishna
      
      "I am thy shield and they exceedingly great reward." holy Bible

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         marinealways24posted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Simple psychology to control simple minds.

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            mohitmisraposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            "One needs to be in a similar vibration or else he will call me a fool" Sikh Prophet Guru Nanak
            
            Meditate you are missing out on life.
            
            Do you really know yourself, your source, your being ?

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               marinealways24posted 14 years agoin reply to this

               Again, simple psychology to control simple minds. Of course you wouldn't know his belief unless you beleived the same and followed him.
               
               
               Everyone that doesn't meditate and see light is missing out? That is a broad assumption. My meditation is making you look silly for being a falsely acclaimed prophet. It makes me see the "light" when I see how you are in the "dark". Go to the light.

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   paarsurreyposted 14 years ago

   Hi friends
   
   Religion does not divide a people; it is the politicians who divide the people in the name of religion. They misuse it.
   
   Thanks
   
   I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

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    Sparhawkeposted 14 years ago

    Religion divides people, spirituality brings them together ~ Some Arabian bloke off the film Flight of the Phoenix
    
    The above statement is absolutely true, does it really matter if you pronounce the name as Jee-Zus and I pronounce it is As Je-Suus?
    
    Is it really worth killing people over?
    
    When you get groups of people believing in one unifying thing it becomes simply a case of Us vs Them...
    
    Spirituality for the most part doesn't have this problem as it is simply all about you bettering yourself rather than shouting from the rooftops about how so much better you are than the idiots on the other side of the road.

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