Talk:Religion

Heaven, Hell and Reincarnation

I added the concepts of Hell and Reincarnation to the section on the human spirit. We need to make sure we're covering the widest possible range of beliefs, and accurately describing those beliefs without sugarcoating them. Zminer (talk) 21:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Definition of Religion

"Religion is a word for the ideas about the basic structure of the world that people cannot see or know with our other senses, or that scientists cannot study with machines. There are many different religions in the world." This is an extremely poor definition. Novels would fall under this definition of religion, since they describe characters and events which we cannot see, because they are fictional. Furthermore, most religions have their basis on historical details--e.g. Moses bringing slaves out of Egypt, Jesus rising from the dead, Mohamed receiving the Qu'ran from an angel etc. Thus to simply define religion as the study of the invisible/impalpable ignores the philosophical undergirding of many religious philosophies in real historical events.

Suggest: "Religion is a word describing a group of thoughts about things like how the world works, how people should live, and what spirits are. This may include thinking a god or gods exist and that people have a soul which continues to exist after they die. People who think a religion is true will often talk to a spiritual being (or beings); this is called prayer. They might also sing songs, give money to an organization, or do something else to show how much they care for either their religion or the spiritual being or beings of that religion." 76.22.14.6 (talk) 01:03, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Other Ramblings

Religion is best defined as an acronym: Reli-G-I-On meaning Rely God-Me On which says rely on the relationship between you and God. Thus it is incorrect to call Buddhism a religion when they are no more relying on a personal God than any other social or athletic club. Regarding the three major Satanic religions, Islam, Paganism, and Satanism itself, Religion is of course misleading because their god Satan is evil but since people rely on Satan as a god who has control of the earth except when and where people with faith in Jesus Christ interrupt Satan's power, it is possible to call their beliefs and practices dark religions.

There is an interesting correspondance between Islam and Paganism in the Islamic Allah and the Pagan Pan. Pan means All as in Pan-American. So both groups worship "All" which Buddhists do also without personalizing it as a deity. The All however includes all evil as well as good, it includes as explained above all things on earth under Satan's spiritual control except when the light of Christ claims ownership by being expressed over some person, place, or thing via the faith of a believing Christian.

With Religion accurately defined it should be possible to unify people in the true faith which is preferrable to mere tolerance. Unfortunately, even within Christianity unification has been harder to accomplish than division. Thus we need to define the true faith for everyone to learn to participate in. The Gospel is Mt, Mk, Lk, Jn, and Rv which is the new pentateuch having most of the recorded words of Jesus Christ. The much shorter message of evangelism is only a first step toward understanding the Gospel and the much longer message of the New Testament has misled people into religions that in many ways do not practice what Jesus Christ did. So the gospel is the focus of truth which needs to be read, loved, believed, and prayed into current practice. We must learn to walk on water, heal the dead, and rule nature as Jesus did in order to follow him accurately. With all mankind cooperating toward that goal there should be no religious differences.

We must further that goal by redefining church or what groups of believers are. The true church is that church led solely by Jesus Christ which Christian believers participate in after death. The true church should be expressed here on earth. As is the common statement, you can't take it with you, so the true church has no material property or physical wealth -- its value is spiritual and its talents are the knowledge, skills, and abilities of Jesus Christ including the ability to walk on water, heal, and other miracles as needed. There can be no money in the true church which is the kingdom of prayer. Likewise there can be no positions of power, authority, and control.

-- (C) 17 Dec 2005, Kirk Frasier

"Religion is the term? for describing? a system? for? the worship? of any divine being?, for example, God?." -- I think that this is not a very good definition of religion, because the idea of divine beings is not a basic idea in some religions, for example Buddhism.

I am drafting a version of this please let me know if anyone else is--BozMo|talk 20:42, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

I have written many interesting things about the different world religions at http://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan and I am now writing my first book at http://toosmallforsupernova.org - Sitaram

Allah is just the arabic word for God, it has nothing to do with the English word "all", just as Pan's name has nothing to do with the pan- prefix meaning all.

The Arabic word 'allah' shares a common root with the Hebrow word 'elohim', they both mean 'god'. I'm fairly certain the English word 'all' is derived from Old Norse, where the word is either 'all' or 'alle'. As for Pan and pan, even though they are both Greek, the words are unrelated homonyms like the two meanings of 'can'. And Kirk Fraser, if you're reading this, I suggest that you buy a good dictionary that lists the root words at least as far back as Latin, Greek, Norse and Hebrew. Until then you should be able to get by with dictionary.com.

As an extra note, Pan refers to the god of nature. Pantheism is the idea that God is made manifest in nature. Thanks for your "copyrighted" contribution, KIRK-DURRRRRRRK, very funny.

Which isn't really relevent since, although pantheism has existed as a concept for thousands of years, the term itself was coined by John Toland during the Rennaissance, who clearly used 'pan' to mean 'all' and not 'Greek deity of shepherds, livestock and nature'.

Rewritten

This is just a quick note; I have rewritten most of the article, to get rid of a few of its flaws. Feel free to add to the article, and to add refs where you see fit. Note however that this is about religion in general, so anything that this religion believes that, or "Abrahamic religions believe that" is probably in the wrong place here. Anyway; let it grow and prosper, from the new start. --Eptalon (talk) 22:45, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Religion is the word used for a number of cultural phenomena. These phenomena have an influence on thought; very often, religious ideas are the basis of behaviour: Religions often define what is right, and what is wrong. There is no definition of religion that is accepted by all scientists.

This is a non-explanation. It gives the reader absolutely no way of knowing what a religion is. It's a "phenomena"! What on earth is a phenomena to a person with limited English? Look it up, and you are none the wiser!

We have to do better than this. The explanation the the nameless editor above objected to and said could also define a novel was still more adequate. Amandajm (talk) 12:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Removed section

A nameless editor recently added the following:

Quotes

“Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.” -Ralph Emerson Waldo, American Poet, Lecturer, and Essayist

"Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” St Francis of Assisi, Italian Catholic Preacher

“Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.” -Larry Flynt, American Publisher

"Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea" -Madalyn Murray O'Hair, American Social Activist

"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray. Nothing could be more idiotic and absurd than the doctrine of the trinity." -Robert Green Ingersoll, American Orator

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” -Stephen Weinberg, American Theoretical Physicist

"Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue." Eugene O'Neill, American Playwright

"Religious wars are the world's cruelest joke. Its kinda like having a fight over who has the better invisible friend in the sky." -Robert Goodin, American Philosopher

"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point." "The word "Christianity" is already a misunderstanding - in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross." - Friederich Nietzsche, German Philosopher

"The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence." - Abul Ala Al-Maari, Arab Philosopher

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei, Italian Philosopher

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” -Seneca, Roman Philosopher

• These quotations are opinions about religion, rather than encyclopedic information about religion.
• My Initial response was to think, "Oh there is an imbalance here that needs redressing"
• My next thought was that redressing the balance will open the potential for a thousand quotes, all in conflict.

So I think the philosophic opinions about whether religion is a benefit or not probably is out of place in this article.

Amandajm (talk) 05:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Religions that are recommended and languages

Albanian Alsatian Animism Animist Arabic Armenian Aymara Azeri Baha'i Bahamian Creole Barbadian Creole Basque Bosnian Brazilero Breton Bulgarian Buddhism Buddhist Cakchiquel Castilian Spanish Catalan Chinese Chondogyo Christianity Confucianism Corsican Creole Daoism Dutch English Estonian Flemish French French Patois Galician Garifuna German Georgian Greek Guarani Haitian Creole Hindi Hinduism Hindustani Hungarian Indigenous Religions Irish Irish Gaelic Islam Italian Jamaican Creole Javanese Judaism Kekchi Kimbanguism Latin Letzeburgesh Local Languages Luxembourgish Macedonian Maltese Mauritian Creole Maya Modekngei Monégasque Montenegrin Occitan Other Regional Languages Parsi Portuguese Quechua Quiche Regional Languages Regional Religions Romanian Romansch Russian Scottish Gaelic Serbian Serbo-Croatian Seychelles Creole Shinto Sikh Slovak Slovene Slovenian Spanish Sranang Tango Taoism Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Welsh