What is religion?

"What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and, above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and sh*ts quantity."

William S. Burroughs

Religion is Man's attempt to find the God he thinks may exist but is too insecure to try and find on his own.

Psychotherapy for the existentially aflicted!...

"I went through the standard scientific atheist phase when I was about 14. I bought into that package deal of science equals atheism."

Rupert Sheldrake

Many of us are atheists before experiencing a first class in science. Science merely provides ammunition for argument.

I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is equating belief with religion and belief with faith. As Alan Watts says, belief is holding on, faith is turning loose. I never understood what the meaning of faith was
until I read this just recently:

"If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go."
Alan W. Watts, "The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety"

Now I understand that science is not in conflict with religious faith. Faith is what allows science to function with an open mind. Belief restricts science.

I don't know anything about all that. I accept that pure science opens some doors otherwise left to supposition. It leaves one alone to have faith or not have faith. I have no quarrel with faith, so long as it does not come knocking with leaflets and a Bible in hand.

My religion is human rights.

I believe that humans are born with a fundamental right to security, dignity and justice. I believe that human life, and particularly the human ability to reason and to feel love and empathy, are special and make give humans an inherent value, greater than any other species on Earth. I believe that humans living in society should given liberty and equality.

These are religious beliefs. Not one of them can be supported by science. I don't know where "faith" comes in, but I live sure that these religious beliefs are true.

I hold them as sacred.

I think this is where the Einstein quote comes in handy. I posted this earlier. He said that science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind.

And as stated the difference between belief and faith is an enormous one. They are actually in a opposition. I never understood that until I read the Alan Watts quote.

Here is that quote that I posted a few days ago:

"If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go."
Alan W. Watts, "The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety"

Because of the effect that this quote had a me, I believe that this thread is an important one.

Well, see, Einstein was a clever man, at more things than mathematics. But that doesn't make his word in every topic the supreme end all. Faith means different things to different people. Max's list is a temporal list that can only be valid so long as there exist civilized persons to practice them. Likewise Einstein's religious pronouncements. In the end, Poe's Conqueror Worm prevails when humanity fails.

I think Einstein was a mystic, but I'm not sure. One can be a mystic and be crap at expressing it. Usually, mystics can identify each other by their statements, but not always. Mysticism is a priori, it's there inside, and all we have to do is stop defending against it. And then to express it we use poetry or some crap because there's no way to express it prosaically. And if you talk about it too much it sounds pretentious as ****.

I once sought the spiritual side of life - though an atheist still - It just eventually sloughed off and I forgot about it.

I think all animals and even plants are religious in that they live in a state of Eternal awareness through whatever senses they have. All men are religious in the same sense as animals and plants, with the added ability to know that they are religious. We are the way the world, the universe, becomes aware of itself.

"Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer."

William S. Burroughs

I think such broad definitions of religion are but another version of anthropomorphism.

How about rocks? I think that feldspar has a particular Eternal Awareness that outlasts those of any animal or plant.

I think anthropomorphism is fine so long as you're aware that you're doing it. Everything seems to be alive that's a good feeling. It's play. Just don't catch me on one of my inert days, when l feel everything dead, don't care for those days.

Anthropocentrism it's not a good feeling. We become a ego in a bag of skin and everything else is a machine and dead.

I like that idea. It is a good title for a dance in a ballet. The Dance of the Feldspars.

But in all seriousness--a bad idea in itself--is it better feeling that everything is dead and inert?

"Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!"

Allen Ginsberg, "Howl and Other Poems"

"I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination."
Alan W. Watts

It's a hallucination within which I've spent most of my life. I do have some periods of Illumination. You have to value those moments. These are moments of clarity and creativity which really expand your identity and make you feel alive and make the world and the Universe alive. Otherwise your identity is limited by what your intellect says it is.

Or as Anthony Hopkins says:
We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It's a death trap.

Anthony Hopkins