Does religion complete you?

[emong]

I started this thread after responding to another that I knew of many people who have embraced a religion out of a sense of incompleteness.

Does your religion complete you? Does it fill a spiritual hole that would otherwise be empty? Does it accomplish this adequately?

[The Fool]

No religion here - a personal path, nothing more.

A sense of incompleteness? There is always uncertainty and mystery. I can accept that, though. What I cannot accept are answers I have not discovered for myself.

[emong]

Originally Posted by The Fool

No religion here - a personal path, nothing more..

That is fine.....as long as it occasionally gives you goose-bumps of awareness, makes you shine with enlightenment, and let's you know that whatever happens you are part of something more than what you see.

[Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine]

There are some things within religion that give me a sense of "belonging" but, personally, I am on the fringes of my local Jewish community (can't stand most of them that I have the most contact with and the rest of the community don't bother to admit that people like me can exist. )

My spirituality can be considered somewhat convoluted, so much so that I've been asked to explain some of the "method of my madness" to people involved in research projects in the Anthropology department here on campus. At least I'm pretty coherent when I'm discussing spirituality with them and we converse at (what I consider) a comfortable wavelength.

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

[louis]

I started this thread after responding to another that I knew of many people who have embraced a religion out of a sense of incompleteness.

Does your religion complete you? Does it fill a spiritual hole that would otherwise be empty? Does it accomplish this adequately?

From Louis....
I would like to respond to that question, but I'm not
sure what to say. My instinctive response would be a
resounding NO! - I have always felt "complete" - an
island of consciousness in a totaly material world and
wouldn't have it any other way.
That may be just my EGO talking, but I have never practised any form of religion - NEVER felt the need
"to be part of anything bigger than myself".
Nor am I aware of any "spiritual hole" - don't even know
what that means.
As for "religion", at least in the guise of "church", all it
threatens to do is TEAR DOWN my sense of completeness -
try to convince me that being "part of the herd" is better
than being an autonomous individual.
They haven't convinced me yet.

[angelface]

For me, embracing a religion is being able to sum up in a title what I believe in. Of course it gets much more detailed then that, but previous in life, when asked what I believed in, I had to really think. I believed in a God, but didn't believe it was a He, and that He was misrepresented.. and of course I could never stay focused enough to map out exactly what I thought/felt. When I found neo-paganism, it was like getting slammed on the head with a brick, some cosmic force going "DING! We're here!"

It's the definition of what I believe in. I'll always feel incomplete, but that's something that stems from a completely different issue..