On What are your Religious Beliefs Based?

Namaste Jesus

Namaste Jesus

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Now, I'm not talking about what you believe, how you believe, why you believe or even if you believe. Just what that belief structure is based on and what has influenced you to believe as you do. Is it something you've read? Something you've heard? Something you've experienced or...?

For me personally I've always been a very spiritual person. For lack of a better term, I've always had a sort of sixth sense about things. My religious beliefs are diverse to say the least and are primarily based on personal experience. That is, things I've done, things I've seen.

My second source of inspiration comes from conclusions I've drawn from studying both Christian and Hindu scripture as well as a variety of other religious and non-religious texts.

Lastly, my religious beliefs have been influenced by a number of spiritual mentors over the years. Some were devout men of the cloth, while others were just everyday folks with keen spiritual insight.

How about you?
 
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My belief was transformed by my inability to swallow a very distasteful Southern Baptist "meal". I knew there was something but that was not it. I read about most all religions voraciously for many years. I made it my hobby. Still do. Unlike Thomas Jefferson I never cut and paste but I go through a box of high lighters quite often. I was "born again" [term for emphasis only] when I had my voila moment. Deist...

God revealed by Nature and reason. No prophets, superstition or church authority.
 
I try to think it is based on common sense...I was a lifelong Christian (but intellectually it was missing a lot for me). I consider Jesus the most interesting and inspiring esoteric master, but never a god more than you and I are gods (Namaste to you too:) I saw the light when I was 48, after I met someone who became my teacher.
Furthermore, the linear nature of life and death and heaven was also illogical, not to mention "hell". :)
 
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My parents moved and I went from Sunday school to sunday school around the country... I don't know when I began to question, when it all started not resonating with me... But by the summer of third grade I had talked my parents into me not going... Mom and my sisters went and I stayed home with my dad. In high school I got into a Christian teen club...because...girls. After high school...I left the scene behind. From reading various texts, books, histories I thought I was comfortable with my relationship with the allness...but would go to churches occasionally with friends...nothing ever hit home. Then in my late 30's somebody said I sounded like Unity.... so I went. I found others that think like me and a thing called the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary... Before then, I had a hard time saying the word G!d, or a Christ concept... I now have an understanding I can accept and use in my daily life...
 
I've always had a gut belief in God, long before I studied any of the philosophical arguments. I was brought up an Anglican Christian of the baptisms, marriages, and funerals variety. Eventually I started thinking seriously about religion — perhaps advancing age, perhaps a series of vivid dreams about being lost on a journey — so I did what I do best: studied the claims of various belief systems and evaluated them. When I knew that I was a pagan, the variety was decided largely by gut feeling again.
 
I was raised nothing (in religious terms, agnostic) I though churches were funny looking granaries, or barns. At age 15 I had a mystical experience. In my efforts to understand that, Shiva contacted me. A couple more very strong mystical experiences, and I re-found Hinduism.

So my beliefs are primarily experiential, but also on the trust of my teachers.
 
"...what that belief structure is based on and what has influenced you to believe as you do. Is it something you've read? Something you've heard? Something you've experienced or...?"

The Baha'i Faith can I suppose be seen as a "system"...that is it has Sacred Writings revealed by Baha'u'llah and the Bab and authoritative interpretations. I t also is a social "system" in that it is organized from a local level... Nine adult believers make up an Assembly.. There are regular Conventions held and representatives consult on various topics. There are National Spiritual Assemblies around the globe in such places as Malaysia, India, Vietnam as well as countries like the USA and Russia.

Early in the sixties I was involved in the civil rights movement as well as the peace movement... As I investigated the Baha'i Faith I found strong currents for peace and the oneness of mankind in the Faith so I joined it. Later I married a Baha'i and we started a family.. My children were raaised as Baha'is and practise the Faith in their lives.. I believe the Faith broadened their understanding of other religions and cultures and was a good standard for them.
 
Mine have been based/unbased on everything from unbending Southern Baptist dogma to equally intransigent Atheistic rationalism.

I've found something worthwhile in most all of them I've perused -- even those that deny the existence of any form of deity whatever. The Buddhist emptiness teachings are profound. Meister Eckhart blends eastern sensibility onto western theism.
The Tao Te Ching washes one's soul like a dip in the Ganges is said to.
Advaita Vedanta is a sometimes frustrating, sometimes simple and clear view on things.
Hindiusm is complex and colorful -- sometimes inscrutable at the periphery but clear and simple at the heart of it. The thought and poetry of the Sufis are beautiful too (although some of Islam's more worldly practice reminds me much more of the Southern Baptists on a much larger scale)

To me now they all seem to be different ways of saying the same core thing which is something that cannot really be said in terms a human mind can grasp -- yet in our heart we have known it all along.

These days I try to live more from that silent center and not let any of the froth that bubbles up from the mind and the world be the primary focus of attention.
Things seem so much more tranquil that way.
 
Namaste Jesus said:
Now, I'm not talking about what you believe, how you believe, why you believe or even if you believe. Just what that belief structure is based on and what has influenced you to believe as you do. Is it something you've read? Something you've heard? Something you've experienced or...?

For me personally I've always been a very spiritual person. For lack of a better term, I've always had a sort of sixth sense about things. My religious beliefs are diverse to say the least and are primarily based on personal experience. That is, things I've done, things I've seen.

My second source of inspiration comes from conclusions I've drawn from studying both Christian and Hindu scripture as well as a variety of other religious and non-religious texts.

Lastly, my religious beliefs have been influenced by a number of spiritual mentors over the years. Some were devout men of the cloth, while others were just everyday folks with keen spiritual insight.

How about you?
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My religious beliefs are based on evidential Logic
 
It is based on science. Started as a theist Hindu, developed atheist views, and then found a loop-hole in Hinduism to remain a Hindu and a strong atheist. The loop-hole is known as 'advaita' (non-duality). :)
 
Logic, reason, proof, science, inherent knowledge of right and wrong in all regardless of religion, similarities amongst all religions, and commonalities in my upbringing, changed by scriptural sources, to the road to truth...

Scattered way of saying, IMO my beliefs are based on all physical proof that I have explored. I would not follow something that cannot be explained in a logical manner from the sources given.
 
BigJoeNobody said:
Logic, reason, proof, science, inherent knowledge of right and wrong in all regardless of religion, similarities amongst all religions, and commonalities in my upbringing, changed by scriptural sources, to the road to truth...

Scattered way of saying, IMO my beliefs are based on all physical proof that I have explored. I would not follow something that cannot be explained in a logical manner from the sources given.
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You are preaching to the choir, singing the most popular song for the past thousands of years... Surely you are aware there are Buddhists, Hindus, Baha'i, Christians, Atheists, Satanists, Pagans, Sikhs, Sufis, Jains, etc...all singing the same tune.
 
wil said:
You are preaching to the choir, singing the most popular song for the past thousands of years... Surely you are aware there are Buddhists, Hindus, Baha'i, Christians, Atheists, Satanists, Pagans, Sikhs, Sufis, Jains, etc...all singing the same tune.
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I know. Although I seem to find issues in my knowledge of each... to you is your religion and to me is mine, I will not believe what you believe and you will not believe what I believe... (For those that do not know... this is derived from the words found in the Quran and is fundamental to my belief... http://quran.com/109)
 
Devils' Advocate said:
The belief structure of any given individual is based on self identification. No matter in what form the input comes, the end result comes down to a personal decision on what one chooses to believe.
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Right. And then some of us learn and grow, even may discard old believes for new ones based on more advanced information
 
My religious beliefs are based on ... well I can't put a finger on it yet.
Feels like those have always been there, ever since I was born (or maybe before that).
 
On what are your religious beliefs based? On the Truth of the Word of God. Once, Jesus declared John 17:17 that the Truth is the Word of God which was given to Israel only and to no other people on earth if you read Psalm 147:19,20. That's the Truth according to the Law and the Prophets. (Isa. 8:20)
 
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