Of all the religions that mankind has dreamed up, which, if any, do you think is the most beautiful, and why do you feel that it's such a beautiful religion?

The only one I follow is the one I have set for myself. Pecisim. It's rather flexible, no collection plates, no tithing, no fables promising you eternal bliss with virgins, just take life as it comes and depend on the only true god, yourself. Perhaps it will catch on, after all, the others did and they are several times wackier! ADDNOTE: I feel the religion is beautiful because of it's simplicity. No set rules to follow or remember.

buddhist/buddha
it really teaches to reunite with the nature, down to earth, stay calm in every move we take, sacrifice, patience, humanity, and love the environment the way we love ourselves.
Thts just my opinion, but i think every religion is good, and lead us into the goodness :)

Sufism - a mystical sect of Islam. It boasts an astonishing collection of poetry and the best construct of existence that I've found thus far.

it does, full of mistery, and beautiful inside

I've yet to see a religion that is wholly beautiful. Even if they only teach morally superior aspects of life, ultimately, if there's any mystical/divine side to it, than it means that it requires deluding oneself to reality to believe in it. Because of this aspect, it's far less beautiful than having no religion, and observing the world from a naturalistic standpoint.

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Sam Harris expressed this view of Buddhism in his essay "Killing the Buddha" (Shambhala Sun, March 2006). Harris admires Buddhism, calling it "the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced." But he thinks it would be even better if it could be pried away from Buddhists.

"The wisdom of the Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism," Harris laments. "Worse still, the continued identification of Buddhists with Buddhism lends tacit support to the religious differences in our world. ... Given the degree to which religion still inspires human conflict, and impedes genuine inquiry, I believe that merely being a self-described 'Buddhist' is to be complicit in the world's violence and ignorance to an unacceptable degree."

"Killing the Buddha" is from a Zen saying -- If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. Harris interprets this as a warning against turning the Buddha into a "religious fetish" and thereby missing the essence of what he taught.

But this is Harris's interpretation of the phrase. In Zen, "killing the Buddha" means to extinguish ideas and concepts about the Buddha in order to realize the True Buddha. Harris is not killing the Buddha; he is merely replacing a religious idea of the Buddha with a non-religious one more to his liking.

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- Barbara O'Brien

I personally love Sam Harris to the pit of my heart :)

I see what you are saying. However, all religions aren't necessarily obscessed with the concept of teaching moral superiority. In some ways it's actually quite unfortunate that morality became the focal point, or even the very foundational basis, of many religions. The reason I say this is because once they do that then "judging immorality" becomes their nemesis and they quickly reduce to nothing more than 'finger-pointing' and 'name-calling' religions.

Moreover, the mystical religions are "naturalistic" religions. Even from a naturalistic point-of-view, one must confess that it is 'unnatural' for something to spring into existence from nothing, yet here we are.

So in a very real sense any true concept of naturalism must necessarily include a component of mysticism don't you think?

Christianity,, I personally find it to be a beautiful example of the good and the bad ,, a balance of which(like everything else in life) is necessary for life to progress,,,

I do not :). Mysticism implies to me a level of happening not accountable to the workings of the universe. The word in itself applied to a "naturalistic" setting i find doesn't fit in the least. Simply because we can't understand how something happens, does not mean that it wasn't through completely logical, understandable measures... we simply haven't discovered what those measures are.

Also, i believe in biogenesis as much as any skeptic. It's simply the best theory we have right now, and me personally not being a scientist, my knowledge on the subject is limited.

Also, i agree that it's a shame that religions seek a level of delivering moral judgement on their peons.

How does this differ from any other 'faith' or 'delusion'?

All you're saying here is that you have "faith" that somehow all of existence can eventually be explained in terms that make sense.

But there is nothing in science that indicates that this should be the case. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence for the contrary. There is good reason to believe that methods of scientific inquirey that we have used to figured out the laws that govern the nature of this unviverse cannot possibly be used to go beyond that. They simply can't be applied beyond their domain of applicability. And once place where that domain clearly ends is at the Big Bang, when considering what might have cause that event to come into being.

In fact, the current theory suggests that it was a random quantum fluctuation. That, my friend, is just fancy language to say that we have no explanation for it. Moreover, our current theories of Quantum Mechanics demand that no explanation can ever be known because there is no way for our "scientific method of inquiry" to peer beyond the quantum veil of uncertainty.

In a very real sense, science has already shown us that we can never know the true nature of the world using the scientific method. Thus science itself demands mysticism, by definition. (i.e. that which cannot ever be known)

Edited too ask:

In terms of "beauty" then, do you feel that it is more 'beautiful' to imagine that everything can be explained in terms of pure logic, rather than to believe that something more mysterious might be going on?

That's an interesting perspective. I personally don't see the 'balance'. I was taught that Christianity teaches that all of mankind has fallen from grace from our creator and that we are all in need of repentance without exception. And that to qualify for that redemption we must condone and accept a violent act of a blood sacrifice that has been done on our behalf. I don't see any "balance" in that. There's no way to get to this God save for confessing that you're unworthy.

How does that equate to a condition of 'balance'?

I'm just asking.

If that's your definition of mysticism than sure... however, i don't believe that we can say that "something cannot ever be known" because who's to say that we won't find out in the soon or distant future. I'm not saying that it will be explained, all i'm saying is i'm not going to go to a chapel with a bunch of guys in funny hats to tell me there's some sky daddy or sprite or flying spaghetti monster that is the reasoning behind all of it.

I don't know the answers, and probably never will, but i'm not going to let that be an excuse to jump in and choose from the jumble of gods and divine explanations out there to sooth my ignorance.

Well, I'm with you on that one all the way!

Lol, awesome.

BTW, your profile picture... love that book.

religion is nothing.. The person who Loves and sees no wrong because when he looks at himself and sees his own faults how else can he think " Who am I to Judge" Shalom...Miles

I was taught that loving Christ and loving God are the way to see God and Christ(which seems logical to me). I was also taught some of the history of how men treated each other(men meaning mankind) and how God repeatedly forgave and gave them a chance to see Him. The balance is in how much we took God for granted and yet how much God continued to bless us and forgive us.

Pastafarianism is the most delicious religion.

I find taosim and zen buddhism to be beautiful, because they seem, as a starting point, to acknowledge the limitations of language.

Life!

When lived to its fullest is the best religion.