Maybe a simple question, but maybe not such a simple answer.

Please follow me for a minute:
If religion is "any specific system of belief" (Webster's New World Dictionary), than I believe every person is religious. My personal beliefs are close to being a secular humanist, but this still is a belief system...a religion. Others are Jewish, Taoist, Baptist, Scientologist, Roman Catholic, atheist .. etc, etc....

My question....
(and can we try really hard to keep this topic only about this question)

If all people have their own different belief systems (religions),
then what elements of religions or beliefs do we all have in common ????

Maybe a few answers to start this discussion are:
1)a personal need to explain where we came from... (Adam & Eve or big bang etc...)
2)why are we here (serve God, have fun, help our kids and fellow man, no reason)
3) comfort (Jesus cares about us, we are one with nature, we are just protoplasmic goo)

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday, ed :)

Religion is man reaching towards God .

Relationship is God reaching towards man .

The thing is....

God is not interested in our religion....but is only interested

in Relationship with us.


Which is why God sent us a Saviour.

Thru believing Him ( Jesus ) are we able to be brought back

into Relationship with God once more .


Christianity is not really about religion at all....but is

about a way that all mankind can come back into that

Relationship with God.



God created us for His pleasure...and to reign and rule with Him.

Religion is man reaching to God. And one thing most religions if not all have in common is the believe of one supreme God. But believe me, the true religion is that religion that is God to man.

Actually, you have man's answer, and you would have God's answer.

I don't think they are the same thing.


Now, if you want to ask "God" I might suggest the practice of Lucid Dreaming. It has returned--among other things.

I think the only common element we have is a desire to be 'happy' and even a feeling that 'happiness' is an inalienable right

I was watching my baby brother one day and he was playing with his toys, and he was about 4 or five years old. He suddenly looked up at me and asked,

"What am I?"

I think that says it all.

Religions are attempts to explain questions that appear when one becomes self aware.

1. Who are we?

2. Why are we here?

3. What is death?

We are spiritual beings having a human experience...
it's only natural.

Problem of course is we all define happiness in different ways, and if one person decides certain things make them happy that others don't approve of, even if it's not harming them in a way that can be clearly seen, others can be quick to look down on them. Religion really at times can do more harm than good in that way to me, through such judgments.

People cannot be put in the same box, we are all different, and that's ok. A lot of us could stand to learn that I think.

I rarely enter the Religion forums....but I believe MsHarmony is right. That's what it boils down to in simplistic terms.

In order to be happy, we all try to understand the world around us in our own way. We want answers to the questions we don't understand. Understanding why things are the way they are makes it easier for us to accept these things, even if we disagree with them. In other words, understanding reduces our anxiety. The less anxiety we have, the happier we can be. People who tend to be unhappy also tend to have many fears, worries, and a lot of anxiety.

So religion is an attempt to promote happiness by way of heightening understanding. This is also where religions and beliefs clash, for not everyone shares the same understanding.

PRAYING A BLESSED CHRISTMAS SEASON ......

AND A JOYOUS AND WONDERFUL NEW YEAR FOR ALL!!!!

Everyone thinks that thiers is "right"....

then there is the agnostic like me who believes nothing. questions everything. the dictionary has several definitions for religion and the legal definition in america is "a belief in a deity" so i'll go with that. i don't buy off on the definition that any belief system is a religion. to believe such i would have to say that oakland raider fans are religious fanatics.

and secular humanism is not a belief system. it is thinking that morals and ethics are derived from common sense.

all of which is unknowable.

i've always thought the golden rule to be self centered. why treat other's as i wish to be treated when i can treat them as THEY wish to be treated?

The posts to this point have some interesting perspectives but of all of them, I'd Peter Pan's answer covers the broadest range of people, though I'm not sure it actually covers everyone. Certainly some scientists believe their beliefs are correct, but if they are well educated and 'believe' in a pure scietific approach then their beliefs are more than flexible as scietists welcome information that will prove their ideas wrong.

So my set of 'beliefs' about the commonality of beliefs is listed.

1. Beliefs are developed through direct interaction with our
environment.

2. Our beliefs influence our individual value systems.

3. Given number 2 above, our beliefs also guide our behavior.


4. Beliefs will either be rigid or flexible.

Man created God cause at that time they didn't have the education or technology to break down the molecular structure of life.So their only conclusion was that theres a powerful being/beings.Today and over time man has found skeletal remains and drawing on cave walls of how man evovled over the years but can't point it's finger at the point of origin.

So until someone does you still have the ones who choose to stay with the Creator theory.Me personally the creator theory is gibberish.

I think the latter would require intimate knowledge of others, which we have with some but not most

I dont know what 'strangers' want, so I gauge it with the knowledge of what I would like until I find out differently,,,,

Respect is a term that is often defined by an individual's culture. In collectivist cultures the term respect may have a different value depending on the hirarchy the culture uses.

In some collectivist cultures the individual 'respects' others before one's self while in individualist cultures, those in which Christianity tends to thrive, we think of self before others and hense we get something called the golden rule.

According to the golden rule we must obviously think of the self first before determining what respect should mean to another.

Personally, I think that'a a little backwards for if we genuinely want to show respect, we would be wiser to ask the others how we might show respect for them before considering our own way as being the best way.