Religion: What it means to you

Well, to risk derailing the topic further down than the first page, I'm just going to answer the question with a little story:

I had a spiritual moment this morning that was rather trancendental. Through some knowledge of Buddism, Hebrew world-view at the time of Jesus, and the Christianity I was raised in, I made some massive connections.

OK, first, the Hebrew worldview: At the time of Jesus (and before) the view was that the World was God, as opposed to the more modern view (at least as I've been raised) of the World and God being two separate entities. Therefore the World is a holy thing. It is holy for two reasons: it IS God and it was created by God. If it's holy because God created it, then LIFE ITSELF is a holy thing, because it was created by God.

When I realized this, I realized that everything is holy. That's where the Buddism comes in, because if everything is holy, then everything is one. If everything is one, then polytheism is merely an expression of different aspects of God (which Christianity has to begin with, it just doesn't label it polytheism.) Therefore, any form of worship that does no harm to yourself or the world in general (you know, the holy things) is valid.

On that note, see that Wiccan and Native American belief systems are much closer to the original Christian worldview than the modern one. Now, I'm not going to claim that, by virtue of this, man is a god, simply that man, the life of man, and the living of that life are all holy things.

We are all parts of ourselves. Our death is part of ourselves, but to bring about death of yourself or another is to cause harm to the holy.



Am I crazy or does this actually make sense?

Jam it back in, in the dark.