Questions regarding the LOO, STS and Religions

[Monica]

Just look at the atheist movement. They're just as bad as the rest of people at admitting that their path is one of many. Some actually evangelize.

Oh yes, very true!

Religion to me is the cultural inheritance relating to spiritual evolution. Extremely mixed up with culture and politics.

Thank you for sharing your connotation. If we all keep in mind that what the other person is referring to when using the term, might not be the same as what we refer to when using the term, we can communicate better.

In here in bring4th, we see a strong willingness to accept and assist others. To me these are qualities I admire in saints. They are certainly not exclusive to saints, saints were just people like you and me. They made an impression certainly, but in the end this isn't knowledge that is monopolized, many of us get it. It doesn't take a theist to be a good person.

Agreed. Though I now find the idea of humans deciding which humans went to 'heaven' rather amusing. But yes, I understand what you mean by saint, St Ali!

Take the Law of One.. Considering her work as a channel, Carla is literally a prophet, isn't she? Different words, without the association of the dogmatic and terrible which we have with traditional religion. Why would those situations not be the same? We can hardly expect centuries of people to be able to express to us exactly what this or that prophet meant... Or even that these prophets were 100% accurate themselves.

Now there's a disconcerting thought! A few decades from now, the Law of One a religion and Carla a prophet! Yikes!

Since we'd be inevitably considered the 'followers' then that's all the more reason it would behoove us to do our best to keep the Law of One as free from distortion and dogma as possible.

So I guess it's a difference in how we name the thing. I don't have a big opinion of the hierarchical structures myself. I have a tremendous opinion of certain lessons. And certainly of certain people. But in the end we're all equals. We walk our own paths, and we must be our own experts. We can't go around handing our power away to every idea someone else has. The expectation of certain key people in those religions for the rest of us to do so. And our willingness to do so. Is the problem...

They must come down and if this damages the popularity of religions that's fine with me. You know me, I'm a pragmatist. And humanity is clearly more important than an institution.

Institutions come and go. Christianity, for example, seems so rock solid in our society, but it's only been around 2000 years. A blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things...

Those so inclined will find the pearls among the wreckage and build something less dogmatic. I'm with you on that one... But religion is not that one single simple thing it's a spectrum of experience. Different to different people.

Agreed. And a naturally volatile subject.

Never will religion to me mean that dogmatic shell of dirt that got wrapped around humanities most beautiful jewels. The dirt doesn't even come close to being near what we might call a true saint and literally feeling his prayer. That to me is religion.

We're dealing with semantics here. We're saying the same thing but using different terms, or, rather, the same term but in different ways.

The current head of my group (sounds official huh?) once told me as a teen he always thought of starting a religion he would call it "relaxitarianism" then he met the Sufi's and they were okay too! I guess we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously. Just do what we do with conviction... And have some fun along the way.

That reminds me of a book I saw, called F*** It. It was about that same idea, with some Buddhism thrown in.