rant on religion

So tonight I had the pleasure of being invited to participate in a discussion on spirituality, representing the Hindu religious denomination. The first portion of this spiritual presentaiton was by 2 psychologists on wellness. The second portion consisted of about 8 panelists from Catholicism, Asian-American Christian Fellowship, the Duhai religion and student org, Muslim Student Association, and the Hindu Student Council.

Each of these faiths introduced their religions, such as main tenets, and then went on to talk about how their religion addressed the issue of spirituality. I found much of the spiritual material to be common across all the faiths. I guess this is where the similarities end and the differences start to appear.

The biggest issue was that the Duhai, Hindu, and perhaps some of the others led to the same God. Much to my dismay, the Catholic representative reffered to his God as the Christian God. I guess this difference leads me to my rant.

Can we take pride in our religions?
And merely by speaking about them, are we advertising them?
Do we want people to join our religion more than we want them to find happiness or more than we want them to find God?

It almost sickens me to find elitism in some religions. My main pet peeve is the recruitment process or the need for people to convert to their religion. Some people might be okay with others being of a different religon but deeply they find their own way is not necessarily just right but more right.

Everyone agrees that politics gave many religions, specifically Christianity and Islam, a bad rap. Think of all the fundamentalist movements of yesterday and today. Regardless, it is still accepted that religion can and will be a cause for more war and more terror due to differences in creed rather than faith.

I guess I want to be the individual to ask the reason/need for so many religions. Well to those who believe in God, God is of divine importance (obviously). To almost thank him for our existence, we must worship him by prayer and praising him. (Sorry about not capitalizing the him's)

As long as we can't explain everything and there's something left to the unknown, there will always the supernatural. I have a feeling as long as we retain the classification of human there will always be something fundamentally unknown (like for instance how we got here in the first place). Since this supernatural force or dark matter is all around us and conceptually quite powerful (since we can't understand it or control it), we might as well praise it then piss it off.

So I'm assuming people all around the world separated by all the geographical boundaries, ultimately came to this conclusion that they should worship God. Each of these groups had their own language, culture, heritage, and traditions. Thus the word God is going to be different in every language and due to the limitations of language, God and fundamental tenets of the religion will vary. Since this variance is already there since the beginning, time will change these tenets (even creeds) even more.

I believe it is man's modern need to categorize everything that creates these differences in religion despite the fact that they all lead to God. The beauty of all this and religion is that it starts off divergently (from the same God) but has the ability and tendency to be convergent. Unfortunately, we're stuck in the middle, right after the divergence and right before the convergence. This is why we have to deal with the differences. Should we even have to deal with them?

I still can't get the idea out of my head that religions practically advertise. Christians still try to actively convert people of other faiths. I guess it is inherently okay if you think about it; they are trying to save non-Christians from going to hell. Its more of peer pressure or rather societal pressure. They often give incentives and other forms of corruption exist for conversion. In India, Islam was forced onto many but I guess I should accept it with all of military history.

On to another subject, Hinduism, possibly other religions as well, defined as a way of life. If someone grew up in a secluded village in India and lived their life well, would they be Hindu? What if they prayed and never heard the term Hinduism, would they be Hindu? What if they hadn't read any of the scriptures, would they be Hindu? What if they read everything, did everything, but did not believe in a fundamental creed (e.g. Jesus as the savior, Muhammad as the prophet), would they still be of that faith? Only God could judge these sorts of things and decided whether they are to join Him or to come back to Earth/go to hell.

Hmm I'll add more things as I remember them....