What a nice, honest post Caloona, and I love the way you express your "friendship" with Christ. How important AND such a wonderful way to put it. Thanks for sharing.

I've been reading the posts about people questioning whether they'd be willing to die for their faith. It certainly is the ultimate measure.
Baha'is in Iran have been persecuted since the beginning of the Baha'i faith, and it got worse after the 1979 Khomeini revolution. (Some of the Moslem clergy have got it in their minds that the Baha'i Faith is a heretical sect of Islam, which would be like saying that Christianity is a heretical sect of Judaism.) Their citizen rights were taken away, meaning they can't leave the country (no passports) and their children can't attend college. Their property is routinely confiscated, they've been routinely imprisoned and tortured and killed. You may have heard about it over the past 20 years. Baha'is don't have clergy, just elected Assemblies of 9 members, and for a couple of years, the Assembly were all imprisoned and killed until the international assembly told them to quit electing assemblies.
There are Baha'is in my community who escaped with their lives, many whose relatives and friends have all been killed. I met some who as children strapped themselves underneath sheep and went over the border into Pakistan that way. There's a famous story about a 15-year-old girl named Mona who taught children's classes in Teheran, and she was imprisoned, and tortured and eventually put to death in the 1980s because she wouldn't recant her faith.
I think it's always a question worth asking oneself, whether or not you'd give your life for your beliefs. If not, why not?
I heard from others that when a Baha'i did recant, the Moslem prison guard would say, "You're a liar." and kill them anyway.
The lesson here is that if you're a Baha'i in Iran and you don't want to die, then you shouldn't be a Baha'i. The clergy has been trying to exterminate them, but they're as strong as they ever were.

Unfortunately the history of the world is full of similar stories, people being persecuted and killed because they weren't the "right" religion. Too many people "validate" their belief system by annihilating the disbelievers.

It's not 'just' religion though. On a deeper level, it's love that leads humans to kill our own species. Love of country, love of money, love of drugs, love of a woman or a man, love of a friend, love of family and love of God among other magnificent osessions all lead people to kill. Love is so valuable and so fragile that we are compelled to defend it even to the point of killing others of our kind.

Religion as a series of rituals addressing the deepest human need for love at the spiritual level serves to organize the innate urge to defend love at its source.

Just thoughts.

smile

You raise an interesting point. At first I was going to say that I can't see real _love_ as being responsible for anything bad. But then when reading your examples, I notieced that it's love of material things rather than spiritual things, like love of truth, love of beauty, love of justice, love of harmony. The problem is in where we direct our attention.
Otherwise I would have said that it's ego (or love of self I guess) that's the real problem. With regard to religion, too, I think that when people become involved in "religious" strife, that's a misinterpretation of what true religion is. What we're really saying is that politics (love of self and love of power) intrudes into religion, then problems arise. So when people wage wars in the name of religion, that's an oxymoron. True religions (as opposed to movements started by charismatic leaders, like Maher Baba, Sun Yung Moon, Jim Jones, etc.) have always taught the Golden Rule. The others teach "worship ME."

It seems to me that all forms of love have tremendous value and yet is the source of much killing. Even the types of love you describe lead to killing. People have killed just to possess great art and the religious wars seem to be in defense of varying version of truth. Many people have been killed to exact justice in the form of revenge and often people fight to preserve the peace or harmony as they see and love it.

I see the love of family, friends, country, and God as different from love of material things such as money, drugs, etc. Self love is probably the source of much destruction, but it too is still love and in its finest form a part of loving others.

There is a finite, but important difference between religion and worship and between religion and spirit. To me, religion is a complex spiritual management system made up of rituals that can easily be corrupted in the indivudual spirit.

Interesting discussion.

smile

<small>[ January 11, 2004, 12:50 PM: Message edited by: smilinize ]</small>

Boy, one day off the boards and I missed so much. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

I'm all the way back to Caloona and then I'll catch up.

I love your thoughts about rules and friendships. Great perspective.

You also mentioned that the Word wasn't on fire. There was a time in my life when the Word wasn't on fire for me either. FOrtunately, and I guess it's part of my journey, the WOrd is on fire for me now and I couldn't live without it.

I believe the Word wasn't on fire for me because I wasn't in it enough. I heard it in church and read what I had to if I was in a Bible study, read my daily, tear off calendars, but that was it.

A few years ago I attended a retreat for women held by another church. I was away from all my regular church women and other things started clicking for me. Maybe I had to be out of my element, but it was from that retreat that I chose to carry a golden nugget that I continue to carry today. BE IN THE WORD. That did it for me. Now I read the Bible for the shear enjoyment of reading and staying focused. I'm no scholar by any means. Still never read it from cover to cover either, so there's still so much to learn. It always speaks directly to me and I've found it to be the only book that I can go to for guidance regardless of the topic.

I never intend to sound preachy, but just thought I'd share how the Word truly became alive for me.

Like I tell my kids:
If you want to know more about someone, something, a period in time, whatever...go to the library, get online, research, read, read, read.

Well, I decided I wanted to know more about Jesus Christ so that's what I do. I find pictures of Him, books, articles, and read the Bible to learn His ways so they can become mine as much as possible. Onward, I continue on this journey.
Rambling!

I agree that going to the source and reading and meditating on the creative Word is key. After all, we have a rational soul, and we need to use it to learn about God. And we're each responsible for the growth of our own soul.
Smile, I'm not sure what distinctin you're making between religion, spirit and worship. Religion is what Christ taught. It's what He said to be, how He said you should behave, to relate to God.
I don't agree that religion is about ritual. Ritual is about imitating other people, not about thinking for oneself or believing for oneself and not about being in a relationship with the Creator. There's something about ritual that I find scary because it's so unthinking.
And what you're calling a love that leads to killing, I would call passion. Or, as you said, obsession. What's that passage that goes, "Love is not boastful..."?

I guess I'm just getting into semantics with all that religion/spirit stuff. I heard a sermon on it recently so I'm probably coming from that.

I just looked up religion in my dictionary and here's what I found.

Religtion: The outward act or form by which men indicate their recognition of the existence of a god or of gods having power over their destiny, to whom obedience, service, and honor are due; the outward expression of human love, fear, or awe of some superhuman and overruling power, whether by profession of belief, by observance of rites and ceremonies, or by the conduct of life; a system of faith and worship; a manifestation of piety; as, ethical religions; monotheistic religions; natural religion; revealed religion; the religion of the Jews; the religion of idol worshipers.

n. Specifically, conformity in faith and life to the precepts inculcated in the Bible.

n. A monastic or religious order subject to a regulated mode of life; the religious state; as, to enter religion.

n. Strictness of fidelity in conforming to any practice, as if it were an enjoined rule of conduct.

The definition seems close to what I thought I was saying. I meant that one can conform to a practice and observe rites and ceremonies in an outward expression of piety and honor as in 'religion' without ever having experfienced a change in the spirit. Seems like real love occurs in the spirit, not in rites and ceremonies or outward expressions.

You're right about real love as described in the Bible. But that must be agape love to which human kind can only strive, but never consistently achieve. Human love seems so terribly imperfect and certainly seems to contain an element of self love which is possibly what leads to wars, etc.

Interesting stuff.

smile

"...one can conform to a practice and observe rites and ceremonies in an outward expression of piety and honor as in 'religion' without ever having experfienced a change in the spirit."

Isn't this precisely what's been wrong with the practicers of religion? People go through the motions, but never feel the spirit. To me, if the spirit isn't moved, it's not religion, but an empty shell.

"You're right about real love as described in the Bible. But that must be agape love to which human kind can only strive, but never consistently achieve."

I thought Agape was brotherly love, and something that's possible for us all to achieve? Maybe what's more difficult is spiritual love.