mit Posted May 5, 2011 Report Share Posted May 5, 2011 hi all! hope you are all well. Can you believe in God and not religion. fateh mit 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xylitol Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 yep. many of the founding fathers of america beleived in deism. god with no organised religion 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalsingh101 Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 (edited) On the one hand, individual, personalised religion can help us avoid the more negative aspects associated with organised religion, but on the other, organised religion can also facilitate a powerful platform for people, especially when it comes to fighting oppression against heavy odds or trying to alter society for the better. Of course this can be abused to. Edited May 6, 2011 by dalsingh101 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kdsingh80 Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 hi all! hope you are all well. Can you believe in God and not religion. fateh mit A person can believe in god without any Religion ,but in the end he/she may end up creating his/her own Religion by choosing things which he likes.Many people searches do'es and don'ts in Religion but without Religion a person will only pick lifestyle which he like 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekhane'ch Jannat Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 No, it is wrong to believe in God but not in religion. Because an individual's religion is her own god. A Sikh believes in a formless nameless God, but it is the act of being a Sikh that makes a connection with this Unknown God. If the individual was not an acting Sikh or an acting Christian etc. then God would not know this individual because the individual does not make God exist in his and through his religion. This is why deism paved the way for modern scientific atheistic belief, the deists believed in a formless nameless God but they did not make this God Living but made him dead-seperate from themselves-too abstract. Because God can only become alive through a man living daily in true religion. Only at a later stage is it correct to dispense with religion. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalsingh101 Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 (edited) A person can believe in god without any Religion ,but in the end he/she may end up creating his/her own Religion by choosing things which he likes.Many people searches do'es and don'ts in Religion but without Religion a person will only pick lifestyle which he like Don't know about that. I've seen a few goray Sikh converts make statements that before they became Sikhs, they believed and practiced a lot of what they later discovered to be Sikhi. The way it appears to me is that humans generally seem weak and corruptible with the 5 vices (me included). When we mix with people in corporate religion, we witness this and it often corrupts the purity of the religious experience. Examples are being exposed to squabbling over dogma, corruption of Gurdwara committees, general hypocrisy, gossiping and bullshit politics at the Gurdwara. We we face this it can effect the personal religious experience detrimentally and give one a feeling of a charade taking place. Sometimes our own actions can make us feel this way! But thankfully (to me) a large measure of Sikhi is personal and individual (the praying and naam simran), so one can easily transcend the external human tainting - as for our own flaws, that's another matter..... No, it is wrong to believe in God but not in religion. Some people have little choice when confronted with a corrupted corporate religion. I think it is better to sincerely believe in and worship God without religion (AND living ethically), than not to believe. Edited May 6, 2011 by dalsingh101 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekhane'ch Jannat Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 Some people have little choice wen confronted with a corrupted corporate religion. I think it is better to sincerely believe in and worship God without religion Everything in the world is corrupt why should religion be any different? By rejecting all forms of religion because they are corrupt is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Religion has to be uncorrupted by true believers. I'd like to ask how is it possible to worship God without religion? By religion I mean a structure a person adopts or fits himself into by which he approximates his doings to the great unseen plan of a higher consciousness. Let us say Sikhi is a religion, according to my definition, would it be possible to worship God without following Sikhi? Somehow i doubt that it is possible. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Sardar Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 (edited) Guru sahib were free thinkers and taught us to be they broke us away from pandits and brahmins. Why do we turn to these new brahmins of gianis. Sikhi has failed in many ways to be an organised religion because the politics side of it have failed in punjab and heavy corruption. Alot of people are stabbing into organised religion like Christianity and the wars it had crusades, paedophilia, war in Iraq/Afghanistan, imperialism, hate kill gays, killing witches (those who practice witchcraft), having mistresses/concubines in the past. Hinduism went to its utmost geographical borders through brahminsm. Islam a young religion has spread very far and is looking to spread more. As for five vices this is an old teaching everywhere it is in India, in buddhism, in islam as nafs. Alot of religion in the west is cherry picking choosing bits and pieces because entire religions don't work doing bibbek bhuddhi and wearing a chola with a huge kirpan and dhamalla in the west is hard, sikhs draw the line at some point. The esoteric teachings of sikhi were around in India in one shape or another in the past. Thing is religion is abit of a race it defines a set of people you mix with have kids with like animals the tribe you walk with your heard so at this moment it is very hard being sikh and people are leaving sikhi and some people are comming in at the same time. 3ho have a weird way of looking at sikhi like hippie harekrishna kind of way, in the past sikhism and harekrishna would have been very pagan for them as christians something they would have hated and the shift towards hating islam is more to do with relating it with paganism however it is very christian in nature and alot of christians are converting to islam. Sikhs issues with islam is more to do with slavery, concubines- women picking, abusing indians. The founders of america were freemasons who tried to invent standards different from chrisitanity alot of people were fedup at that point. Then they have shaped and shifted christianity towards a set of beliefs they like and all over the world christianity has changed with time kind of like how sufis tried to change islam but everytime sufis have not had a big effect through philisophy they have changed alot though like the strictness of shariah laws in many islamic countries. Edited May 6, 2011 by sarbatdapala 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kdsingh80 Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 Don't know about that. I've seen a few goray Sikh converts make statements that before they became Sikhs, they believed and practiced a lot of what they later discovered to be Sikhi. I think the points they were mentioning are All humans are equal,women equality,sewa ,may be vegetarianism .I am sure none of them were practicing not cutting hair ,not eating specifically halal or specific ban on tobacco 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalsingh101 Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 (edited) I think the points they were mentioning are All humans are equal,women equality,sewa ,may be vegetarianism .I am sure none of them were practicing not cutting hair ,not eating specifically halal or specific ban on tobacco Some of them did mention not cutting their hair. But no, I'm not trying to say they completely followed SRM without knowing it. Just that there was frequently lots of overlap. These days in the west you do get a lot of people who claim that spirituality is very important to them but not religion. They were the kind I was talking about. Everything in the world is corrupt why should religion be any different? By rejecting all forms of religion because they are corrupt is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I understand your point. But the truth is that people often go into religion to experience some intangible notion of 'purity' that alleviates them from the common everyday worldly experience (which is perceived as besmirching). When interacting with the entity of the organised religion itself becomes a very part of the worldly besmirching that they are seeking to transcend, it's no surprise that they back away from it. I see it a lot with RCs in relation to the mass pedophilia that takes place in their institutes. I find the very personal nature of simran and prayer in Sikhi a good antidote to this. So hypothetically, no matter how corrupt our institutes might become, I can always draw on them without having to seriously engage with the theoretical manifestation of a corrupted corporate religion. Now I presume RCs couldn't do this because of the centrality of formal confession in their faith? Plus people could counter your bathwater argument by saying no, they were actually throwing out the dirty bathwater and preserving the baby by following a non-institutionalised form of God worship. That being said (as I alluded to previously), organised religion can also be a super powerful device to unite humans and focus their energies to a common goal. Like how our faith overcame oppression in the 1700s. Purely individualised worship seems to forgo this. So it has it's disadvantages too. Edited May 6, 2011 by dalsingh101 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Sardar Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 (edited) All I will say is the biggest issues in modern society have is with kakkars mainly kesh and kirpan kakkar as well as dastar. With kirpan kakkar even sikhs will say you are carrying a knife with the special problems with knife crime. The issue is other people abusing that law. We can argue that builders carry tools or chefs have knifes or people have other weapon like object it is not the object itself but the intention of it and legally it is never to be used as an offensive weapon. With turbans alot of media does not potray that fashion. Edited May 6, 2011 by sarbatdapala 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kdsingh80 Posted May 6, 2011 Report Share Posted May 6, 2011 These days in the west you do get a lot of people who claim that spirituality is very important to them but not religion. They were the kind I was talking about. It is obvious Religion comes with does and don'ts while you are free to pick the spirituality you like.Also in west after living materialistic lifestyle from teenage people don't find happiness and then they found it in spirituality .Then there is lot of anti religion propaganda by the media so I am not surprised that people are more attracted to spirituality now is it any wonder so many indian baba's run to west to open their shops of spirituality while Christian missionaries run to India and Africa to find more converts 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xylitol Posted May 7, 2011 Report Share Posted May 7, 2011 spirituality devoid of the structure of organised religion lacks discernment. feel good visualisation techniques are being passed off as methods to gain enlightenment. people with no avastha (and therefore no ability to accurately judge) pick and choose spiritual techniques to become enlightened. unfortunately, how nice something makes us feel is not an accurate indicator of its spiritual usefulness. this lack of knowledge is made clear through the popularity of fluff like 'the secret'. these kinds of reasons (plus the chance to get Amrit) are why i moved on from non-religious spirituality to Sikhi. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalsingh101 Posted May 7, 2011 Report Share Posted May 7, 2011 Enlightenment seems to get packaged and sold a lot these days, complete with some bloke selling it to you through some process of 'techniques'. Marketing the ineffable. It still feels like a level of detachment from corporate religious practices is healthy or maybe it's more to do with my personal unsocial predilection? Who knows??? I do know that there is nothing more tiresome than the 'technically perfect religious person', who dogmatically follows every last prescript, yet still manages to have no soul or heart?? I find that strange to the extreme. I think such people work as the opposite to magnets in terms of attracting people to faith based lives. I'd bet they play a large role in many people preferring some gaseous spirituality over the organised kind? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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