Religion is Self-Improvement if you Leave Out The Non-Sense

(Image created by A.I. DALL-E)

If you approach religious text the same way as you do with any other text, meaning that you take in what make sense and leave out the non-sense, what you're left with is a self-improvement philosophy. Religion is the predecessor of the self-improvement genre and if you leave out the non-sense you're usually left with something that can add value to your life if followed.

Lets talk about the Bible...

The Bible includes a lot of fluff because it's a combination of common beliefs that existed at the time the religious text was created. If Jesus and his followers were alive today the Bible would look very different.

It was common for Romans, for example, to sacrifices to their many Gods hence why it's not that surprising that the Bible includes stories of such sacrifices and talks about the benefits of it. 

The theory of creationism first originated in the 5th century B.C. and was a subject of discussion at the time of Christ.

The Bible has stories of incest because it wasn't considered a taboo at the time. It is said that Julius Caesar had relations with his mother.

A lot of fluff that has either been debunked or is no longer relevant yet I would argue that, if you remove it all, you're still left with something that's worth reading/understanding. The Golden Rule, The 10 Commandments, Book of Proverbs... there's still value here for those looking to better themselves.

If you're a student of life then don't turn your back on Religious text simply because you don't agree with parts of it. The people that created those documents put a lot of efforts into making something that stood the test of time and some of that foundation is not only still relevant today but also used in such genres as Self-Improvement.

"A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much."

-Proverb 20:19

Hedonists Are Selfish

“Pleasure does not bring happiness; it only brings an increasing hunger for more pleasure.”

-Orrin Woodward

This blog is an extension of a blog I've made back in 2017 related to the differences between  Pleasure, Happiness and Joy.

According to Wikipedia, "Hedonism is the view that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and that pain is the only intrinsic bad." Hedonists, or those that follows the Hedonism lifestyle, are likely to be selfish because pleasure seekers are hungry for the things that give them pleasures. Having a hungry mind is like being physically hungry - you can't think clearly until that need is fulfilled. If the mind is busy with fulfilling its own, albeit artificial, need then there's no room to think about anything, or anyone, else.

Pleasure leads to addictions and it's difficult for us to consider this a bad thing because it feels good for us to do "it". Being able to identify, and remove, the things that cloud our minds can go a long way in making us a better, less selfish, person. 

Pleasure/Addiction is what prevent us from truly living a fulfilling life. Don't sacrifice long term fulfillment for short term pleasures.

Religion Is Love

I was at a funeral not too long ago and the priest said something that stuck with me. He said that the most important thing you can learn in this life is how to love.

Religion is meant to be a guide on how to achieve love. One of the most famous quote of the bible is Matthew 22:39 that says "And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

Most of the 10 Commandments, for example, are a reflection of love:

• 4 - “Honor thy father and mother.”
• 5 - “Thou shalt not kill.”
• 6 - “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
• 7 - “Thou shalt not steal.”
• 8 - “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
• 9 - “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”
• 10 - “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”

Some people consider themselves Christians but are quick to place judgement on those that have a different sexual orientation than the norm. They will say things like "My God is saying that what you do is a Sin".

Your God is also saying that you should love your neighbor.

Your God is also saying that only God can judge.

We need to stop pretending that the Bible, and other religious texts, are about hatred as this isn't the case. We have to stop using religion as an outlet for our hatred. We hate because we don't know how to love - not because religion thought us how to hate because it doesn't.

Where do I stand on religion:
When I read religious texts, I approach it from a philosophical perspective because I consider them philosophical work rather than words of a God. When ever I talk about religion, I have both positive and negative things to say about it. I don't believe everything that I read from any religion.

I want to be the best person that I can be a parts of religious texts are helping me with this.

Beyond Self-Help

I've been consuming self-help type of materials for the better part of 10 years. In the last few years there's been a shift in my thinking that made me want more "meat" out of my self-improvement diet. The nicely packaged quotes and processes were no longer enough to sustain me.
While I haven't turned my back on the self-help genre, I have now included more of the below subjects in order to define my own path rather than follow someone else's. The subjects are:

• Philosophy - The study of fundamental truths, which includes religion/spirituality, is Self-Improvement in it's "raw" form. It's undigested information and that may be difficult to read for those just starting out on their Self-Improvement journey.
  "Living issues in Philosophy" book by author Harold Titus and Marilyn Smith is a great place to start as it will introduce you to many great thinkers and ideas.
• Psychology - One of the most important thing about success is the understanding of self. Once you understand yourself, you have a better understanding of others which will prove to be a great asset to you on your success journey.
  "Personality PLUS" book by Flaurence Littauer is a great place to start as learning about personalities will help you better understand yourself as well as others.
• History - History can provide perspective and inspiration. It's even better if it is combined with Philosophy and Psychology as it help understand the reasoning behind the action of the great men and women of the past.
  Here, you may want to start looking for information about the person of history that you're most interested in. For me, it started with an "Alexander the Great" biography closely followed by "Ghost on the Throne - The death of Alexander the Great and the bloody fight for the empire his empire" book by James Romm.

While there are no particular order for which subject you should start with I would recommend that you save History for after you've developed an understanding of Philosophy and Psychology as you'll get the most out of your history reading that way. The goal here is simply to find your path towards success and the above subjects, mixed with your own experience, are sure to help.

We've Made Christianity Ugly!

The Christian religion (and others), which is ultimately meant to be a way to achieve inner peace, has become nothing more than an ugly business for personal gains and abuse: I’m tired of it all!

Ultimately, there are 3 categories the Christian religion business falls into. Those are:

• Legal/Official - Include the papal and all of its derivative. Have a look at the buildings the high officials lives in and tell me the Christian religion isn’t a business. It makes for a pretty ugly business when you consider the years of abuse, by priests, that's been happening all over the place.
• Entertainment - Joel Osteen, John Gray are religious personalities that profit heavily from their “service”.
• Scam - The likes of Peter Popoff who asks audiences to pay thousands of dollars to see live miracles. These are the worst of the bunch since there are doing it solely for the purpose of making money and their services generally lacks any real Biblical content.

While I understand that some of the money earned has to go towards paying one’s bills - it’s not supposed to be paying off 5k shoes, fancy cars and mansions.
Is it so bad for me to expect preachers to be living a similar lifestyle than Jesus did? Or at least have a similar lifestyle than the average person listening to the sermon?
Some may see this as jealousy, and maybe in a way it is, but it's also common sense to me. The expectation of the money given to a Church is that it will fund worthy causes - not pay off someone's Rolex.

What is perhaps the most ironic in all of this is that we keep selling religion as this beautiful thing but it is the cause of many evils in our history. There were times when women were burnt for religious sake, we fought wars in the name of it and committed all sorts of lewd acts under its protection.
These are hardly the history one wants to remember on his path of inner peace but it is there non the less.

Knowledge and Communication

We all have all the knowledge in the world at our fingertips but it doesn't seem to make us any better people. I would argue that having this “power” has made us more arrogant than ever. We never seem to approach communication with a spirit of understanding but rather a spirit of “I know more than you - here let me show you”.

“All great victories in life begin with a victory over self.” -Orrin Woodward

Arrogance doesn't add value: It sucks out the life of a conversation. What, then, is require for us to become better conversationalists? To me, it is clear that simply having access to all the knowledge in the world isn't enough. We must also spend the time to learn about ourselves and how to interact with others. What's the point of knowing the distance between the Earth and the Moon when we can't share this information in a spirit of understanding?

One of the best communicator to ever live was Socrates. He communicated by asking questions to not only better understand the subject himself but also share his thoughts through this approach. What better way to gain understanding than to have the communication filled with questions on both sides? It does sound better than simply sharing facts doesn't it?

Let's be more like Socrates in our conversations.

Believe in Anything

I was once told that the problem with those that don't believe in God is not that they don't believe in anything it's that they believe in everything.

I don't believe this statement to be true. There are plenty of God believers that have just as far fetched beliefs as the non believers. Haven't you heard of these parents who decided to pray to heal their child instead of seeking medical care? Or how about those believers paying 10 000$ to attend a church service by a known scam artist?

Don't be silly. Being stupid is not a matter of if you're religious or not.

Inform and Affirm - The Religious Debate are Futile

"We don't look for information to inform us. We look for information to affirm us." -Daniel R. Castro

The debate between 2 religious group (or atheist vs religion) is a futile one since both party don't try to understand each other - they try to affirm themselves. They're not looking to change their views as much as the views of the other person.

"We tend to overlook, ignore or discount real, tangible, concrete evidence when it goes against our beliefs." -Daniel R. Castro

Life’s Secret Purpose

Life is about choosing how we’ll be remembered. Let’s face it, we’re all going to die. What makes it interesting is that we don’t know when it’s going to happen.

If our goal is to be remembered as someone who was nice. We have to make great efforts to be nice with everyone we meet, it might be our last chance to be remembered as a nice person with that person.

What ever the goal is, it’s important to start now. The clock is ticking.

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Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on October 3, 2010 and can be found here.

Fitting In

For as long as I can remember, I always had issues with "Fitting in" and for the longest time it affected me negatively.

"Don't copy what others are doing and thinking. You'll conquer more-and be truer to yourself-when you put in the emotional investment to be different." -Dan Waldschmidt

Today I now see that my "Fitting in" issues was a blessing in disguised. There's value in originality. Here's the thing; everybody that said "you're different" never meant it in a negative way. Different doesn't necessarily mean better - but it does mean "interesting".

"Being different is in itself success. Why? Because most of us have a hard time being different." -Dan Waldschmidt

Be your own person!

When Did Humans become Aware of themselves?

While reading a paragraph on self in the book "Living Issues In Philosophy - Sixth Edition" by authors Harold H. Titus & Marilyn S. Smith, I started to wonder when did we first developed this self-awareness?

What is Self-Awareness?
According to http://www.yourdictionary.com/, self-awareness is a person's knowledge of themselves and their worth as a person.

When did we first inherited it?
According to the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve became "aware" after eating from the Tree of Knowledge - which is fine but I would like a more scientific side of it based on the theory of evolution.

The man of today is very different than the monkey counterpart in terms of mind and thinking. At which point, of the evolutionary process, did man start to be aware of himself? The popular belief is that it developed over time once our ancestors started using tools while others believe it was when we started to have the desire to communicate with each other.

What have you heard on the origin of Self-Awareness?

Religions and The Many Sins

According to the Bible, same sex relationship is a sin... but so is divorce, adultery, lying, stealing (etc)… Before pointing out the leaks in someone else's boat, you might want to look at your own first.

“...He that is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her.” (John 8:7 KJV) – I know of no man that is without sin. No stones should ever be thrown at anybody accused of a sin. Do not point out someone else's sin since you are not responsible for their judgment. You're responsible for your own judgment; focus on your own issues.

If you claim to be a man of God then “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Golden Rule – Luke 6:31) and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31 NIV).

Be the example that you want to see in the world instead of pointing out what others are doing wrong (by attempting to force your morals on them). There should be no hate for our neighbors, only love.

Atheist Definition by John Locke

Locke felt that a person who calls himself an “atheist” is merely confessing that he has never dealt with the issue of the Creator’s existence. Therefore, to Locke an atheist would be to that extend “irrational,” and out of touch with reality; in fact, out of touch with the most important and fundamental reality.
-Page 96 of “The 5000 year leap, Principles of Freedom 101” by author “W. Cleon Skousen”

Religion teaches how to be a good person. It makes you look at yourself and put in evidence what needs to change to become the best you that you can be.

You can say “I don’t need this, I’m nice already”. According to you; you are. But who are you to come up with such judgment?

Hope is Wrong?

"Don’t get your hopes up, you might get hurt." Is that familiar to you as it is for me? A life without hope is a hopeless life.

Is the hurt after the hope so great that we shouldn't have hope in the first place?

Nothing great was ever achieve without hope. To hope is to have something to look forward to, it’s to risk being hurt but the risk is worth taking.

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Originally posted - November 2010

If you're not Religious then you better be Educated

I do agree that religion provides a simple explanation to things that we don't understand. By saying "God did it" we can dust the problem off and move on to something else.
Science, on the other hand, is trying to understand the problems rather than giving the "God Excuse". However, someone who says "I believe in science" but does not know anything about the problem is not better off than the person who simply said "God did it".

"The important thing is not what you believe in but knowing why you believe what you believe." -Tim Marks

In my head, science and religion are both valid. Science is to understand the universe while religion contain principles worth following in order to live in harmony with others.

Too Much to Think About

Some of you may have noticed that I missed a couple of blogging days. All I’ve been reading, in the past couple weeks, is the bible.
While there’s a lot to talk about on the matter, there’s also a lot to think about and right now I’m just trying to figure out the scriptures.
Fear not my friends, more is coming.

On another note, feel free to log in to my Facebook to see pictures/video of my recent adventures with some amazing friends! :)

Phew!

Alright, I usually write a few blogs beforehand when ever I have time to do so and I haven’t had the chance lately.

I spent the last couple of days praying about some personal issues of mine currently going on in my life. I want God to help me not to remove my problems but to make me stronger for them. It’s not that I have big problems, it’s just that I don’t know how to deal with them.
I know what I logically need to do but my feelings tell me otherwise and for me to do what logic says is hard when feelings gets in the way.

Hakuna Matata right?

Faith Theory: Why Faith Is Decreasing

Some of you will say “Of course it’s less popular today, people know better”. Regardless of what your belief is, it’s important to know why you believe what you believe.

I read that the devil works it’s hardest during “alone time”. Following this, with all the technology out there, wouldn’t you say that we’re more alone today than we used to be? Could it be related with the decrease in faith?

The bible is all about “Helping your neighbor/How to help your neighbor”.If there’s no “neighbor”, per say,then how could someone seek to get better at helping a neighbor they don’t have.
If people are more often alone, how will they ever come to want to become better for the sake of the people around them?

I came to faith when I wanted to become better for the people around me, that’s the only way I know. I wouldn’t have come to faith if I wouldn’t have had people around me that I cared about.

To me, this theory is more of a self-examination.

I’m Not God

I know I probably shocked all of my 3 readers with the title, but I’m not God. What I mean by that is that I’m not right all the time and I know that. Only God can be right because he possess all the facts.
There’s a saying that goes like this “A Man with a fact is never at the mercy of a man with an opinion.”
So why is it that we think we’re right? We don’t just wake up in the morning and tell ourselves “I’m going to be wrong today”.

The bible says that we were made in the image of God. Since God is never wrong, it’s normal for us to think like that. However, like mentioned before, God as all the facts, we have (more often than not) opinions.

Bible: The Cheat Sheet of Life

Instead of walking life with the thought of knowing everything, I now walk knowing that I don’t know anything. Which, in return, teach me a lot of things about everything. It’s like a kid who ask all sort of questions.

To bring that thought to religion, I learned that society didn’t really changed over the years and that the principles found in the bible can still be applied today. I see the bible as being a cheat sheet for life. Since we only have one chance at life, wouldn’t it be best to try to do it as best as we possibly can?

One of the most common lessons/verse, often ignored, is the golden rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12). Now why would someone apply such a rule in his life? If you want to have successful relationships, people need to like you.
How do you make them like you? By treating them the way you would like to be treated (respect, love, feeling of appreciation, etc...). If I make you feel good, do you want to hang around me more or less?

The bible doesn’t give direct answers, it gives pointers. In this case, it didn’t say “People like it when you do this, this and this.” It just said “Treat others the way you like to be treated” which, logically, brings the question “How do I like to be treated?”. By focusing on the question, you come to learn a lot about yourself.

Most people now days will die without knowing who they really are because they never asked themselves those questions.

Now you could say something like “I don’t need the bible to ask myself that kind of question”. It’s true, you don’t but what are the chances that you’re going to ask yourself such question without a manual?

Before the bible, I never really asked myself anything.

“Wisdom Is applying biblical principals into your life.” -Orrin Woodwards