Can there be New Ways of Understanding and Practicing Ancient Religious Teachings?

[Belacqua]

Islam isn't the most progressive ideology, but I still think it would be interesting if there were some kind of "update" for it, although I would not want it to go the same way as mainstream Christianity.

Yes, very much so.

I think one of the main problems with modern Christianity is that it has adapted too much to an alienating society. Christians who declare that Jesus wanted us to be capitalists and to pass judgment on people unlike ourselves (thereby alienating them) seem (in my opinion) to have completely jettisoned the original message. 

But this is always the way it goes -- reformers and modernizers nearly always claim to be recovering something old that has been lost.

[Ahriman]

Modern Christianity is shit. I would have to imagine it's always been a weird religion, attracting misfit-type people since the beginning. But its modern incarnation really makes you think Christianity is some kind of mental illness. I don't care (very much) that people like Joel Osteen have made more money than they know what to do with, by telling people what they want to hear. I don't approve of it, but that kind of shit has always been happening. What bothers me, is that there doesn't seem to be any actual authenticity to any of this stuff. It's just "positive thinking" (barf) and telling people they will have what they want, no matter what. God does not care if you get what you want, in fact He would prefer if you didn't.

[Belacqua]

Modern Christianity is shit. I would have to imagine it's always been a weird religion, attracting misfit-type people since the beginning. But its modern incarnation really makes you think Christianity is some kind of mental illness. I don't care (very much) that people like Joel Osteen have made more money than they know what to do with, by telling people what they want to hear. I don't approve of it, but that kind of shit has always been happening. What bothers me, is that there doesn't seem to be any actual authenticity to any of this stuff. It's just "positive thinking" (barf) and telling people they will have what they want, no matter what. God does not care if you get what you want, in fact He would prefer if you didn't.

100% agree. Sad but true.

[Leonardo17]

Ahriman:


“Islam isn't the most progressive ideology, but I still think it would be interesting if there were some kind of "update" for it, although I would not want it to go the same way as mainstream Christianity.”
 
- That’s what I am trying to explain here indeed. Just as there are some very modern / scientific minded Christians in this world, there are some of us who value reason and factual reality above ordinary dogmatism among us too.
 
And when you do that, the religious doctrine or dogma (the set of rules and rituals that are to be followed blindly without any question) can become an area of spiritual freedom and philosophical possibilities that provide positive results like a new sense of self-definition and methods of self-growth or self-discipline that can be very valuable on an individual level.
 
And this last phenomenon is also the bait that are used to recruit people into some spiritual sects and/or distorted / outdated forms of religious. Many of them will end up feeling superior because they have access to these “spiritual” issues and others do not.
 
My answer to that is: “All of God’s children are special. None of God’s children are special” (This is rom A Course in Miracles).
 
Belaqua:

---

 
This is a bit too deep for me. The spiritual feeling of “being in this world without being of it” is a bit different. This is a level of spiritual enlightenment actually.
 
Did you ever wonder why it is that most people are always looking for the next good thing without ever being of enjoying what we have in the present moment?
 
One example: The super-rich are people who can go anywhere they want and have great holydays in whatever ultra-luxurious beach resort they want. But in order to feel alive they do things like paying Elon Musk in order to be able to have space-holydays.
 
And that’s perfectly normal: Our inner-self does not belong to this world. All the things you said about evolution and belonging to this planet are true for our bodies. Not for us.
 
Other example: There are guys who can have sex everyday with different beautiful partners. But on a scale of 1 t 10 they aren’t happier (sometime they are far less happy) than the middle-class guy who is married to the same very ordinary woman for 20 years or so. 
 
So that’s what I mean by “Alien”. Why is it that many people have everything material and are still not perfectly fulfilled?
 
/ Don’t get me wrong. Of course material stuff are important in this life. What I am saying is that material stuff are just what they are and cannot (by themselves) make anyone happy. And that’s because the search for more comes from somewhere deeper. It is a good kind of feeling and spiritual texts are saying that if we address this feeling in the right way, it has the potential to take us further in this journey we call The Art of Living or True Spirituality.

---

 
On Muslim Writers who understand these issues:
 
 Amazon

Amazon


 The problem is that from his 30+ books written on secularism and Islam only these two have been translated into western languages (German and English).

 
So you might just check out his Wikipedia page (it’s shorter). Otherwise, you always have me 

Wikipedia


On the modernization of Religion:

 
This has always happened in history. Sometimes you had a Moses who came and turned everything upside down. Other times you had things like Sufism. Here is another resource for Mr. Bellaqua: You may (at some time) check the writings of the Sufi Poet Rumi. The whole movement of tasavvuf (in Turkish) of Sufism (that goes back to the 10th century AD) is actually a movement of renewal and reinterpretation of various religious texts and practices that had simply become too mechanical / too dogmatic / too mental illness like as you described.
 
And in Christianity: Did you check-out Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson? I recently downloaded some of his works and I am about to read it.
 
Also: I just saw the images of these female Israeli hostages that were taken by Hamas. I am never going to watch the video I can tell you that.
 
Let’s leave everything I said aside. Let’s talk about old-school religion of any kind: Doing this amounts to reincarnating as a bug according to some or knowing that the universe will rebalance itself at some point according to others.
 
Islam does have an ideology of self - defense in some ways. Cowardly acts of violence are not included in that. Even for a non-believer. There are do and don’t does in war. That’s all I am saying

[Angrboda]

My answer to that is: “All of God’s children are special. None of God’s children are special” (This is rom A Course in Miracles).
 

[Leonardo17]

   That’s a different debate actually. Mr Yaggadish Vasudev (Sadhguru) has interesting videos on this. I don’t really care what some old-school religious are saying. The simple reality is that we all have something that is quite potent between our legs and it’s quite normal for it to be so: The next generation must come. So that has to be a compulsive type of urge. So between the ages of 15 and 55, many of us are strictly under the influence of that compulsive power. And that’s good.
 

---

 
On other religious misinterpretations:
 
See how the “true believer” is talking about the pro-Palestinian protests in the West:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-supreme-...03204.html
 
He is murdering his own youth for not willing to bow to his own tyranny, yet he sees no problem in saying good things about Western protesters whenever they do something that suits his own interests or world view.
 
In a similar way, many people who project conservative values in the outside are usually caught in sex scandals and/or immoral sexual practices.
 
That’s simply because they have accepted (at a very young age) some moral codes that are full of contradictions and literally impossible to follow (and are based on outdated or misinterpreted religious doctrines) so the only possible way forward for them is to become a chronical liar or even a person with a false sense of selfhood (like it is the case with people with NPD).
 

---

 
Anyway: We don’t go to war with our own bodies and bodily needs. We usually try to accept and honor them. This is something that goes back to the 60’s. It’s perfectly OK to have a body and to know that the body has its needs and urges and that those urges have been pu there for very good reasons

[The Grand Nudger]

Ah yes. As well all know, allah is super cool with dudes blowing each other and anyone who says otherwise isn't a real muslim.

[Leonardo17]

Ah yes.  As well all know, allah is super cool with dudes blowing each other and anyone who says otherwise isn't a real muslim.

   I do not say that my interpretation is the only interpretation. But the other interpretation is a very scary one. Look at this, this is scary. Aren’t you scared when you see something like this?




Source


 
Their entire interpretation is fear based. I don’t like approaches that are fear-based. In most of the spiritual traditions that I had the chance to study there is the idea of “awareness of consequences”. If you do or omit to do something, like if you do now sow you plants in the right season, there will be no agricultural produce during the next season.
 
Fear based religious interpretations are more cult-like. People are in a constant state of guilt, fear and lack of love and respect for their own very existence in this material plane in order to make a fearful animal like flock out of the is easy to control and manipulate.
 
So you are not entirely wrong when you say that fascism is not really a new invention.
 
But I said. There is little correlation between my way of doing thing and their way of doing things.

[Ferrocyanide]

Islam isn't the most progressive ideology, but I still think it would be interesting if there were some kind of "update" for it, although I would not want it to go the same way as mainstream Christianity.

Yes, very much so.

I think one of the main problems with modern Christianity is that it has adapted too much to an alienating society. Christians who declare that Jesus wanted us to be capitalists and to pass judgment on people unlike ourselves (thereby alienating them) seem (in my opinion) to have completely jettisoned the original message. 

But this is always the way it goes -- reformers and modernizers nearly always claim to be recovering something old that has been lost.

You seem to be talking about christianity in the USA mostly, where I don’t know what exactly happened but I guess someone decided to use the “new” technology available to spread Jesus’s message.
Christianity in the USA seems very disorganized. It looks like any random person who has a passion for Jesus can start a church. Then, he starts doing whatever he feels like with no input from his peers.

So, I guess someone in the 20 th century decided to start a radio program. He noticed that his popularity is rising.
I think such priests are attention hogs. They like people to listen to them for hours. The more people listen, the more they feel big.
Since the parishioners goes up, the priest makes more money from donations.

Other priests notice the success of RADIO priest and they think “Hey, I should be doing that.”

Each priests goes a step further.
One buys an entire radio channel so the other does it as well.
One gets a show on TV, the other has to do it as well. So the big televangelist movement begins.

They each start writing books and give it for free and welcome big donations.
Then they start selling 18 L food buckets for the armagedon that is coming (Jim Baker does this sort of thing in the 80s). You have to send him 2600$.

Some of the priests had other full time jobs before. An example is that guy who started the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). I think his name is Fred Phelps. He died a few years ago.
He was a lawyer and he turned his house into a church and became a full time priest.


OTHER CHURCHES:
Even the catholics do that kind of thing. They have TV and radio shows and it has been a while. I see their TV shows in Quebec but they aren’t charismatic leaders selling products.
In Quebec, there are almost no independent churches.
In the orthodox world, they don’t use the “new” technology. I imagine that they basically don’t have independent churches as well.

[The Grand Nudger]

Ah yes.  As well all know, allah is super cool with dudes blowing each other and anyone who says otherwise isn't a real muslim.

 I do not say that my interpretation is the only interpretation. But the other interpretation is a very scary one. Look at this, this is scary. Aren’t you scared when you see something like this?

Not particularly, no.  

Their entire interpretation is fear based. I don’t like approaches that are fear-based. In most of the spiritual traditions that I had the chance to study there is the idea of “awareness of consequences”. If you do or omit to do something, like if you do now sow you plants in the right season, there will be no agricultural produce during the next season. Fear based religious interpretations are more cult-like. People are in a constant state of guilt, fear and lack of love and respect for their own very existence in this material plane in order to make a fearful animal like flock out of the is easy to control and manipulate.

The majority of abrahamism, right there.  

So you are not entirely wrong when you say that fascism is not really a new invention. But I said. There is little correlation between my way of doing thing and their way of doing things.

Sounds like islam isn't a match for you. It won't matter how much lipstick you put on it - it'll still be the same old pig.