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Religion and Spirituality

TheCatWoman

I know this is a contentious issue, but I wnat to talk about it anyway and I hope people can be respectful to the beliefs of others. 

It seems to me that although we in the UK are called a Christian country, we're not, most people don't attend church, many are nominally Christian, church for hatchings, matchings and despatchings, maybe xmas and easter too. Many will attend church to get their children into a high performing church school. Our main bank holidays focus on a Christian festival calendar, Easter, Pentecost, Xmas etc, but I wonder if we should add the holy days of other faiths, like EId, Diwali, the Solticies?

We have so many faiths in this country and many people who don't identify with any particular faith, but are broadly believers in something.

I'd like to see bishops removed from the House of Lords and the Church of England disestablished, in a multifath society I don't see what their place is in the giovernance of the country, I think you either have to have representatives of all faiths or none and seeing as many faiths don't have an episcopal system I don't see how it would work where the representatives come from and which community would they be representing? I think the same is true of the current situation and bishops, there are many Christian sects that do not recognise and episcopal system.  

Parents

  • I really agree with you about having ‘all faiths or none’ in the House of Lords. 
    I used to feel very negatively about Religion in general but as I’ve got older I’ve really got a different attitude to it all. After a very very dark period in my life I started to further what had previously been a fairly vague interest in Buddhism and Pagan religions into a deeper study of Zen Buddhism (using the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh primarily) and then that broadened out into interest in other religions and philosophies - and it’s really enriched my life to do this. It’s been really interesting to find a lot of common ground between various religions and philosophies and to see how they connect and how they benefit people.  Obviously there are a lot of negatives to some religious institutions - but I think there’s a huge amount to be gained from learning about Buddhism and Mindfulness. Essentially the focus is to reduce suffering, be kind and compassionate and non violent, and to increase our happiness and warm heartedness. So very good! If everyone got more into Buddhism we’d have a much better world and a healthier planet!

  • in reply to Kate Kestrel

    I'm not a fan of organised religion, it's to restrictive, one of the things that annoys me so much about modern Paganism is how codified it's becoming. I don't think it was ever meant to be codified, each coven set it's own rules, had it's own focus within a common framework of festivals and the basics of how to run a ritual. Since the internet it seem sto have been taken over by mostly American groups trying to help initially with the amount of interest, to telling others what, when and how they can do things. For me it's lost a lot of the anarchic qualities that drew me to it in the first place, however I do still count myself as a Pagan even if I don't go to rituals and ceremonies.

    One of the things I've always felt drawn to is monasticism of some kind, the nearest I came to it was working in a retreat house, but the rhythums of the day suited me and the focus on the divine and ones place within it. Speaking with people of all faiths and none and learning from them, as well as helping and guiding them to where they needed to be in the world.

    I really feel that contemplative life has been discouraged for so long and people don't see the value of it for themselves and others. What I used to really love were the silent retreats, many people freaked out about the idea of them, I did when I first heard of them, few saw any value except maybe oddly or not mothers with young children for whom the idea of being ble to finish one of their own thoughts from one end to the other without interuption was a wonder.

  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    I’m drawn to monastic life too - but I’m too old really (and I’m married!). But that way of life is definitely in tune with how I’d like to live my life too (if I were able to keep my husband and have children - so that’s a major issue :) 

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  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    Yes - it would be wonderful for different faiths to come together. There is a lot of common ground. I’ve been studying Buddhism for the last couple of years and recently I’ve started looking at the Bhagavad Gita and there is so much common ground - so much wisdom and insight that they share. They both make western capitalist societies look horrendously basic and self destructive and I think they both have answers to much of the dysfunction we are now dealing with in the west. 
    Re. Monastic life - I think spiritual communities that are very open and diverse would be great in the future. I think basically humans have got a long way to go in terms of finding happy and harmonious ways for us all to live together. But hopefully one day as a species we’ll get our act together! Maybe in about 150 years time! 

  • in reply to Kate Kestrel

    I don't see any reason why you can't be married and monastic, as long as you both agree that its the lifestyle you want to live.

    It can be quite hard to find reliable information on them, but it does seem that there were early monastic communities (double houses) that were more like communes where people married, worked and worships and brought their children up in that way.

    Personally I think you'd have to have establishements for married and single people as they dynamic would be difficult and the single people could end up marginalised and infantilised. But I don't see why you couldn't have both. I also think that more open spiritual houses where peoples of all faiths and none could meet, celebrate and worship would be great, theres to much seperation between the various faiths that just causes more barriers. For example my then landlord was fascinated by me going on a silent meditation retreat and we spent some time talking about his times in Amristar at the Golden Temple and my experiences of retreats in this country, I did wonder if he would of ever come with me? It would have been fascinating to have a Sikh perspective.