A Way Of Life

 

 

What is a religion?

 

There are many ideas what a religion is:

 

Let us look at, say Christianity, the largest religion, for a moment – Christianity effectively is like a cult (no, I do not want to offend anyone, this is for EVERYONE’S BENEFIT) what is the definition of a cult, it is where people subjugate their critical thinking to the opinion of the guru; hence Christianity, which really offers no logical basis for its premises – there have been countless debates throughout history showing how the very premise (which again, I am not trying to offend anyone, merely, trying to educate) of Christianity, BASED ON ITS OWN PRINCIPLES OF DEDUCTION (again, as I don’t want to offend, I am not going to go into it) literally has no basis in reality!

 

Islam has the same subjugation of the mind to one man’s opinion, which either he is as they believe a prophet, hence a credible person to speak, or as many philosophers claimed, he was actually a madman, hence the incredible contradictions within the Koran, sentence by sentence, and certainly as Islam itself had to figure out Hadiths to somehow account for these amazing contradictions in the actual texts.

 

A cult again, is where critical thinking will never support the rationale behind the logic, hence it is when people give up their minds in order to find salvation through adherence to a prophet, who claims, that his thinking is inspired by God hence he speaks on God’s behalf – considering that new people claim this all the time, you better be really sure the guy you are believing in, is not one of the others….

 

Ironically, Judaism can also be approached in this kind of dogmatic fashion – while Judaism of course can be corroborated based on historical evidence as it is the only witnessed religion i.e. all other religions have as a basic factor trusting the prophet of the religion, here the prophet, Mosses, had a relationship with God through miracles, the voice of God that all people heard, that caused it to be irrefutable; proves, that he is the real deal…

 

And yet…  people can still approach Judaism in the same numskull dogmatic approach, namely, it is simply, “do what Judaism says and salvation is yours, either in this world or the next,” which perhaps is where Christianity and Islam picked up this doctrine of salvation from.

 

The truth is, there is another religion which I know precious little about however as told by one if its proponents it is called a path i.e. it is not about heaven, it is not about earth, it is not about salvation, rather it is a path – do this and the results are a better human being.

 

I believe this is closest to the truth of Judaism, in other words, Chassidus, the inside soul, the utter truth of what God is teaching us, for, if you could imbibe, a person, body or their soul? Obviously, the body is the shell containing: the essence; and it is the soul, that is the truth; hence Chassidus is teaching us, that Judaism is not dogmatic religiosity, hence this kind of magical salvation based on adherence, rather it is a path.

 

It is simply a mechanism in which, if you follow the traditions and more importantly the suggestions of Chassidus, mainly, summarized in the Tanya, your life as it is today will be refined!