How Does a Religion Begin?

Most of us don’t like religion … we might like the idea behind religion, which is worshiping God as we understand him, but as a general rule, we aren’t fond of religion for the sake of religion. Religion can be too divisive, too rigid and people who adopt extreme religious ideas and practices have been causing serious problems for centuries.

Since I was a child, I’ve wondered about the connection between humanity and a divine being. So off and on over the past twenty years, I’ve researched various religions, including many ‘flavors’ of Christianity. I’ve been noticing a pattern that bothers me. (Actually I notice many things that bother me, but this is only a blog post, not a book.)

This pattern is … throughout history as life is happening (sometimes smoothly, sometimes not) someone becomes restless or dissatisfied with the status quo as far as religion goes. Then through a nudging, a word, dreams or stones they receive a ‘revelation’. They feel compelled to share what they received. They begin sharing their thoughts as beliefs. They gather a few followers. Soon a church or movement starts based on it.

With time they (or their followers) expound and clarify their beliefs and put them into doctrinal form to make sure these beliefs are firmly held. To enforce the beliefs, rules have to be made, especially because religions tend to view people as bad, not good. As the church or movement grows, the rules/traditions naturally grow and eventually a full-fledged religion is born.

Life moves on … the beliefs/rules are firmly held and sadly many times enforced with everything ranging from a verbal shaming to death (in the name of God, of course) Until … a decade, a century or a millennium later someone else comes along and is dissatisfied with that status quo. A restlessness emerges, a message is received and the cycle repeats itself.

It seems to me that whenever someone (or some group) solidly defines their beliefs, it inevitably turns into a religion.

I’ve been on a spiritual journey of sorts over the past few years and recently I was trying to define what my beliefs now are. I felt like I needed to have clarity, definitions … or at least some solid ideas. But since processing how religions seem to be formed, I’ve been wondering if it’s wise to have solidly defined religious beliefs. Maybe beliefs need to be in constant renewal to have any value … to ourselves and others.

Just like it isn’t healthy for a body to be motionless, maybe our spirits shouldn’t be motionless either.

Maybe we should always be willing to learn more about the connection between humanity and the divine … even looking beyond our own sacred texts. Could being willing to continually learn help us not turn our beliefs into a religion, which we then worship instead of the God we set out to worship?

In my book Because I Can I wrote … One thing that confuses me is that while Jesus was here, he drastically changed the way things had been done for the previous centuries. Yet, now Christians try to live Biblically, meaning they study the Bible and make rules about how to live as the Christians did back then. But when Jesus was here that was the very thing he told people not to do. He encouraged them to forget the religious ways and instead to look around themselves and interact with the rest of humanity in a loving way.

I’d prefer to put more energy into treating others in a kind, loving way then in following a religion, so now I’m wondering if I really need to have clearly defined beliefs.

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So I’m curious … do you have solidly formed religious beliefs? And if so, how do you avoid turning them into a religion?

And how does having  solidly formed beliefs benefit or hurt you? Or benefit or hurt others around you?