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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Any Jewelry, post: 9632906, member: 2844&quot;]When it comes to religion, nearly everything is &quot;set in stone&quot;, and parishioners have very little to say about it. Religions are not democratic, and most religions have a very detailed worked out system of belief and worship, as well as an often sophisticated legal system to enforce it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Religions were founded to control spirituality, and to concentrate worship in specific areas (churches, temples, etc) and have power over those areas. So they need things to be set in stone, sometimes literally. From there new cults were founded, split up, prophets came, etc etc.</p><p>This is not my opinion, it is simply the history of religion.</p><p>The truth of a religion is not a single person&#039;s truth, it is the way it is defined by that particular religion. Neither you nor I can reinvent the Hindu definition of Kali. Besides, Kali is much too complicated. Nor can we import her into another religion, because what Kali is, is indeed in stone. The same for your other claims. Things are as they are. Frankly, I don&#039;t think it is right to make unfounded claims about darkness in a religion or tradition that is not your own and you probably don&#039;t understand.</p><p><br /></p><p>The concentration of worship wasn&#039;t always a result of desire for power though. It often started out as a practicality.</p><p>For instance, if there was a well with water that healed certain ailments, people would gather there. Not knowing the cause, they explained it the only way they knew how, by using their imagination. Over time such a well would become a place of pilgrimage, and food and shelter for a growing number of people had to be organized. Such a situation would lead to the beginning of an organised religion.</p><p>But people being people, that usually got out of hand.<img src="styles/default/xenforo/smilies/wink.png" class="mceSmilie" alt=";)" unselectable="on" /> (Now that is my personal opinion.<img src="styles/default/xenforo/smilies/biggrin.png" class="mceSmilie" alt=":D" unselectable="on" />)</p><p><br /></p><p>An important thing to remember is that there is a huge difference between religion and spirituality, and between religion and mysticism. Neither spirituality nor mysticism are tied to a religion, in fact most religions frown upon mysticism. Again, not my personal opinion, but fact.</p><p>Just an example, Kejawen is not a religion, it is a syncretic spiritual tradition. Practitioners are spiritual, and some are mystics. They are also free to adhere to a religion, should they wish to. (As an aside, under Indonesian state law they are obliged to be registered in a religion.)</p><p><br /></p><p>That said, religious people can be spiritual (I hope they are), and some of them can be mystics.</p><p><br /></p><p>Exactly, and that is what the Kabalah means by Malkuth. The fact that the Kabalah points the finger on that, doesn&#039;t mean that Kabalah is the dark side of Judaism. It just means it is correct in saying the manmade world isn&#039;t pure.</p><p><br /></p><p>In my opinion, deities are a human concept. A translation and explanation of things people perceive and experience.</p><p>If deities have shortcomings and faults, it is because human beings thought up myths around the deities they conceived. Not all deities have shortcomings and faults btw.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, deities are not the same as the divine.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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