As Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet – what’s in a name?

He is right in that regard, a thing is a thing no matter what the name. So a rose will still smell as sweet if called by any other name. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet was perusing the fact that Romeo was from her family’s arch enemies and was trying to justify a relationship that her father could condone by reason of terminology.

One word that I think is always misunderstood is the word Religion.

Religion is taken to mean a belief in God and in some cases is equated as being one with the idea, the existence of a God or gods.

It does not entirely mean that.

The Oxford Dictionary Online definition of Religion is:

A Noun
1. The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
2. A particular system of faith and worship.
3. A pursuit or interest followed with devotion.

ORIGIN
Originally in the sense life under monastic vows: from Latin religio ‘obligation, reverence’.

The pivotal aspect are the words: belief in and worship of …

Rules are devised because of the belief. So a Religion can be anything, any set of rules.

To put this in another context, most people believe in eating. But some advocates design a set of rules on how to eat. The Victorians with the number and type of knives and forks for each type of dish. The Modern day chefs on what to cook with what and how and why.

So Religions have been designed by man. It is my fervent belief that Religions have nothing whatsoever to do with God.

Just as the Victorians or Chefs have nothing to do with eating, they may design a method of cooking or what to use when eating, but when my brain tells my stomach to gurgle with hunger pangs, my hand will help itself to food and put it in my mouth with total disregard for certain types of knives and forks or chef’s cooking techniques.

Deep within each human being is a desire to know Who we are and Where we have come from. Hence Einstein and Darwin and all the other scientists and philosophers who make some sense but cannot entirely explain and answer those questions.

Religion is man’s design of a system of rules to control the ideas of Who we are and Where we have come from.

Hence:
The Chinese religion
The Jewish religion
The Hindu religion
The Muslim religion
The Christian religion
to name but a few.

Every tribe and every culture has a Religion that applies Rules that seem to suggest an idea of Who we are and Where we come from but in reality the Religion based on our own desire to know our beginnings were implemented by clever men who were bent on power and control of the masses.

Darwin was not the only man to apply detection to try and trace life’s beginnings. He was the first man to get his book The Orgin of Species published.

Science and Philosophy have gone a long way to ‘try’ and explain but in working it out for yourself, do not even ponder on Religions which only have their basis in human power struggles and control.

As Paul said in the bible ….. If there were no Rules there would be no wrong.

God gave the 10 Commandments as Best Practice not as a Rule. There were no punishments or sanctions if they were not followed.

If we lived in a world where there were no rules, there would then be no aspect to judge right or wrong; in the early days of human existence before too many rules were devised God provided the 10 aspects to guide us, if we wanted to accept them.

As you know, I do believe in God. In one God. Not because I have been indoctrinated. But because of what I saw as a child and because of life-experiences that confirmed my child-like thoughts.

I do not believe in any religion.

I believe my heart and mind thoughts are from God as are everyone’s but within each one of us is the ability to use good and evil to understand those thoughts. I select to use Good when I pray through Jesus Christ to understand.

I believe that Jesus Christ was God in human form come to show us love.

I believe when I accepted the love of God, perfectly illustrated in his Son, I recognised my thoughts and words as His.

Without love, the human race is nothing. We need to know love.

We all know love but do we all know where it comes from?

Do we know what love is? The greek had 5 words for love all meaning a different aspect. Love between husband and wife, love between friends, love between siblings, love to create children, and love of something outside ourselves.

It is the Origins of Love we need to trace because when discovered we will all understand our human origins.