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Originally Posted by Still_Waters
Your point on "I AM <anything>" is indeed dualistic and divisive. 
That is why I have specifically encouraged discovering the underlying ULTIMATE "core values" of the various faith in an attempt to establish unity.... |
My theory is, a person is only religious at times when they engage in religious thought/activity. At times when they do not think that way, they have no quality of religion (hence they have symbols and rituals to remind them to think religiously). I think it's obvious that we are all aware in the same way and have a fundamental commonality which is regardless of our individual personalities. That makes religious identity irrelevant to a meditation of stillness, but religious people generally believe their religion is essential, and many more people think religions in general are very important. However, in context with 'be still', it doesn't matter if you are religious or not.
Its great that it doesn't matter, but if we really understood that, we wouldn't promote the necessity of religions as social pillars, especially considering their tendencies of conflict, war and other atrocities. Lets use an analogy. Suppose that I am a fantastic person. I give charity, help people whenever I can, use my wealth to the betterment of mankind and all that good stuff - but every few years, I go out and murder a prostitute. People don't say, Well, most of the time he does so much good, so we can overlook the occasional atrocity. No! I should hang for my crimes.
For some reason we say 'Yes, religions do terrible things... but they do so much good... so let them continue to be pillars of our of society. We need them. They are so important. They are instrumental to the national identity. People have the right etc etc etc. It is deeply ingrained in social psyche and constitutionally ingrained in society, but we should recognise the problem - at least be conscious of it - and leave religious thoughts to pass like any other thought. Eventually such thoughts will cease to occur and that will be the end religious entities.