What are the three defining messages/elements of your religion?

To be honest, I am not sure, which is part of the reason why I started this thread (the other part me wanting to bring up the question: "If something is not at the very core of your beliefs, why would it make you angry if someone offended it/violated it?"). I was brought up catholic, though not very strictly, it was more a byproduct of where I grew up, and I left the catholic church about 10 years ago for various reasons. I have not read up very much on most of the world religions, but from the outside, buddhism and confucianism appear to be comparatively "peaceful" religions, which appeals to me. I do like a lot of the Christian values and I see why to push these values, one would need some sort of organization like the various churches provide, but I cannot identify with any of these organizations and a lot of the things they do (even outside of criminal things or atrocities in their history) just seem like random cult stuff to me (crucifixes, exorcism, even the rites of how to pray when in church (sometimes you have to be on your knees, sometimes standing, the whole rite of how the mass is celebrated (I can't speak for other religions, but I guess they all have their rites)).

The three things I would name as to where I stand with regard to religion and believing: There is one thing I believe in and/or think of as some sort of guidance which is so commonplace that probably members of most, if not all religions could identify with them and there are two open questions for me.

- the Golden Rule : Do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you. Sounds very simple and I think if everyone followed this at all times, our world would be a much better place. Before Batman Jones or Rocketman95 or FranchiseBlade show up like Pavlov's dog to get in some sniping, let me say that as most people, I do not manage to follow this at all times, and furthermore, the "crux" with this is that as my standards might be different than others', something that would not bother me in the least might be very offensive to others, or vice versa.

- A belief in or actually rather a hope for some sort of afterlife (I don't know if I can believe in the "reward for good behavior on earth in afterlife" dogma that seems to be part of almost all religions - I guess I subconsciously do believe in that somehow and that following the Golden Rule at least has no negative impact on afterlife, but rationally, the promises of afterlife seem a lot like a deterrent to socially harmful behavior on earth and in that respect more like something that was invented to keep things on earth in order).

- I am unsure of whether to believe in some deity that created everything...I was definitely brought up believing in that, but as I mentioned in some other thread, I tortured my brain trying to understand or to be able to really believe in that, but at some point I figured that my brain is simply incapable of grasping whether and in what form it exists or does not exist (what was there before the deity decided to create everything, etc. - the whole Adam and Eve story seems to me like just some fairytale, like most stuff I read from the Bible and the little I read from the Koran...more like stories made up to keep people in line, give them guidance and to make their lives better - I am not belittling this and I see the practical benefit, but I am having a hard time seeing it as more). Again, the monotheistic religions provide a relatively simple and "imaginable" idea and guidance, but the whole idea of God as some old man with a white beard as he would mostly be depicted (if depicted) at least in paintings in the Christian world just seems a bit odd. Also, looking at all the things that happen in the world, if you want to believe in one God, then a cynical God would make as much sense to me as a benevolent God. I also don't know about Jesus, Mohammed et al...they seem to have been very charismatic people during their time who said a lot of very intelligent things and who probably have done a lot of good. But I wonder if not their status just became totally exaggerated after their deaths and the whole thing sort of developed into a cult of its own that maybe these guys, had they still been alive, wouldn't even have liked.

I know that most religions/churches offer answers to my two questions above as I guess the issues I am struggling with are issues that are very common, but I have not gotten one that would make me feel so enlightened that I could say "this convinced me so much that I am 100 % a believer now".

I guess you could say I would like to believe, but I am struggling. I do not consider myself an atheist, because that would mean that I would assume that just because my brain does not understand something, it cannot exist. Personally, I would also kind of consider it a sad thing to be 100 % convinced that once one dies, there is nothing...no God, no afterlife.

I hope I didn't offend too many people with what I said above (I guess I offended just about everyone, including atheists ). And sorry for the long post, I was actually hoping for brief answers and now I made a rather long post myself.

 

Okay, I read up a bit on this Tawhid. The whole "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" trinity thing in Christianity, I never really got that. But Tawhid - ok, let's assume there is one God. Fine. But what does it mean in practice? What "commandments" to you follow out of this for your daily life? It kind of seems to me that depending on how you want to interpret it, Tawhid can mean very different things to different people, and they draw totally different consequences from it for their actions, or am I completely mistaken here?

 

Azadre, I am very interested in your take. I seem to remember that you used to get very angry when you felt that someone "offended" your religion. It seems like your stance has changed somewhat over the years (apologies if I am misreading). Would you mind sharing with us how this process came about?