According to some scientists, religions are a form of superstition. But then again, some scientists believe that consciousness itself is an illusion and everything can be explained by interactions between chemicals and particles. On one level, religion may have developed in the same way superstitions developed. Once you make the assumption that there is an invisible connection between one thing and another, it opens a whole new world of possibilities.
After making enough such assumptions, primitive mankind could easily have surmised that there was a spiritual being controlling life on Earth. With no idea of what such a spiritual being might have been like, it was natural to imagine God to be some sort of super-human being who could be pleased or angered.
In ancient times, stories were the primary entertainment available. At night, after a long day of hunting and gathering berries, it felt good to sit back and listen to stories explaining how the world worked and where we fit into it. The essence of good storytelling hasn't changed much, and the best stories are those with some basis in truth, making them even more believable.
When someone had a good day hunting, or narrowly escaped a saber-tooth tiger, a story about how they were aided by God gave the experience added depth and meaning. On the contrary, stories about how God punished those who disobeyed the leaders' wishes gave those leaders extra authority.
As stories were shared, they became more involved and complex, picking up new details as time progressed. Eventually people wondered how much of them were true.
Different cultures shared different stories, which accounts for the many different religions developed throughout history. Each religion offers something of value to those who practice it. They offer us a way of thinking about the "ultimate nature of the universe" in a way that is more personal and more satisfying to us.
Religion is best defined as your personal relationship with the universe. As such, each of us has our own religion, although it may share many similarities with the religions of others. We may say the same prayers to the same God and still have our own personal relationship to that God.
Some people feel more comfortable relating to a universe of matter and energy, while others are more comfortable relating to a conscious and spiritual universe. Some feel comfortable in a relationship with strict guidelines, while others are more comfort-able in a relationship that's more open and loving. Some prefer the idea of a father figure ruling the universe, whereas others prefer a mother image nurturing them.
That's why there will never be "One True Religion." Different folks relate to the universe in different ways. As I see it, if God created so much variety in trees, birds, and people, God certainly must have also created variety in religion too.
Sometimes, a divine intervention pulls up next to your steaming, smashed up car on the rain-slicked roads in Hollywood, wearing penguin-colored habits, looking down at you with compassionate eyes. "We have been praying for you to accept Jesus," the nuns say. This is the story of Natalie Cole, who was in the steely grips of a drug addiction at the time of the crash and who credits this brief intervention with saving her life.
In her autobiography, she also credits divine intervention with saving her and her husband from a fiery inferno in Detroit. Ms. Cole certainly isn't the only one with miraculous stories, attributed to a higher power. Albeit inexplicable, these stories serve as a source of hope for millions of people.
Janice Bender was told she had months to live, as the metastatic lung cancer spread throughout her frail body. A medical intervention like liquid morphine and chemotherapy seemed her only hope, but even those options had doctors shaking their heads, telling Janice's husband, Frank, that he had better prepare for the worst. So Frank quit his job as a sculptor, yet he did finish one task: resculpting the mask that lay over St. John Neumann's face at his public shrine in Philadelphia.
Father Kevin Moley came from the Church to see Janice and before leaving he placed a relic of St. John Neumann up to her forehead and said a prayer. Instantly, Janice felt a warm, soft feeling expand inside of her and over the next few weeks, dozens of tests confirmed the inexplicable: the cancer had completely disappeared! While they aren't particularly religious people, the Benders attribute the miracle to the divine intervention of Saint John Neumann. "Maybe St. John Neumann wanted this intercession as a gift to him," Moley said, commenting that the new face Frank sculpted was "perfect."
In Lourdes, France, a fourteen-year-old peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous saw the Virgin Mary eighteen times in the cave of Massabielle, from February 11 - 16th, 1858. By the Virgin Mary's twelfth appearance, a woman's paralyzed arm was cured in the spring when she appeared at the site of Mary's appearance. Similarly, in 1901, a man named Gabriel Gargam, who had gangrene feet, was paralyzed from the waist down, was bed-ridden and weighing just 75 pounds, came to be healed at Lourdes but fainted from the exertion.
After he could not be revived, they placed a cloth over his face and thought him dead, but when the priest came to give him last rites, Gargam suddenly sat up, stood up and said he was cured! In 1923, epileptic and paraplegic John Traynor found physical and mental healing after bathing in the grotto.
He was so cured, in fact, that he didn't remember how long he had been ill! Today, 6 million people come to Lourdes, hoping for divine intervention that will heal them from illness and disability, even when medical intervention has failed.
Sports stars frequently request divine intervention and sometimes, they say, it works! Many of us have a hard time believing things we cannot see, hear, touch or experience with our own eyes.
Yet many of us want to believe there's a higher purpose for us, some force that can help us in our darkest moments, a comforting answer that there's something out there. Whether you've seen a miracle or not, the power of positive thinking and the healing power of faith cannot be dismissed.
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Alan Tutt has sinced written about articles on various topics from self improvement and motivation, Hypnotherapy and Psychology. Alan Tutt, author of Choose To Believe: A Practical Guide to Living Your Dreams, is one of the world's leading experts in the Power of Belief and the Law of Attraction. Get a free excerpt from his new book at. Alan Tutt's top article generates over 8100 views. to your Favourites.
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