No Rituals or Miracles

CriticalThinking · Jul 5, 2020

Hello everyone,
I hope that you are all having a good day

I m just curious about faiths that doesn't include Rituals or Miracles, I for myself don't believe in the existence of rituals or miracles but i still believe in the hereafter I believe that god created a system for this world and have set a bunch of rules ( physics, math... etc ) so i don't see why he would break them before the judgement day, and i believe in prophets as some kind of knowledgeable persons

Where i live almost every one practice rituals and believes in miracles and if they don't they probably don't believe in god / prophets

I'm curious if similar religions / beliefs exists, i know that there is deism but like i said i believe in prophets and books not like the traditional way but i still believe in them

Quintessence · Jul 5, 2020

Well, a religion without rituals isn't much of a religion, to be honest. It's one of the central pillars of religion, the others being mythos (which can include miracles), values, and community.

That said, rituals are not necessarily "a bunch of rules." Ritual describes how the stories (mythos) and values (sacred things) come into play in a person's way of life through action. Without engaging with the stories and values of your religion through your behavior in some way, that makes for a very empty religion. One could call it "armchair" religion that is a lot of thinking with no doing anything. In which case, forget having a religion and just be an academic who studies it from the outside.

I have to ask now - what did you mean by rituals?

SalixIncendium · Jul 5, 2020

Quintessence said:
Well, a religion without rituals isn't much of a religion, to be honest. It's one of the central pillars of religion, the others being mythos (which can include miracles), values, and community.

That said, rituals are not necessarily "a bunch of rules." Ritual describes how the stories (mythos) and values (sacred things) come into play in a person's way of life through action. Without engaging with the stories and values of your religion through your behavior in some way, that makes for a very empty religion. One could call it "armchair" religion that is a lot of thinking with no doing anything. In which case, forget having a religion and just be an academic who studies it from the outside.

I have to ask now - what did you mean by rituals?

Yeah, jnana yoga is a pretty empty path. I mean it’s only one of the paths that leads to liberation. Who would want that?

PureX · Jul 5, 2020

CriticalThinking said:
Hello everyone,
I hope that you are all having a good day

I m just curious about faiths that doesn't include Rituals or Miracles, I for myself don't believe in the existence of rituals or miracles but i still believe in the hereafter I believe that god created a system for this world and have set a bunch of rules ( physics, math... etc ) so i don't see why he would break them before the judgement day, and i believe in prophets as some kind of knowledgeable persons

Where i live almost every one practice rituals and believes in miracles and if they don't they probably don't believe in god / prophets

I'm curious if similar religions / beliefs exists, i know that there is deism but like i said i believe in prophets and books not like the traditional way but i still believe in them

I would say that given where you live, it might be wise to keep in mind the very relative and personal ways in which we humans perceive and conceptualize our experience of the world. One man's "miracle" is another man's "fate", and yet another man's "lucky accident". No one is right or wrong in these assessments; they're just different ways of perceiving happenstance beyond our control.

What really matters, I think, is that however one chooses to perceive and understand the circumstances of their lives, that we are able to respond to them in a positive and effective manner. It's more about what works, than what we call it, I think.

CriticalThinking · Jul 5, 2020

Quintessence said:
Well, a religion without rituals isn't much of a religion, to be honest. It's one of the central pillars of religion, the others being mythos (which can include miracles), values, and community.

That said, rituals are not necessarily "a bunch of rules." Ritual describes how the stories (mythos) and values (sacred things) come into play in a person's way of life through action. Without engaging with the stories and values of your religion through your behavior in some way, that makes for a very empty religion. One could call it "armchair" religion that is a lot of thinking with no doing anything. In which case, forget having a religion and just be an academic who studies it from the outside.

I have to ask now - what did you mean by rituals?

What i mean by rituals is the same meaning in the Dictionary :

rituals : a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.

As an Ex-Sunni "muslim" i was ordered to "pray" / bow 5 times a day and when i grew up i found that what i was doing is pretty much futile because there was no clear wisdom for those movements and their numbers that's why i don't believe in rituals are anymore because they all seems futile

CriticalThinking · Jul 5, 2020

PureX said:
I would say that given where you live, it might be wise to keep in mind the very relative and personal ways in which we humans perceive and conceptualize our experience of the world. One man's "miracle" is another man's "fate", and yet another man's "lucky accident". No one is right or wrong in these assessments; they're just different ways of perceiving happenstance beyond our control.

What really matters, I think, is that however one chooses to perceive and understand the circumstances of their lives, that we are able to respond to them in a positive and effective manner. It's more about what works, than what we call it, I think.

I don't mind what people believes in, but the moment they mention those things as facts i just express my objection to that, and most of the time i end up being called a heretic

Rival · Jul 5, 2020

CriticalThinking said:
What i mean by rituals is the same meaning in the Dictionary :

rituals : a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.

As an Ex-Sunni "muslim" i was ordered to "pray" / bow 5 times a day and when i grew up i found that what i was doing is pretty much futile because there was no clear wisdom for those movements and their numbers that's why i don't believe in rituals are anymore because they all seems futile

The meaning of the ritual comes from within not without. All rituals will seem empty unless you're actively putting in the spiritual effort.

PureX · Jul 5, 2020

CriticalThinking said:
I don't mind what people believes in, but the moment they mention those things as facts i just express my objection to that, and most of the time i end up being called a heretic

Trying to correct the apparent foolishness of those around you is like trying to push a river back up a hill. All that will happen is that you will soon become exhausted, and drown. And the river will continue to follow it's natural course, oblivious.

Perhaps you might try, in your own mind, to "interpret" their more archaic magical language into your own, more modern, vernacular. For example: there was a TV preacher in Chicago years ago that talked constantly of casting our demons. Which of course I though was ridiculous, and that he must be a huckster. But he was on every day, and yet never asked for money, so I became curious. And as I listened to him 'preach', I began to realize that what he was calling "demons" was really just the normal psychological afflictions that the poor people in his church and surrounding area on Chicago's south side suffered from routinely. Things like alcohol, drug, and gambling addictions. Sexual addictions. Domestic abuse and violence, and so on. And that the people he was talking to better understood them as "demons", as they had no familiarity at all with more modern scientific jargon commonly used now days. And the "rituals" this preacher was promoting as a way of "casting out" these "demons" were in fact quite similar to behavioral modifications that a good psychologist might recommend to achieve the same end. The real difference was just in the language being used to represent the problems, and to enable effective solutions to the problems. A difference that I suspect better served the people that this preacher was talking to. His archaic, religious, superstition-based language actually was the better choice for the people he was trying to help than the terminology you or I might have used to try and do the same.

My point being that it may be better to focus on the goal, rather than the methods. In that sense you may have more in common with the folks around you than you realize. As humans, we're all facing the same "demons", and looking for the same "miracles". We just don't all refer to them in the same ways.

Super Universe · Jul 5, 2020

Primitive humans developed rituals in an attempt to appease their gods. Then they stuck with those rituals to separate themselves from other beliefs. It makes them feel better about themselves and that's what's really important to humans, feeling superior to people of other beliefs.

God does not desire that you perform any ritual.

pearl · Jul 5, 2020

Interestingly, the Gospel of John does not refer to miracles, but to 'signs' of something greater here than the miracle which should be the focus.

danieldemol · Jul 5, 2020

CriticalThinking said:
What i mean by rituals is the same meaning in the Dictionary :

rituals : a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.

As an Ex-Sunni "muslim" i was ordered to "pray" / bow 5 times a day and when i grew up i found that what i was doing is pretty much futile because there was no clear wisdom for those movements and their numbers that's why i don't believe in rituals are anymore because they all seems futile

Praying in the direction of the Qibla is also a ritual.

Quintessence · Jul 5, 2020

CriticalThinking said:
What i mean by rituals is the same meaning in the Dictionary :

rituals : a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.

As an Ex-Sunni "muslim" i was ordered to "pray" / bow 5 times a day and when i grew up i found that what i was doing is pretty much futile because there was no clear wisdom for those movements and their numbers that's why i don't believe in rituals are anymore because they all seems futile

Well, religious practices are futile if one doesn't understand the context from which they originate and the intention behind them. A lot of people practice religion shallowly - go through the motions of ritual without understanding it. That's the wrong way to do religion, in my view. If the religion you are practicing doesn't make sense to you, you either have more work/learning to do or need to find the right religion for you. Which I guess is why you are here, I suppose?

In that search, keep in mind that religion requires work, and some of that work is going to involve practices (aka, rituals). If you don't understand the practices yet, research, learn, and think until you do. If you still don't understand them after that - or can't come up with a reason to do them based on your knowledge of your own tradition - then don't do them. Ritual is central to all religions, but rigid adherence is not. Remember that you can create your own rituals that hold meaning for you and your understanding of the mythos and values of your religion. If 5 times daily salutations don't make sense to you, is there some other daily practice you could cultivate to connect you to your tradition in a way that's meaningful for you?

CriticalThinking · Jul 5, 2020

Rival said:
The meaning of the ritual comes from within not without. All rituals will seem empty unless you're actively putting in the spiritual effort.

Well, now i can't lie to myself and say "oh if i do this i will please my god" and I'm inside so sure its just some human made practices that has no real sense

PureX said:
Trying to correct the apparent foolishness of those around you is like trying to push a river back up a hill. All that will happen is that you will soon become exhausted, and drown. And the river will continue to follow it's natural course, oblivious.

Perhaps you might try, in your own mind, to "interpret" their more archaic magical language into your own, more modern, vernacular. For example: there was a TV preacher in Chicago years ago that talked constantly of casting our demons. Which of course I though was ridiculous, and that he must be a huckster. But he was on every day, and yet never asked for money, so I became curious. And as I listened to him 'preach', I began to realize that what he was calling "demons" was really just the normal psychological afflictions that the poor people in his church and surrounding area on Chicago's south side suffered from routinely. Things like alcohol, drug, and gambling addictions. Sexual addictions. Domestic abuse and violence, and so on. And that the people he was talking to better understood them as "demons", as they had no familiarity at all with more modern scientific jargon commonly used now days. And the "rituals" this preacher was promoting as a way of "casting out" these "demons" were in fact quite similar to behavioral modifications that a good psychologist might recommend to achieve the same end. The real difference was just in the language being used to represent the problems, and to enable effective solutions to the problems. A difference that I suspect better served the people that this preacher was talking to. His archaic, religious, superstition-based language actually was the better choice for the people he was trying to help than the terminology you or I might have used to try and do the same.

My point being that it may be better to focus on the goal, rather than the methods. In that sense you may have more in common with the folks around you than you realize. As humans, we're all facing the same "demons", and looking for the same "miracles". We just don't all refer to them in the same ways.

I don't hate people with different belief i hate the damage they cause , i was once a guy who believes in rituals and miracles and i know its hard for some people who spent years from their life believing in something to hear some one with a different opinion, I know some people who only lessen to their religious leaders and in fact that's not a good thing, For example where i leave the government decided to shutdown all mosques because of covid-19 but one imam decided to not lessen and people actually followed him, and ended up by gov shutting it down by force, so i think its a good idea to advice people to rethink a bit from time to time or else things will end badly.

Super Universe said:
Primitive humans developed rituals in an attempt to appease their gods. Then they stuck with those rituals to separate themselves from other beliefs. It makes them feel better about themselves and that's what's really important to humans, feeling superior to people of other beliefs.

God does not desire that you perform any ritual.

Totally agree with the last sentence

pcarl said:
Interestingly, the Gospel of John does not refer to miracles, but to 'signs' of something greater here than the miracle which should be the focus.

I never read the Gospel of John, i might take a look at this to discover it more

danieldemol said:
Praying in the direction of the Qibla is also a ritual.

Yes it is, i never said the opposite, i don't practice it any more since a long time

Quintessence said:
Well, religious practices are futile if one doesn't understand the context from which they originate and the intention behind them. A lot of people practice religion shallowly - go through the motions of ritual without understanding it. That's the wrong way to do religion, in my view. If the religion you are practicing doesn't make sense to you, you either have more work/learning to do or need to find the right religion for you. Which I guess is why you are here, I suppose?

In that search, keep in mind that religion requires work, and some of that work is going to involve practices (aka, rituals). If you don't understand the practices yet, research, learn, and think until you do. If you still don't understand them after that - or can't come up with a reason to do them based on your knowledge of your own tradition - then don't do them. Ritual is central to all religions, but rigid adherence is not. Remember that you can create your own rituals that hold meaning for you and your understanding of the mythos and values of your religion. If 5 times daily salutations don't make sense to you, is there some other daily practice you could cultivate to connect you to your tradition in a way that's meaningful for you?

I don't believe that god ordered us to do any rituals, i believe that god orders always have a wisdom behind them, which is something can't be found in rituals, for example when i asked why the 5 prayers was 5 and not 4 or 3 etc... i couldn't find any reasonable answer, all i was told is to follow the orders and believe in some kind of a "hidden" wisdom in the number 5, I do believe that God ordered us to be righteous and good to others as much as we can because that clearly helps society flourish

Rival · Jul 5, 2020

CriticalThinking said:
Well, now i can't lie to myself and say "oh if i do this i will please my god" and I'm inside so sure its just some human made practices that has no real sense

It's not even necessarily about pleasing G-d. It's about being a better you and bringing G-d or whatever it is for you to remembrance.

CriticalThinking · Jul 5, 2020

Rival said:
It's not even necessarily about pleasing G-d. It's about being a better you and bringing G-d or whatever it is for you to remembrance.

I see some people who don't do any rituals and they are good people and some who do rituals and are actually bad people, I think being a good person is done by thinking positively not by rituals, also i myself didn't practice any rituals in the recent years but god remembrance is always present with me

Rival · Jul 5, 2020

CriticalThinking said:
I see some people who don't do any rituals and they are good people and some who do rituals and are actually bad people, I think being a good person is done by thinking positively not by rituals, also i myself didn't practice any rituals in the recent years but god remembrance is always present with me

This is not what I said or meant. The ritual itself is meant to remind you why you're doing the ritual, whether it be G-d or some other reason. The ritual then reminds your of this higher purpose to which you have dedicated yourself, which should, in turn, reinforce the behaviours you wish to have.

CriticalThinking · Jul 5, 2020

Rival said:
This is not what I said or meant. The ritual itself is meant to remind you why you're doing the ritual, whether it be G-d or some other reason. The ritual then reminds your of this higher purpose to which you have dedicated yourself, which should, in turn, reinforce the behaviours you wish to have.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, and maybe i still didn't get it ?
Can't i just try to think positively and try to be righteous without rituals

Rival · Jul 5, 2020

CriticalThinking said:
Can't i just try to think positively and try to be righteous without rituals

Yes, I'm just telling you the point of why they exist in the first place.

Edit: I have a shoe tying ritual. It's done in accordance with other tying rituals related to faith. It reminds me of G-d, and thinking of G-d inturn reminds me that He's watching and I need to keep myself good. It's not about pleasing G-d by tying my shoes a certain way.

Deeje · Jul 5, 2020

CriticalThinking said:
Hello everyone,
I hope that you are all having a good day

I m just curious about faiths that doesn't include Rituals or Miracles, I for myself don't believe in the existence of rituals or miracles but i still believe in the hereafter I believe that god created a system for this world and have set a bunch of rules ( physics, math... etc ) so i don't see why he would break them before the judgement day, and i believe in prophets as some kind of knowledgeable persons

Where i live almost every one practice rituals and believes in miracles and if they don't they probably don't believe in god / prophets

I'm curious if similar religions / beliefs exists, i know that there is deism but like i said i believe in prophets and books not like the traditional way but i still believe in them

Did you know that Jesus and his apostles foretold that Christianity would be corrupted in the same way that the Jewish religion was sold out to the ideas and traditions of its leaders? (Matthew 15:7-9)

Just as Judaism was no longer the religion founded by God at Mt Sinai when Jesus came, (Matthew 23:37-39) and he was under instruction to lead “the lost sheep” out of that corrupted system, so at the time of his return, he would lead other “lost sheep” out of another corrupted system....Christendom. (2 Peter 2:1; Acts 20:30)

I believe that Christendom, with their fake miracles (the low success rate proves that it is nothing like the ones that took place in the first century) and their empty rituals, where people might turn up at a building and go through the motions of some kind of worship, but then leave their ‘Christianity’ at the door on their way out....or else they take their beliefs to a ridiculous form of fanaticism so that it becomes a burden rather than a ‘refreshment’. (Matthew 11:28-30) That was never going to please the God who reads hearts, not just minds....and expects a certain standard of behavior that he has never changed.

What you are searching for exists......but you have to find them.
Like the first century, Christ’s true disciples are comparatively small in numbers and unpopular (even hated) because they are different to the masses. (Matthew 15:18-21)

No one can come to God unless they acknowledge the teachings of his son, (John 14:6) and no one can come to the son unless it is granted by the Father ...(John 6:44; John 6:65)

In this time of the end, God is separating the “sheep from the goats”. We are telling him every day whether we are one or the other.

“Seek and you will find”, Jesus said....but it helps to know what you are looking for.

sun rise · Jul 5, 2020

Rival said:
The meaning of the ritual comes from within not without. All rituals will seem empty unless you're actively putting in the spiritual effort... It's about being a better you and bringing G-d or whatever it is for you to remembrance.

That's a great answer. There's a poem by Kabir that expresses this about the difference between empty ritual and putting one's heart into one's actions.

The pandits' pedantries are lies.

If saying Ram gave liberation
saying candy made your mouth sweet
saying fire burned your feet,
saying water quenched your thirst,
saying food banished hunger,
the whole world would be free.

The parrot gabbles "God" like a man
but doesn't know God's glory.
When he flies off to the jungle,
he'll forget God.
If you don't see, if you don't touch,
what's the use of the name?

No Rituals or Miracles

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