Monday, September 8, 2025

What are Religions?

 Religions are a way that people have found to go on living when earlier peoples simply died from suffering.

I see religions as ways to keep children  from running screaming off of cliffs when their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters die one by one or all at once.

Are religions True?

That's really difficult to say and might not even be important in the long run.

I like the story about the tribe in South America while I was studying Cultural Anthropology where they had carved wooden posts in their tribe which were worshipped and if anything happened to these carved posts then people might lay down and die.

So, the termites eventually ate the posts and the posts fell over and all the people sat down and died one by one of starvation because their world had ended.

I see all religions to some degree sort of like "The Post People" of South America who all died when the termites ate the posts they worshipped.

In this sense religions are very dangerous.

However, without them we likely couldn't have progressed as far as we have on earth either.

So, Religions are obviously a two edged sword as I have understood this from studying Comparative religion.

My best friend in fact got a degree in History of Religion specializing in Buddhism and Sanskrit and what I found most interesting about Sanskrit is that Russian is a Sanskrit language which really blew my mind when I found this out. However, Hindi and Tibetan and like Newari are all Sanskrit based languages too and in fact there are still people who speak variations of Sanskrit today in areas of India.

So, what are religions?

They are whatever you make them to be in your life.

Are they true?

There are truths in every religion but you have to figure out what these truths are for you in your own life.

I approach all religions as more of a universalist. I approach religions in a more scientific and practical way.

Basically, if I see something that I personally find useful in a religion I might adopt that idea into my own personal religion of how I see things right then in my life.

However, as I learn more about everything in the universe my ideas about what everything is or means keeps changing and evolving into something better and more useful.

So, I guess I see adaptation as well as compassion for all life in the universe are likely two of the most important things that the humans who survive everything have in common.

by God's Grace 

I had thought that Newari of Nepal was a Sanskrit based language. However, it is not but it is influenced heavily by Sanskrit as you can see here in this quote from AI:

No, Newari is not a Sanskrit-based language; it is a Tibeto-Burman language from the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. However, Newari has been heavily influenced by Sanskrit, and contains many loanwords from it, a result of extensive cultural contact, including translations of Sanskrit texts into Newari literature. 
Here's a breakdown of its linguistic classification and relationship with Sanskrit:
Newari belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family, making it distinct from the Indo-Aryan languages like Sanskrit. 
Despite its Tibeto-Burman roots, Newari has absorbed numerous loanwords from Sanskrit due to the immense influence of Indic civilizations and religions (Buddhism and Hinduism) on the Newar culture and society. 
The early literature in Newari consisted of translations from Sanskrit, and the language also features a tradition of histories and other works that reflect this deep connection. 
Newari was historically written using scripts derived from ancient Indian writing systems. Today, it is also written in the Devanagari script, the same script used for Sanskrit. 

  • Newar people - Wikipedia
    Newar (/nɪˈwɑːr/; Newar: नेवार, endonym: Newa; Newar: नेवा, Pracalit script: 𑐣𑐾𑐰𑐵𑑅‎), or Nepami, are primarily inhabitants in Kathmandu V...
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  • Newar | Encyclopedia.com
    Linguistic Affiliation. The Newari language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman Family. It has many classifiers and postpositions but is ...
  • What language is spoken in nepal? - HotBot
    Aug 1, 2024 — Newari (Nepal Bhasa) Newari, also known as Nepal Bhasa, is spoken by about 3.2% of the population. It is a Tibeto-Burma...
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