Religious Belief as Spiritual Sustenance

I can well remember that there was a time when I was five years old my mother took me to attend a ceremony in church. On that time, I knew nothing about religions, even never hearing about this term. But the candlelight with glow and moving sound of singing were impressive for me. Later, I knew that church’s belonging to Catholicism and that day was Christmas Eve. In my family, only my aunt gets along with the religion indeed. As a Catholic, she goes to church for mass on every Sunday.

Previously, I did not understand her persistence, but I gradually realized that is the piousness of her belief. Actually, not everyone thinks of the religion in this way. Owing to the religious fanatics and extremists, there exist some misunderstandings and criticisms towards religions. From my point of view, I would regard the religious belief as a sort of spiritual sustenance and positive self-discipline as well as an inner motivation to be a better man.

The religious belief is not restricted by religion itself but representing a spiritual sustenance for lives. What is the spiritual sustenance? Basically, it is the foundation that could bring people the sense of meaning towards their lives. People always seek for meaning for their lives in different ways. But some people cannot find this because they keep changing their spiritual sustenance, which leads to the empty space instead of meaning. The faith of religion could fill up this gap because that gives people a strong guidance coming through their whole life.

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Therefore, they might realize the significance for life. The religious ceremony, rituals, doctrine, prayer and writings all are the spiritual carrier for people’s faith, which flows with their daily life.

More specifically, Catholics goes to church for mass on every Sunday, and they would pray and tell sins to priests. Similarly, as for the Buddhists, they also have some special date such as the day for fasting, and they would visit temples for burning incense or worshiping the gods. All these behaviors are means of embodiment of the spiritual sustenance in my opinion. For the faithful, their daily life would operate based on these religious behaviors, just like gear’s rotating the system. Tired of trivial matters from real life, people’s spirits could be comforted by the sustenance which would bring them spiritual power and happiness. That is what those physical entertainments or activities cannot bring people.

Standing like a warning sign for moral standard, the religious belief plays the role of self-discipline for believers. In this aspect, religions take the responsibility of telling people what is the objective truth. Meanwhile, the religious doctrine emphasizes the significance of self-discipline. This point could be typically manifested by the Ten Commandment from the Bible. This text illustrates a fundamental moral standard to measure people’s behaviors. For instance, the Lord asked people to honor their parents and keep themselves away from murder, stealing and adultery. In addition, the Bible comes up with the concept of heaven and hell which are two different end-results for the good and bad man respectively. This is another approach for people to restrict their evildoing and promote the positive deed. For this reason, although religion might seem to be established on the conceptual world, it focuses more on the real world in my opinion.

Human set up the law to confirm the framework of society, which is exactly what the religious doctrine emphasizes. Citizens are governed by laws because there are serious consequences for breaking the rules. On the contrary, people are led by religious doctrines because of their fear and respect towards the god. Essentially, religious doctrines reach across various cultures to provide a standard for making a judgement about right and wrong, truth and false. The religious belief is an inner motivation for followers to better themselves and the world. In my view, no matter for the spiritual sustenance or self-discipline, all the meaning of religious belief is to encourage human to seek the belter good. The experience of Jesus described in the Bible exactly illustrates this point. Although, not everyone agrees that miracles really happened, I strongly believe that his persistence for morality and justice is the most significant message.

During the journey of Jesus’s public ministry, he propagated the doctrine, resolved doubts and imparted morality, as well as healing the sick. He always insisted on goodness, completely disregarding the misunderstandings from other people. Even, when he knew that Judas had betrayed him, he did not choose to escape but accept the destiny. No matter whether these records are true or not, as an important part of doctrine, Jesus’s spirit has a profound and positive impact on followers. People’s respect and piousness towards the religions will promote themselves to follow the values which are advocated by the doctrine. To get closer towards the standard is a process of seeking and forming a better personality. And people will avert their eyes from the personal gain or loss to the benefit of the whole society.

As one of the most essential part of cultural heritage, religions have great impacts on human beings. The faith of religion is definitely not the spiritual luxury goods. Instead, it is a safe shelter where spirit could lie down; it is a measure ruler of distinguishing right and wrong; it is the lighthouse which could guide people to move on in darkness. Truly understanding religious belief could improve the quality of life, provide the meaning of life journey and motivate people to achieve their goals.