Does a religion define a person ? ( An amateur's point of view )

[Disclaimer: This is not meant to offense anyone, just putting out few things that are mingling in my mind]

In a time, we fight each other for various reason [ religion, race, sex ... to name a few ], I am sure many might have spent enormous time studying what cause them and why we cant at least avoid it in the future.  Given the title, it should be noted that I have not done any background reading on this, so I must apologize if I am re-stating things that are already in the public domain or state somewhere else before.

Lets try to define a person ... Why do we people rise against each other ? Without going to the big stage, why would you stand against any other person ? I am sure you won't hit someone you just met in the bus for no good reason [ sadly society today is full of such stories killing strangers, we will get to that point later ]. If you look closely we would stand against someone because who he / she is. Mainly because we can not tolerate the definition of them, the definition we have given to them [ not necessarily the actual definition of them ]. So what is this definition ? We define people by their religion, by their ethnicity, by their inherited names with so many other things that world has created to group people [ its funny that we are talking about globalization uniting people all over the world, but on the other hand each day we find new ways to get separated from each other ]. We are proud for who we are [ of course nothing wrong with that ] and at the same time we very rarely appreciate others for being them rather we try to make them to a person based on our likes and dislikes. Bottom line is, we either "re"-define them or break them if they are not willing to do that. Needless to say that its just wrong to redefine another person based on our preferences but I am going to rather elaborate on the fact that are we defining people right at the first place before standing against them ???

Lets talk about known facts, if a person is Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist ... I have seen that people tend to just assume so many things about that person even before that person says a single word. This goes on with all other main factors as well ... such as race, etc ( So when you first read it, the impression on your face is, RIGHT ... we dont do that, thats just evil ... hmmm ... dont rush just think slowly, how many time have these factors affected our decisions in our lives. ). So it goes on to say that we define a person based on something we assume and act upon it and we rarely give the other person a chance prove who really he / she is.

And you might have often come across terms such as "Good Christians" / "Bad Christians", "Good Muslims" / "Bad Muslims". We will leave the good portion for the moment ... So who are these "Bad" people anyways ? ... If I ask you to define the term "Bad" Christian, among many answers that one might get, the summarizing answer would be that a person who is Christian and follows a very bad life style or a Muslim who has a very bad life, and the list goes on ... So how exactly can a person be a Christian and follows a bad life ? or be a Muslim / Buddhist and have a troublesome life ... Is that definition correct ? You are trying to say this is an apple and its colour is Blue.

Thus the question comes ... Does a religion define a person ? or can any other external factors such as race define a person for that matter ??? In the current society we assume it does as I was making that point earlier. Then again the question is, does it really ???

If I go along the lines of religion, religion does DEFINE  a person. However, the issue we have today is that people no longer truly follows their religion or do follow a religion defined by them selves which is very much different from the true religion. So in the simple terms, there aren't any bad Christians they are just bad people who aren't Christians. People seen in the churches aren't necessarily be Christians, people seen in the temples aren't necessarily be Buddhists or Hindus. People have found so many other reasons to be in the churches or in the temples without really being the true followers. So with people like them there is no co-relation between their religion and what kind of a person who he / she is. Its nothing wrong with the religion its what is wrong with those people. One person or group people acting weird mean that they are weird not their religion and specially we CAN NOT assume that another person belongs to the same religion is weird too.

On the other hand, Fundamentalists treat the Bible as in written for 4th Grade  students take only the literal meaning of it and creating all sort of false claims. Radicals change their own religion to justify their own cause portraying a holy picture for their wrong cause. [ aren't we all defining each terms of the religion for our own cause in some cases, justifying what we do ... that's wrong, and using it to harm others or even to force others to believe it, its even more of a grave sin ]

So if the religion does define a person, and if just being religious doesn't count it towards it, how does actually religion define a person ?? ... [ any thoughts before reading the rest ??? , of course rest of the part just gives my point of view of it ] ... I think its the conscious of the person that is defined by the religion. In this very fast moving society, we have to make decisions every day every hour ... So mind will do the cost benefit analysis gives you a recommendation ( which in most cases a materialistic decisions ) and the conscious based on what you believe in your religion will give a spiritual decision. So how often do we listen to our conscious ? Making it worse, most of the time the spiritual alternative is the hardest alternative over the rest. So the definition of a bad person / good person comes from the form of whether that person listen to the conscious or not in carrying out day to day activities.

Next obvious question is what if the conscious is wrong, well if that's the case either what are you believing in is wrong or you are not believing anything. I personally believe, how strong your faith is, to which extent you would go to prove it, are the other factors that will affect the outcomes of the conscious and of course your final decision to take. So you can't really count on a conscious of a fake Christian. If you keep on ignoring the conscious, it will one day die off. A true Christian follower should more often than not, listen to the conscious and act upon it and any other person for that matter. A true Christian is helped by The Holy Spirit to take the right path and the right decision guiding our confused mind and I am sure each religion has its own way to deal with it.

So the bottom line is, I think Religion does define a person ONLY IF that person truly follows and observes the religion. However, can a true Christian be different from any other true followers of their religion ??? Let it be Muslims, let it be Buddhists, let it be Hindus ... The Answer is, if they are all true followers, they all will love one another and treat everyone as their own brothers and sisters. So if they are same why on earth do we have conflicts based on religion ??? I guess, answer is simple as none of the people who are involved in these conflicts are true followers of their respective religion ... They have just made up their own agendas / rules for the religion and acting upon it. So the religion is only a cover up story.

So keep in mind, when you meet a person, don't judge the person on the religion after all as Christians we know Jesus told us not to judge anyone. If that person turns out to be such a jerk, do not blame the religion as religion has nothing to do with the bad behaviour. And when its your responsibility after all to make sure that you convey the message of your religion by your good living as Jesus said live by example is the best way to pass on the message of good news.

[ Leave your thoughts as a comment, so that this incomplete effort would one day make the picture complete :), God Bless You !!! ]