© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete text of Human Action, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's philosophy of human achievement.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Human Action Table of Contents
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• Religions are strong human motivators, for and against.

• Religions affect many aspects of general human society.

• Religions affect human culture, communications and language.

• Religions create strong reference matrices.

• You are a person with strong religious beliefs. These beliefs may tie you to a particular religion, perhaps the religion of your birth, or you may have strong religious feeling without any denominational affiliation.

• You are not a religious person. Either religion is not important to you, or you are an active atheist or opponent of religion.

• You stand somewhere in-between. You're not really sure.

If you're going to accept religious doctrine, accept it from a position of knowledge and strength. If religion really bothers you, get it out of your system and move on with your life. If you just don't know, decide whether it's really important that you know. If it is, investigate the matter. If not, spend your life's energies in other areas. A vague, “sort of” religious feeling is not helpful or kinetic. Important life matters like religion take commitment and decision.

One word of warning, however. Religious ways of thinking and religious references are deeply connected to our language: how we define words and concepts. I once actually heard someone, in all sincerity, say, “Thank God, I'm an atheist!” and then giggle over the unintended irony. If you don't follow a particular religion, and instead have a more general desire to be in touch your spiritual side, you might be tempted to use the word “God” to express the power of nature, the unknown, the mystery of the universe, or even the Trans-Biological Imperative, the human creative urge. You'd do better to you use a different word. The word “God” has been so powerfully etched into our consciousness by organized religion over the last few thousand years that I truly don't believe you can give it a meaning other than its meaning in the Bible or the Koran.

A Shock further than using new words, or words that have less baggage than the word “God,” is to use no words at all for those forces of creativity and mystery in our lives. Why not leave them open and free. Why define and limit them? When you cut out these static reference matrices, you open up your imagination and creativity to growth without limit. Isn't that just what you want?

Exercise: You and Religion

People get very excited about religion. This exercise is designed to calm you instead.

Determine if you are an adherent of an organized religion. Can you say you are a Catholic, Presbyterian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or Moslem? If the answer is yes, what is your connection with the religion? Here are some possible answers:

• I am fully educated in theological matters and I believe all or most of the doctrine of my religion.

• I am not educated in doctrine but I trust what the religion stands for.

• I was born into the religion and call myself a member because I like the tradition of it, the community or family connections.

• If you are not an adherent of an organized religion and still consider yourself religious, define your beliefs in a few sentences. Have you really thought all this out or is it a “just sort of” situation?

• If you are not religious at all, explain why. You don't have to get into a theological argument, but it is important for you to define your beliefs to yourself in a few sentences.