2007 02 Religion

Religion

Over the years, I’ve pondered our existence and tried to figure out why we are parked here on earth and what we’re supposed to do with our lives. I enjoy looking at depictions of the universe on my computer and marveling on how vast and complicated it is, but cannot fathom what is beyond what we can perceive even with our best instruments. The wonder of the complexity and ingenuity of creation is so intricate that it seems somehow impossible that we humans will ever be able to comprehend how it all started and where it all is going. Even if we scientifically believe that our universe has evolved into life forms, that cannot explain issues of purpose or lack thereof. In medicine, we can manipulate what has been provided to us, but we cannot create the building blocks of life on our own. Science cannot answer the questions, “Why do we exist”, “How big is the universe”, “What’s beyond the end”, “What’s inside small?”, “When was the beginning?” and “When will it end?”.

These are questions which eons of philosophers have struggled with. Religion offers one (or many) explanation(s). Religions have been formed in two principle ways: Regionally or Prophetically. Regionally developing religions are Hinduism from India and Judaism from the Eastern Mediterranean. Prophetically developing religions are most others, particularly Buddhism (Buddha), Christianity (Jesus Christ) and Islam (Muhammad). Newly created prophetically based beliefs are labeled cults, as they depart from locally accepted norms of thought. No matter how they were established, all religions have one thing in common: Faith in the veracity of their teachings. Because faith is not something which can be proven, religion has a fundamental problem. Fervent believers cannot defend their faith with reason. This explains why over the centuries many schisms have torn apart mainstream beliefs and caused wars of passion—even hatred. In its simplest form faith says something like, “I’m right and I know I’m right. You must be wrong. Because I’m right, I’m justified in any action I take to prevail over your thought and control your life.”

I have observed that most people who have faith gained that faith through conversations with others, often family members. Faith is as much based on cultural traditions as it is in the wisdom it conveys. If mom and dad believed and took junior to church or synagogue or mosque, that’s what junior taught his children. It is only natural that we would teach what we were taught. That is what teachers do best. Occasionally in history, prophetic thinkers have taught a new way of looking at life’s questions and have thereby created a new religion. The religion I am most familiar with is Christianity. Believers say that Christ came to earth as God, because God cares for us. Because we failed to listen to God’s plan to do right in the world out of respect for his creation he died for us so that we would live...which is what God wanted anyway. Had I been born in Iran, it is likely I would have been taught a different story. Another story would have been told if I had been born in Hawaii in 1500 or to the Aleut tribe in the Arctic two hundred years ago.

Religion often relies on ancient teaching. How is it that old books can be better than new books? Religious scholars might tell you that “the truth” is true and therefore the age of that truth is timeless. My understanding of our ability to comprehend our world would tell me that human brilliance is severely limited and that there is still a lot to learn. It was once commonly thought that the world is flat. We once believed that the sun rotated around the earth. We once did not know that an atom could be split releasing tremendous energy. We once thought there was a big bang. No one has yet told me what happened before that and I’m not bright enough to figure it out on my own. I surmise that only an omnipotent Creator would have that answer. Whoops, that’s a religious answer to the question. As many people study our world and as more information becomes accessible to more and more people, the proliferation of knowledge has caused a recent burst of understanding about how things work. Nevertheless, this expansion of understanding doesn’t begin to answer the fundamental questions posed in my opening paragraph.

Religions not only seek to explain the universe, they seek to modify and control our behavior. By making human beings insignificant in the grand scale of the universe and God (the omnipotent one) most significant, religions paint our task on earth as one of making a difference beyond ourselves. If we can only keep God as the focus and not ourselves, then the world will be a better place for everyone. That is sometimes done through contemplation, sometimes by doing good works, sometimes by self sacrificing in some way so that God is honored by our presence. Stories of bad and good punctuate religions as examples of what to do and not do. Religions help us get through life’s crises. They help us culturally be supported at life and death moments…the birth of a child or the death of a parent or close relative or even our own death. Those are the times when we realize how short our time is to answer life’s questions. If we don’t get answers really fast, it will be too late!

So is there a single truth? A truth which is irrefutable and unchangeable? At the moment only religion can answer that question. Is it the right one? Only God knows the answer to that question.

©Frank Bliss 2007 All rights reserved
February, 2007