Religion - A Blessing Or A Curse
Yesterday, 11/Sep/08, All Things Considered, on NPR, aired a segment titled:”Does Race Matter In '08? The View From York, Pa.” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94523754)
Among all that was said, one sentence stood out to me:
"I look at Obama, and I have a question in my mind," she says. "Years ago, was he taken into the Muslim faith? And my concern is the only way you are no longer a Muslim is if you are dead, killed. So in my mind, he's still alive."
About 800 years ago people who called themselves Christians headed out to the “holy land” and killed anything that moved – children, babies, old people, women, men. They leveled the cities, towns and villages they encountered. Their reason for doing this was not, that they wanted land, or gold and riches (well, since they found some, they took that too, of course), it was not because the people in the middle east had attacked them first, or done anything at all to them. No, the sole reason for the slaughter was, that they were Muslims and not Christians. These “wars” were called Crusades. Now, 800 years later, I hear another Christian say “...the only way you are no longer a Muslim is if you are dead, killed.” That scares me!
I am sure, the lady does not want Muslims to be killed, but was referring to the part of Islam dogma, that demands for anybody, who is leaving the Islam belief-system, to be killed. Either way, both scares me: There is a religion with a large following, that some centuries ago killed other people for the sole reason that they followed a different “spiritual” belief-system. And today, there are still a lot of fundamentalist followers, some of which are quite willing to commit violent actions against people who do not share the same believes. Then, there is another religion, with as large a following, that requires other people to be killed should they choose not to continue to follow that believe-system.
All this is a stark reminder of how necessary it is for us to start focusing on our spiritual development. Such attitudes and ideas may be fit for the dark ages, but in the 21st century, we really ought to be able to grow beyond that. The question is how can that maturation process be achieved. I am dedicating my life and this whole site to facilitate such positive spiritual development. And you are invited to contribute, too – by adding comments, by asking questions, by pointing your friends and family to this site, and, by thinking about spiritual topics, learning and growing...
Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. The essence of his teaching seems to be “Love your neighbor”. “Love”, not hate! “Love”, not kill! How can the followers of a religion, founded on a person that tried to teach love, be so hateful as they were 800 years ago? How can the followers of that religion be so unloving, judgmental and self-righteous as many of us are still today?
I find, that much of the essence of Christianity can also be found in other religions. Just expressed differently, explained through other analogies. Why do we still not get it?
I believe, that the essence of all the religions is divine content. Summarized in one word it is Love. Unfortunately, the divine content is muddled up with human add-ons – superstitions, cultural bias, and ideas that originate from our instincts as animals of this world. Add to it a heavy helping of misinterpretations, and it becomes more and more understandable, that the essence is getting lost, overlooked. Our cultural background strongly influences where we place our focus – usually it's on something that is not important at all.
Some of the topics, that I find to be rather unimportant, but that receive a lot of focus within the Christian community, are discussed at length and caused many an argument and bad blood among families, friends, and communities are: Was Mary a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus? Is Saturday or Sunday the 7th day? Is King James Version the “real” bible?
Among the topics within the Islam believe-system, I find the whole issue of what is appropriate attire for females, and the concept of “holy war” to be rather a result of human thinking, than of divine inspiration.
What makes the whole situation almost impossible to improve is our practice of proclaiming our interpretation of what is written as the Word of God. Our language does not allow us to describe spiritual content well, as it was conceived and designed to explain the physical world around us. The only way we have to explain spiritual ideas is by using analogies, parables, models. No model is a true, complete representation of the original. If we focus on every aspect of the model to be taken as is, literally, we are bound to misunderstand. Declaring the model to be the Word of God, moves the focus from the content to the package, discourages the search for the real Word of God and forces the model to be adored and followed. (This concept, too, is a left-over from the dark ages, when monks wanted to retain control over the population, and feared to loose that, if the population thinks for themselves.)
I suggest, if one wants to attribute “something” as being the Word of God, to think of the content, and not the packaging; The meaning behind the words, rather than the words. At least, that makes it admissible to think beyond the narrow confines of 500 year old interpretations, when pondering the content of the Bible, the Qur-An, and all the other spiritual scriptures.
Finally, our strong tendency towards traditions, and away from change, makes it almost impossible to make course corrections. If you look around in your life, you will find many, many instances of where we adore traditions, holding traditions up high, following traditions that make no more sense in todays world. At the same time, you can also find many, many instances where we strongly discourage change, where change is seen as evil, and development is seen as deterioration, rather than improvement.
There are so many obstacles hindering us from finding a better understanding of what our religions are trying to teach us. However, there is a growing number of people in this world, who are working hard on overcoming these obstacles, and who are on a journey towards spiritual growth and development. You are one of them, as you are reading this text. We are today's pioneers. We have set out to leave the over-populated cities of mass-churches, fundamentalist prisons, and purpose-less treadmills behind. We are daring to go, where many are still afraid to venture. We have traversed and left behind the grand old river of superstition, and are exploring the landscape beyond the great plains of ignorance, to find in the majestic mountains of wisdom and spiritual understanding those green, fertile pastures of Love, where eventually we all will be able to live with each other in peace and harmony...
Among all that was said, one sentence stood out to me:
"I look at Obama, and I have a question in my mind," she says. "Years ago, was he taken into the Muslim faith? And my concern is the only way you are no longer a Muslim is if you are dead, killed. So in my mind, he's still alive."
About 800 years ago people who called themselves Christians headed out to the “holy land” and killed anything that moved – children, babies, old people, women, men. They leveled the cities, towns and villages they encountered. Their reason for doing this was not, that they wanted land, or gold and riches (well, since they found some, they took that too, of course), it was not because the people in the middle east had attacked them first, or done anything at all to them. No, the sole reason for the slaughter was, that they were Muslims and not Christians. These “wars” were called Crusades. Now, 800 years later, I hear another Christian say “...the only way you are no longer a Muslim is if you are dead, killed.” That scares me!
I am sure, the lady does not want Muslims to be killed, but was referring to the part of Islam dogma, that demands for anybody, who is leaving the Islam belief-system, to be killed. Either way, both scares me: There is a religion with a large following, that some centuries ago killed other people for the sole reason that they followed a different “spiritual” belief-system. And today, there are still a lot of fundamentalist followers, some of which are quite willing to commit violent actions against people who do not share the same believes. Then, there is another religion, with as large a following, that requires other people to be killed should they choose not to continue to follow that believe-system.
All this is a stark reminder of how necessary it is for us to start focusing on our spiritual development. Such attitudes and ideas may be fit for the dark ages, but in the 21st century, we really ought to be able to grow beyond that. The question is how can that maturation process be achieved. I am dedicating my life and this whole site to facilitate such positive spiritual development. And you are invited to contribute, too – by adding comments, by asking questions, by pointing your friends and family to this site, and, by thinking about spiritual topics, learning and growing...
Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. The essence of his teaching seems to be “Love your neighbor”. “Love”, not hate! “Love”, not kill! How can the followers of a religion, founded on a person that tried to teach love, be so hateful as they were 800 years ago? How can the followers of that religion be so unloving, judgmental and self-righteous as many of us are still today?
I find, that much of the essence of Christianity can also be found in other religions. Just expressed differently, explained through other analogies. Why do we still not get it?
I believe, that the essence of all the religions is divine content. Summarized in one word it is Love. Unfortunately, the divine content is muddled up with human add-ons – superstitions, cultural bias, and ideas that originate from our instincts as animals of this world. Add to it a heavy helping of misinterpretations, and it becomes more and more understandable, that the essence is getting lost, overlooked. Our cultural background strongly influences where we place our focus – usually it's on something that is not important at all.
Some of the topics, that I find to be rather unimportant, but that receive a lot of focus within the Christian community, are discussed at length and caused many an argument and bad blood among families, friends, and communities are: Was Mary a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus? Is Saturday or Sunday the 7th day? Is King James Version the “real” bible?
Among the topics within the Islam believe-system, I find the whole issue of what is appropriate attire for females, and the concept of “holy war” to be rather a result of human thinking, than of divine inspiration.
What makes the whole situation almost impossible to improve is our practice of proclaiming our interpretation of what is written as the Word of God. Our language does not allow us to describe spiritual content well, as it was conceived and designed to explain the physical world around us. The only way we have to explain spiritual ideas is by using analogies, parables, models. No model is a true, complete representation of the original. If we focus on every aspect of the model to be taken as is, literally, we are bound to misunderstand. Declaring the model to be the Word of God, moves the focus from the content to the package, discourages the search for the real Word of God and forces the model to be adored and followed. (This concept, too, is a left-over from the dark ages, when monks wanted to retain control over the population, and feared to loose that, if the population thinks for themselves.)
I suggest, if one wants to attribute “something” as being the Word of God, to think of the content, and not the packaging; The meaning behind the words, rather than the words. At least, that makes it admissible to think beyond the narrow confines of 500 year old interpretations, when pondering the content of the Bible, the Qur-An, and all the other spiritual scriptures.
Finally, our strong tendency towards traditions, and away from change, makes it almost impossible to make course corrections. If you look around in your life, you will find many, many instances of where we adore traditions, holding traditions up high, following traditions that make no more sense in todays world. At the same time, you can also find many, many instances where we strongly discourage change, where change is seen as evil, and development is seen as deterioration, rather than improvement.
There are so many obstacles hindering us from finding a better understanding of what our religions are trying to teach us. However, there is a growing number of people in this world, who are working hard on overcoming these obstacles, and who are on a journey towards spiritual growth and development. You are one of them, as you are reading this text. We are today's pioneers. We have set out to leave the over-populated cities of mass-churches, fundamentalist prisons, and purpose-less treadmills behind. We are daring to go, where many are still afraid to venture. We have traversed and left behind the grand old river of superstition, and are exploring the landscape beyond the great plains of ignorance, to find in the majestic mountains of wisdom and spiritual understanding those green, fertile pastures of Love, where eventually we all will be able to live with each other in peace and harmony...
posted by Thomas | 9:35 AM
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