So who needs it? (Religion)

Name: spoonfacer

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Product:	Religion
Date:	02/11/01 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Eternal life?

Disadvantages: Erm....all sorts, No really..., Erm..lots

I recently attended a wedding, where in the course of a long, rather smug and uninspiring sermon, the priest said with a smile that he could think of no greater privilege than having been brought up in a Christian family environment. Which I disagreed with, because, coming from such an environment, I finally object to having an organised group (for the most part with the best intentions) telling me what to believe, even telling me what I do believe, and what penalties there would be for not believing it (eternal damnation, endless infinite suffering, that sort of thing).

So here are a few scattered thoughts, a few strictly theological dilettante, back-of-an-envelope, far-from-authoritative ideas-down-the-pub about theistic religion in general, and Christianity in particular...the unknowable referred to as ‘God’ or ‘he’ throughout....I’d have preferred ‘it’ but I know some people would take offence.. :-)

Reason vs faith
Nobody knows, nobody CAN truly know, what truth there is in unverifiable religious beliefs. People with ‘faith’ claim such knowledge or claim to have an inner knowledge that transcends mere reason and argument. Stangely, the inner knowledge of people of different religions differs markedly and is often contradictory. Why is this?

Can spirituality exist without religion.?
I see no connection between a belief in God, and a belief in a meaningful feeling of spirituality. I would place my spirituality in a feeling of connection and relation to the living and non-living world and universe around me, not in an unknowable all-knowing unkown that other people tell me wishes to judge me and my life.

Can morality exist without religion?
I am certain that all the people I have ever met have moral beliefs and self-imposed limits on their actions. I haven’t noticed any particular link between religious belief and sensitive and altruitic behaviour. I w
ork in the voluntary sector, with many committed and caring individuals, some have faith, many do not. All would, after much wringing of hands and self-searching, judge themselves to be people with strong moral beliefs.

Pain
Why does pain exist? Why does suffering exist? Why does an omniscient, omnipotent God allow pain and suffering to happen to sentient, living things? If, as some believe, God takes the credit for our existence, for our bountiful harvest, for love, for the wonders of the natural world, for the ‘miracle’ of birth then why does God not also take the blame for our end of existence, for drought, for hate, for extinction, for Alzheimer’s disease, for the heartbreak of stillbirth, and for needless, stupid death and pain in general? God either does, or does not have a role in these things. If he does not have any discernible effect on the world, then why is he necessary?

Truth and Scripture
Why, if scriptures are inspired by God, do they contain so many clear historical errors, so many contradictory accounts and principles, and so many ‘scientific’ beliefs about the physical world that are clearly untrue. If God were omniscient, why would he ‘inspire’ mistaken accounts. And if scriptures are not inspired by God, why should we pay them any more heed than other old dusty books. I don’t see anyone basing their life on teachings gleaned form the Epic of Gilgamesh, or Beowulf (forgive me if you have constructed a religion around these books...can I come along and watch?)
In general, why should I trust the word and the ideas of someone who has ‘the Prophet’ or ‘Saint’ in front of their name any more than the word of someone who doesn’t? Why should I trust St Paul, for example (whose teachings I find generally distasteful , and disconnected in many ways from the reported teachings of Jesus) rather than my flatmate Paul, who often makes more sense t
o me.

Time
If any one set of religious beliefs is true, then why have they been allowed to arise at one particular , recent point in time? Did the people before this time not need or deserve saving? How does an account of a God linked to humanity fit in with the mostly-verifiable probablility of human evolution? If anatomically modern people have existed for so many thousand years, and have in turn evolved from less human precursors in succession over the last few million years, then at what point did people become responsible for their actions and become available for judgement by God? And how does the account of creation in the scriptures tally with the contradictory account from the biological, genetic, archaeological and palaentological evidence for the existence of people far beyond the timescale of the Biblical text?

What do people get from religion?

1.A sense of meaning- so what’s wrong with human meaning, or a meaning in relation to other living things and the natural world?

2.A sense of belonging- what’s wrong with other ‘communities’? – peer groups, civil society, friends, your local footie team.

3.A sense of awe and spirituality- what’s wrong with art, sex, the natural world, the universe? What’s wrong with your inner feelings when you go beyond yourself- go and dance all day and all night and see what that feels like.

4. Moral guidance- what’s wrong with your own conscience? I wouldn’t have any problem with anyone who honestly said they’d followed their inner voice, without reference to a system of rules, or a belief in what God wanted them to do.

5. Eternal bliss in the life beyond- ahhh, well, we’ll wait and see on that one.

Well that’s the gamble isn’t it?. Am I going to be honest, and say that I’m not going to follow any religion, especially since the recipe for eternal bliss seems to var
y so much between them (add a pinch of faith here, add five spoonfuls of prayers a day there) , or am I going to take Pascal’s gamble and believe because of the risk of not believing.

I’ll take honesty and trust that if there is a God, He’s as forgiving as he’s (sometimes) cracked up to be...

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