My View Of Religion 2

I decided at the time of MVOR 1 that I had to make some mention of how I view religion. The world might be able to wait, but I could not until some presentable essay or book were ready. I had to give some idea. Then, if my readers faces blanched, their fingers trembled, and a goodly number of them felt vomitous, they would be saved from the bane of my writing. Fair enough. When I read Arnold Toynbee's A Study Of History forty years ago, I experienced for the first time - and, I may add, almost the LAST time - an account of the complex behavior known as Religion. I learned Religion is every bit as complex as Rocket Science, and it is subtle, mysterious, and dynamic in ways that we almost never, ever think about. Then I read Lanternari's Religions Of The Oppressed. This opened my eyes to the fact that Religion was blooming and flourishing everywhere and at all times, and its has a dynamic that weaves in and out of the passionate souls of its devotees. (You will have to read them yourselves if you don't believe me!) Two books! No more, no less. In Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke wrote of the evolution of humanity to a higher state. This book was filmed as 2001. I have friends who believe mankind will evolve to a higher state, but it will be sometime in the future when the fellows driving the UFOs make themselves manifest. Teilhard de Chardin wrote of the evolution of mankind to a higher state, the Omega Point, and Teilhard was all the rage- for a time. There is a recurrent belief in mankind's evolution to a better state. St.Paul tells us to put away the things of a child, childhood's end, but we cannot do this. As children, we are under the rule of Shame. Our elders use Shame to modify behavior. When we grow up, Shame should be put aside, and good works come from the heart, not from the fear of Shame. As children, we are under the rule of Teachers and 'ullima and Rabbis who tell us what to do and what to think. As mentioned before, there are teachings which tell us to call no man Rabbi. We never get rid of the middle-man and approach God on our own two feet. The impetus of Religion is a desire to be free. Organized Religion writes a book about desire, and now it is a Catechism of freedom, which is not freedom, rather an imprisonment to rote learning and repetition. When we were children, we were told Religion is about God. When we have grown up, we never learned that it is not about God; it is about us, and in particular about ourselves in our special relationship with God. Religion is phoney when it parades itself around like a pantomime of the world we live in. When you dress up God as a King, you may as well go kiss a political system. When you put God on a horse with a sword, you may as well pray to a cannon. God wants nothing. God lacks nothing. God wants the beings that do lack to be complete; He wishes those that hunger be filled, those that thirst be refreshed, those that suffer be comforted. He did not create us to be emotional cripples. Religion creates a higher communality of mankind, established by men and women freeing themselves from the compulsions of the habitual. When the Empires of Force, Brutality, Violence, and Compulsion finds themselves exhausted, and find they no longer can compel obedience by bragadoccio and bluster, they fall apart. Then the lives of men fall apart, unless there is yet some greater Union which cements them together. Religions have done this already. They've done it in the past. They will do it in the future. Christianity has done it at the fall of Rome. Buddhism has done it in the era of Asoka. Judaeism has created the wonderful community of the Diaspora after 70 C.E. Islam created a incredible community at the time of the Prophet. Each one of these creations was severely compromised by the political and the mean spirited. All we seem to remember of Religion is the mean spirits and obsessive repetitions, the politics and the fighting. But, just to know that such a thing was possible! Just to know that such a thing had once been done! That is the realization that rendered me mute with admiration! If you believe that mankind is capable of reaching a higher plane, it already has a countless number of times in the past. It will do so in the future. The first step is to realize it is possible. The second is that it is part of the nature of human beings to strive for it. The third is to not give in to the forces of disruption. It took me all this time to understand that the kingdom of God is within!