A wise (and slightly eccentric) Psychology lecturer, while telling his class of the nature of individual differences, and to whom I was only half-heartedly listening, digressed and briefly discussed religion. My ears perked up. As someone who feels very disenchanted by the faith I was baptised into, any discussion on the merits of religion leave me somewhat cynical. As a result I hardly ever attend my local parish Church - or Church at all for that matter.
Don't get me wrong, the people there are lovely, and my local parish was always rather tolerant of little toddlers running up and down the aisle. It also helped that we had a rather outgoing parish priest who had a bubbly and witty sense of humour. But I always thought that dragging myself out of bed on Sunday mornings to sit in an uncomfortably upright wooden pew listening to bad singing, screaming toddlers and "This is the word of the Lord" somewhat tiresome and unnecessary.
Anyway, where was I? It seems that I have digressed just like the Psychology lecturer...
As he was discussing several religions, he summed up two major world religions in one word each.
"Christianity," he said, "is a religion of Love."
"And Islam," he continued, "is a religion of Peace."
That's all he said about religion before going back to the nature of individual differences, and needless to say it got me thinking. If each of these religions are filled with good things, then why isn't the world a better place?
While there isn't a clear cut, definitive answer, I would venture that the mention of religion in a Psychology lecture of individual differences wasn't as arbitrary as it seemed. Within each religion, everyone (and I mean everyone) has their individual interpretation. If every single follower of every single religion submitted to divine ruling as a collective, with no variation or difference of opinion, then the cogs of social fabric would run smoothly - at least, that is what you'd hope.
If Christianity is truly a religion about love, then why do we see hate crimes against those who facilitate abortions? Within the last two weeks, a medical doctor in the US was shot dead by a pro-life activist all because he had performed an abortion. The Pope himself has made his stance very clear on other issues such as homosexuality, contraception and the problem of AIDS in the African Continent, legitimising some Christians and their beliefs that being gay is a sin, contraception is against the will of God and that condoms increase the risk of AIDS.
The latter of these claims is totally outrageous and untrue (as prooved by our good friend, Science) but what of the will of the woman who may have been sexually assaulted? Does the Pope have the right to say that the victim has no choice but to have the baby that she never wanted, was never prepared for and did not willingly conceive? You bet he doesn't!
And as for that contentious issue of homosexuality - well doesn't the coming of Jesus and the New Testament make that not an issue at all? As far as I'm aware, the main messages of the New Testament were:
Love thy neighbour as thyself; and
Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.
Promlem solved! It's okay to be gay!
And if Islam is a religion of peace, where does September 11 come into the divine equation? When did Allah, through the prophet Mohammed declare that four commercial airliners be forcibly hijacked and used as hundred-tonne projectiles to brutally slay thousands of innocent bystanders going about their routine (and rather peaceful) lives? Nowhere! That's where!
Where am I going with this? Well you've no doubt realised that not every Christian hates, and not every Muslim wages war. In fact, the majority probably don't do either. What is the problem with these situations? Pure blind faith. Unquestioned devotion to that which is not tangiable, not visible, not testable.
Ah! What was that last word? Testable! Something which true science is. While having faith in some things is definitely beneficial - you have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow morning; that you'll wake up; that your kids are safe on their way to school or that you'll pass that eternally-loathed statistics exam you've been cramming all night for - you certainly don't know these things for sure.
Certainly, the sun rising tomorrow morning may even be explained by the sciences of astronomy and goverened by the laws of physics, so you could even argue that this is not faith per se, but knowledge - tested, predicted reliably, repeatedly observable and so on.
Where is this when it comes to religion? Where has there ever been a reliable, testable and predictable affirmation that the world is going to end ever come true? Where is the evidence that it is against the will of God to have sex purely as an expression of mutual love and enjoyment without the intention of procreation? Where is the proof that legalising gay marriage will end the world? If you're going to cite the story of Sodom and Gommorah then I am going to cite the story of Disney's Sleeping Beauty as legitimate proof that the Devil is a woman and should be present at every single baby shower.
It is not faith and faith alone that brings eternal joy, light and happiness. Strictly following faith down to the very last letter is not even possible, due to there being varying interpretations of every single faith on Earth. And many of the strictest followers of faith have brought misery, suffering and death on others.
Conversely, the knowledge brought fourth by science can be bleak and disturbing. Who can honestly say that when the sun at the centre of our solar system runs out of hydrogen, turns into a red giant and completely obliterates the Earth in a few billion years is a happy thought?
As least knowledge can provide us with the answers we so sorely seek to many of the questions we have. It is still a flawed system, though. It can't provide us with the answer to the meaning of life, but the last time I checked, neither can faith.
Reason through knowledge provided by science should be the way of the world.
And if anyone disagrees with me, feel free to do so, because it's just my individual opinion.
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Great insightful post Simon. You certainly have a good writing style fit for a journalist.
ReplyDeleteI've thought about this topic too a couple of times throughout my life.
I personally think religion is there to explain the inexplicable. I mean, science is not able to explain everything, and it never will. Hence, religion takes care of this.
That said, I don't believe you have to be religious to live a morally, good, decent life. I, for one, have become less religious over the last year, and instead, have become more spiritual. Now I see myself as being more spiritual than religious.
There is a big difference between being spiritual and religious. In short, I've come to the conclusion that you can adopt the values and morals that the Bible (or Qur'an or any other religion) into your life without necessarily follow a God or prophet.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
Wow, i have so much to say about this blog.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, a story. There was a 9 year old girl in spain who was raped by her father, and fell pregnant with twins. As you know, spain is a catholic nation. Abortion is legal in spain only in the case of rape, or if the life of the mother is in danger. In this case both applied. The little girl was given permission by a judge to have an abortion. After the abortion was performed the church exocomunicated all involved; the mother, the doctors who performed the procedure, and anyone else who helped the girl get the abortion (the girl herself was not excomunicated as the church does not excomunicate minors). The church refused to speak out against the father, saying only that the crime of murder is far greater than that of rape.
Now on to Islam. Islam is an amazing religion. In fact many refer to Mohammad as "the first feminist" as he granted women many rights they had never enjoyed before in Arabia. The Koran itself shows an enlightened beautiful relgion. The problem lies in Hadith. Hadith are heresay sayings that people "remember" hearing the prophet say before his death. The Koran in contrast, is said to be the direct word of god. Many Hadith, especially those that do so much damage to women's rights, are highly contested. It is interesting to see the debates on certain Hadith between the prophets wives and the men around them (who had lost out due to women no longer being inheritable, and slavory being abolished).
And finally on christianity and homosexuality. Now if homosexuality were really so bad dont you think it would have been one of the 7 deadly sins? Seeing as jealousy seemed to make it on that list, should i assume it is safe to be gay, as long as your not coveting you neighbor at the same time? Homosexuality is not mentioned in the ten commandments either. In addition, if it was really such a big sin i believe that Jesus himself would have mentioned it. There are actually only 5 passages in the bible that reference homosexuality, and they are open to interpretation. In my opinion the bible may be gods word, but as interpreted by man. There would certainly be some biases from the beliefs of the time it was written. There is also the fact that the bible was passed along by word of mouth for around 60 years after the death of Jesus, before it was written down. And the oldest scroll that still exists today is from around 125AD. Thats a lot of retelling and rewriting.
Modern translations can also be quite biased. Take Romans 1:26-27. Here is a modern translation:
"For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error."
Here is a more traditional translation:
"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another: men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."
I cant help but feel that the modern passage is biased to make it sound more anti-gay. I used this particular passage because in my opinion its the only on that has any real legitimacy as a reference to sexuality. Other stories such as the Sodomites dont stand up the thorough investigation. The original definition of sodomite had nothing to do with anal sex but (off the top of my head) reffered to people who were lazy and inhospitable.
Anyway just my two cents.