I’m a pagan who very rarely gets to be. Who doesn’t always have the choice to observe the high holidays, the sabbats and esbats and traditions of my chosen faith. I don’t even get to observe the traditional holidays most of the world does. In part it is by choice. A large part by necessity and through survival. Self-employed people don’t always get to choose their time off. I get days off when no one wants my services, not because I choose not to work. I’ve worked on Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, every Memorial Day and Labor Day for the past ten years. I’ve worked Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after. I’ve worked more New Year’s eves than I can count and my share of Valentine’s and Halloween. It is part of being self-employed. I take the work when I can get it, which means many of my holy days you’ll find me at work, wishing I was out in nature, celebrating, commemorating and connecting to my faith.
Today is Ostara, and I am at work. I did not get to watch the sunrise over a circle, I will not get to walk under trees in the new light of spring.
Still, I will celebrate in my way. I will take a moment to acknowledge this day, this rebirth of the sun. To revel in new warmth, new life, new everything. Spring is my season, my time. I am an April baby and with the new found sun I come alive each year. The cold melts away and I feel renewed like flowers coming back from a long winters slumber.
Ostara for me is the birth of that new life. A new year, refreshed and invigorated. I am ready to embrace the sun, the flowers. I am desperate to be outside and alive. These sabbats are more than the acknowledgement of gods, old and new. They mark the passage of time, the reminder to be grateful because life is short and precious. The reminder to acknowledge the passing seasons, the ebb and flow of the tide of time. To remember we are connected to the earth, to nature. That we do not live apart, but a part of this amazing world.
I start fresh, I start anew each sabbat, each turning of the wheel. I reaffirm myself to myself. I set new goals, shake off old doubts and begin again. Rebirthed and reborn so many times throughout the year, every shedding the old to don new layers of self.
Ostara for me is another rebirth. The quickening of life and energy inside my mind. It brings me hope and happiness and, I will confess, a little fear. Not fear that time is passing or that my birthday is quickly approaching to count down the years of my life. No, the fear that something more will awaken me, the fearful mania of my Bipolar. This is the season I will go manic if I do. So while I am awake and happy, I am watching myself. Waiting, worrying that this joy is not real and will spiral into a storm of manic anxiety that will lead to fear and self-destruction.
We find in science that it is the genetic markers in the
female that are passed down, making the female progenitors of the human race
the ones with the power. It makes one
consider if early civilizations feared this power and thus the insurgence of a male
dominate sky god bent on supplanting and dominating the earth goddess from
which he emerged.
At the beginning of recorded history, of recorded myth and
legend, God and Goddess stand united in their power and their being. Using myths for hundreds of cultures as a
basis, the hypothesis would stand that humanity began with a Matricentric or
egalitarian societies.
Matricentric, being societies that were centered on the authority of
females, rule and decisions were placed in the hands of women, as males were
warriors, hunters and did not live as long, therefore the females of these
societies were left to create their own rules and government. Egalitarian societies were more balanced,
with power falling on both male and female elders equally. Based on the evolution of mythology one can
see how this balance of belief is reflected in the gods and goddesses
above. From the matricentric cultures we
have the development of the Mother Goddess; the Earth from which all life is
born. She is represented by Ki in Sumerian
myth, Nertha of the Norse, Danu of the Celts, Kabau of the Akkadians and Gaea
of the Greeks. From her was born the
gods, Sun Gods who were at once sons and lovers, being born by her and then
consumed. As humankind evolved into more
egalitarian cultures we see the god become more consort than child, equal and
still born of the earth. These
representations of the earth honored that life came from the womb of
women. It gave honor to both the female
and the male, showing that neither was complete without the other. And then evolved the patriarchal societies,
and the monotheistic.
In the first book of the Bible,
Genesis, one can clearly see both an egalitarian and patriarchal creation story
side by side. They were written centuries apart, the myth about Adam and Eve, was written prior to the creation of them both
at the same time. God sees that
it is not good for man to be alone and so creates him a help meet. He causes Adam to sleep and “the rib, which
the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto man.”
(Genesis 2:22). Bringing Eve out of Adam
and presenting her to him places her in a subservient position, the evidence of
a patriarchal mentality. And in a more egalitarian
version “And God created humans in his own
image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.”
(Genesis 1:27).
Further evidence of the shift to a patriarchal mentality is
the domination of the Sun god over the goddess.
Earth becomes subjugated, losing her power and potency, we see this in
the evidence of Aphrodite, a reincarnation of the Goddess Ishtar who is fierce
and unconquered, but in the Greek patriarchy she becomes a spoiled, haughty,
flighty female without the substance of her former self.
Eve and Pandora, once creatrix goddess’ of their cultures,
shrink into shadow, losing their power as they become subjects to the male
superior societies in which they are surrounded. It is the fear of losing power, of becoming
emasculated by the female deity, as seen with Cronos’ castration of his father
Uranus at the urging of Gaea, the Earth Mother.
It is this fear turns Eve, the womb of life to the “the lance of
the demon”, “the road of iniquity” “the sting of the
scorpion”, “a daughter of falsehood, the sentinel of Hell”,
“the enemy of peace” and “of the wild beast, the most
dangerous.” It turns Pandora into the
bearer of all the gifts of man, from the holder of Hope, the cause of man’s
pain and misfortune. She is the bane of
man’s existence, born as punishment for knowledge and civilization.
In the middle ages, this was further advanced, to an almost
hysteric level. The church elders draw
upon scripture, urging submission and silence upon women, arguing that
“Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman
being deceived was in the transgression”.
It was Eve who was tempted so the early Fathers of the Church blamed her
and all women thereafter responsible for sin and the Fall of man.
Woman and Man were created through science and through myth
as one; their physical union is the creation of life and in our ancient past
both were honored for their place in the catalyst of life and society. But through fear and aggression, ignorance
and the need for power, the balance shifted and the union of Male and Female
was lost. Even now, humanity struggles
to find our balance, to shift the power from one hand to the other, and ideally
into both, so that the scales are balanced once more.
I was raised in a Creationist family, meaning
the concept of evolution and humans evolving from primates was considered not
only ludicrous but in my family blasphemous.
Because my parents believed so strongly in the Creationist theory, they
did not send us to public school and instead chose to teach us themselves. Let’s just say much of my education was
sorely lacking. The concept of evolution
and even that of dinosaurs was explained away in this manner:
Scientists found large, random bones of
deceased animals and just pieced them together how they saw fit to make bizarre
animals and thus prove their theories and that the planet was only six or so
thousand years old, as detailed out by the history in the Bible. Yes, the Bible was fact in my family and
science was the fairytale. Humans did
not evolve from apes, and the proof was that there were no half human half apes
walking out of the forest, therefore evolution was fiction, just made up by
sinners who wanted to denounce God made everything as described in Genesis.
Another favorite thing for my mother to pull out to prove that God was the
creator of all things in their current forms was to say that on Darwin’s
deathbed he denounced his theory of evolution, repented and accepted Christ
into his heart.
Now, with that as my early education, you
can understand why I chose to take this class.
I am not one to argue with fact, with the detailed, meticulous and long
years scientists have devoted to discovering the history of the planet on which
we stand. This does not change my belief
in God, or in the belief that He did indeed create everything. It only further astounds me at the complex
perfection of His Creation. That the
balance required to create life is so perfect and that evolution is a complex
and delicate process that takes thousands of generations to bring the human
race to where it is today.
Environment
leading to Evolution
On Page 206 of Essentials of Physical
Anthropology by Clark Spencer Larsen the text describes how the Fayum region of
Northeast Africa as being a lush and tropical location much like Southeast Asia
is today. An environment prime for the
growth and evolution of many primitive primate species, most notably some
higher primate species, the oligopithecids, parapithecids and
propliopithecids. Anthropologists have
found a large amount of the Oligocene primate fossils concentrated in this area,
which in our modern world is a harsh and arid desert, devoid of the life it
once hosted. The environment is a key
ingredient to encouraging the evolution or extinction of any species, those
most able to adapt, survive and pass on their genes, furthering the survival of
any particular mutation, thus leading to evolution. Animals that once existed in the Fayum region
are now extinct, because the environment shifted, becoming what it is
today. This of course raises the
question of what the face of the planet will look like in a few thousand years,
will the desert of the Fayum once more be the lush tropics it was, or will it
become something even more different? Kind
of makes one wish for HG Wells’ time machine.
Comment
Like Lorena stated the Adapid and the Omomyids were the
first true Euprimates. These creatures thrived due to the rapid
temperature increase of a significant period of Global Warming that changed the
face of the world. It gave rise to tropical environments all over the
world which in turn changed the form of foods available for animals to consume.
Therefore animals with more attributes suited to this new environment thrived
and gave rise to the modern appearing primates and caused the extinction of the
less well adapted plesiadapiforms. In a
world with more tropical environments, the Euprimates were more adequately
suited with their grasping hands and feet, were able to become more arboreal,
there was also an expansion in the brain size and the eye orbits as well.
All societies of man have sought to answer how we came in to
being. It is the greatest goal of man to
have an answer to the mystery of life.
It is not enough to simply be alive, we need to know we matter, have a
purpose. In order for us to search for that
purpose we need to know where we came from.
All cultures have a creation myth, and to the Greeks everything began
with the four great powers, Chaos, Gaia, Tartaros and Eros. Unlike the monotheistic genesis of creation
that the Judeo-Christian faith follows, the Greeks were created out of the
void, Chaos. An unplanned void, a void that had a beginning. Unlike the omnipotent God of Christians, who
has no beginning and no end, Greek mythology begins at a beginning, which means
their gods and deities had a beginning and if they had a beginning, unlike the
Christian God, they have an end.
Chaos is the unfathomable void, from which life is formed, the swirling
mass of energy, like the forces of energy that generated the Big Bang. From Chaos is life and from life was born
Mother Earth, Gaia. Gaia is the womb
from which man and gods were born. The
Greeks were an agrarian culture and their life came from the earth, so there
was much significance in their creation coming from the ample bosom of the
earth. Life springs from the ground and
when we die we return to it. The
opposite of life is death, and Tartaros, though not a being of death, is the
depthless prison into which the Titans were thrust, in essence ending their
life. Tartaros is both a place and a
being, the inevitable void, the unexplained, the thing to be feared that was
even deeper down than the Underworld. Life and death, chaos. These elements
bound together, held together for all creation by Eros. God of love and passion, on him the Greeks
placed great emphasis. Physical love and
passion, not the hearts and flowers type, but in the purest most primal essence,
for without love and sexual encounters life would not be created. It was from
these four beings that all life could grow out of. From creation, Hesiod shows
the gods, a mirror image of the ideals of man.
They have the same flaws and desires, simply amplified. It is from their lives that we can draw an
image of ancient Greek life. How man and
woman related, how children and their parents interacted. We see an idealized, more dramatic version,
but it is still a blue print of Greek life.
The Greeks were a patriarchal society in which the father’s word was
law. Women were subservient to men, the
vessels of their passions, the wombs for their children. They were also a society in which social
status and achievements were highly valued, sons were desired and yet feared by
their fathers. Desired to carry on the
family name, to achieve a sense of immortality, yet feared because the fathers
knew that they would someday age and die, become useless while their suns
replaced them. Sons both respected and
resented their fathers. It could have
been the competitive nature of their culture that the sons would strive to
surpass their fathers, to gain control over them, even in the eyes of their
mothers. There was conflict and pride in
every encounter. The competition so deeply
ingrained that the sons sought to replace their fathers in the devotion of
wives and mothers. In a culture where
women were not held in as high esteem, mothers were sacred. Sons were devoted to their mothers and their
mothers to them, a strange symbiotic relationship that was not reflected in the
relationship men had with their wives.
Mothers were revered, wives were owned. The
Greeks were a culture of assorted myths and beliefs, beliefs that came to them
from other cultures and were seamlessly integrated into their own. They were devout in a way our modern society
cannot fully understand. They did not
have the prayers and churches like we do.
Their religion was a part of their history and culture. Gods and man were separate and yet not. Their gods were not all powerful beings that
could not die. They had weaknesses and
mortal flaws. Jealousies and passions
very much life mortal mans. They believed in a universe that was ruled by gods
who were not the ultimate, omnipotent creature, where life begins and ends,
their gods had a beginning, could be killed and die. They were called deathless gods, yet they
were not eternal.
The Greeks were pragmatic in the belief that all things came to an end, even
the gods would someday end. The gods did
not age, but they were not eternal. They
had a beginning and thus an end. A
universe created by gods that had a beginning shows that there is an inevitable
end to all things. The Greeks did not
believe in eternal life, their stories, epics and tragedies always came to an inevitable
end. Heroes would die and cease to exist. Death in Hades was not a pleasant experience,
they did not believe in a resurrection or a heaven the way that the
Judeo-Christian faith does. A
polytheistic faith answered their questions about things in the universe that
they could not comprehend, but they did not have a belief in eternal life. For the Greeks the only way to achieve
immortality was to achieve glory, the kind of glory that would be sung about
for the ages.
In Genesis it tells the story of how Abraham is demanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering. The moral of the tale, as described in most Christian teachings is that one should have absolute faith and obedience to the will of God and that one will be blessed if one does. Faith is rewarded only if offered blindly with no regard to emotions or logic. To further enforce this lesson, God promises Abraham that because of his obedience “in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies” (Genesis 22:17).
In spite of the religious
implications of his obedience and actions society now, and then, would be
outraged by such a concept, that a father would kill his son in obedience to a
god. Had he told his peers what he
planned to do they would have been horrified.
It is part of humanity, our culture and society that demands we protect
our young, through them the species survives, and we have our only chance of
gaining immortality. In his own society
Abraham would have been looked askance for so blindly obeying a God who would
ask such a sacrifice. Why else would he
have left his own men apart? Not because
he needed the privacy to worship his god, but because he knew they would have stopped
him. In his decision to kill his son, he
deviated from the social norm, allowing religion to lead him. In modern times when people do such things
they are looked at like fools, those who allow their children to die because
they are waiting for God to provide the cure instead of taking them to a
hospital. Those who blindly follow
religious leaders like they did in Jonestown, or even to another extreme, those
who placed their faith in Charles Manson are not part of ‘normal’ society. They are ‘outside’ society and so too was
Abraham. The only difference is that his
story had a happy ending, with his son living and going on to father a nation
and two influential religions. If God
hadn’t stepped in, he would simply have been another religious ‘kook’ who
listened to a voice in his head.
This same story told in a
different perspective, say, with Zeus as the demanding deity and not a tale out
of the Bible it would be an outrageous tale of divine manipulation. The Bible even uses the word ‘tempt’ when
describing God’s command “And it came to pass after these things, that God did
tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold here I am.”
(Genesis 22:1). God was tempting Abraham. If this weren’t a Biblical tale and Zeus demanded
this same act of a mortal, the story would have an altogether different moral
outcome and society would not be forced to accept it as a story of the virtues
of faith. Zeus is portrayed as a
capricious, arrogant and self-serving god, so the tale would be one of humans
defying and surviving the whims of a petty god.
However, the god in this tale is the God of both Judaism and
Christianity; it is viewed in the light of his eternal Love and overlooked as
manipulation on his part.
If one is supposed to consider both logic and emotion when coming to a proper ethical conclusion and decision, how can this story truly be a moral tale worth following? “The first thing to consider is whether the decision makes sense logically, i.e. in your head. This involves determining the validity of the decision based on how it relates to your principles, priorities, and preconceived notions of how people should act. The second thing to consider is how you feel about the decision emotionally, i.e. consult your heart.” (Kristopher Hansen). Neither of these aspects were used when Abraham decided to follow God’s will in sacrificing his son. Logically it made no sense to kill the child God had promised would make him ‘father of nations’. Second, emotionally how could he have felt it the right decision when it demanded the life of his child? If considering both logic and emotion were needed, how then did Abraham get validation for his actions? And to make this story even more confusing for those who wish to follow true morality, it offers blessings for those who are willing to denounce logic for blind faith. Really why is this story held up as a moral tale to shape generations and believers? Blind obedience is praised when in all other fields of thought and life one is taught to question and make decisions based not only on what feels morally right, but what is logically sound.
Resources:
The Holy Bible, King James Version, the Book of Genesis
I think in America many of us have a misconception of what the word Jihad
means. After 9/11 the word Jihad became synonymous
with the Muslim ‘Holy War’ against the western world. “What does the Arabic word jihad
mean? One answer came last week, when
Saddam Hussein had his Islamic leaders appeal to Muslims worldwide to join his
jihad to defeat the ‘wicked Americans’ should they attack Iraq; then he himself
threatened the United States with jihad.
As this suggests, jihad is ‘holy war’. Or, more precisely: It means the
legal, compulsory, communal effort to expand the territories ruled by Muslims
at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims.” (Daniel Pipes, New York
Post, December 31, 2002) as expressed in this New York Post article, this was
Jihad. It became a word that inspired
fear, led us to racially profile and vilify Islam. This was however only one side to the
story. It was a definition that had
nothing to do with the spiritual meaning of Jihad. It saw one man’s political use of religion to
further his own agenda.
We live in a society in which all our beliefs and personal opinions are constantly
being influenced and bombarded by those of others, through TV, magazines, radio
and personal interaction. Ignorance is
like a virus, spreading fear, spreading lies as truths. Unfortunately most people do not see when
ignorance and fear are dictating their beliefs.
The fear after 9/11 for those of us who were old enough to understand
what was happening was something that has been hard to move past. I remember so vividly everything that I did
that day, everything emotion I felt. It
was like walking through a nightmare that you wanted to wake from, but you
couldn’t because it was real. It was
something that would never go away and it changed the face of our world and the
way we looked at the world. For the
first time the United States was filled with the fear of terrorism in a way it
had never been before. That fear took on
a face, took on a persona and unfortunately it was the face of the Muslim
faith. It became the enemy, not the
people who had caused such violence. To
be Muslim or Islamic was something to be feared, avoided and
misunderstood. It was a wave of paranoia
and misunderstanding that seemed to sweep through the nation and the
media.
I knew logically that it wasn’t the religion itself that was to blame, much
like I know logically that it wasn’t the religion of Christianity that was
fully to blame for the Inquisition. It
was the people that used the shield of religion to justify their actions who
were to blame. This was something I
logically knew, but for a time I let my fear win. I found myself scared of the Muslim faith, as
if it were to blame for the fear and pain.
I knew this was wrong and I knew the only way to fight against that fear
was to fight against the ignorance I knew I had of Islam. So I studied.
I took a world religions class, searched online and fell in love with
the purity of the true Islamic faith.
Islam is not about violence, it is not about war, it is about becoming
submissive to the will of Allah. It was
nothing like I had ignorantly believed.
Seeing the beauty of the religion lifted my fear and I was able to
embrace the beauty of it.
Because I lost the fear, I was able to understand what
true Islam was, though I am by no means an expert, I now understood what the
Jihad really was. “Essentially Jihad
is an effort to practice religion in the face of oppression and persecution.
The effort may come in fighting the evil in your own heart, or in standing up
to a dictator. Military effort is included as an option, but as a last resort
and not “to spread Islam by the sword” as the stereotype would have
one believe.” (http://islam.about.com/od/jihad/f/jihad.htm) What it truly
meant, how it is about sharing the word of Allah, of sharing the faith, living
the faith and not about forcing the will of their religion onto others. It is like the Jehovah Witness’ who go
through the neighborhoods, trying to spread their beliefs, trying to bring
everyone into the Kingdom. It is not of
violence, but like many things that are truly beautiful, the Jihad can be
corrupted in the hands of corrupt people.
All things, even things of love, can be twisted by evil minds and evil
hearts. It is only through understanding
and knowledge of the world in which we live, in the religions that are spread
across the earth that we will be able to fight against the darkness of
corruption and fear. Perhaps someday the
fear can be gone and we can stand against those who would use fear and
ignorance as their weapons. Until then,
we all must share our knowledge and be generous to each other. Perhaps it will start a trend.
Resources:
– Daniel Pipes, New York Post, December 31, 2002,
http://www.danielpipes.org/990/what-is-jihad
“Philosophy
as an influence of orienting man to another reality within and outside of
himself has nearly vanished from our culture.
It is time to bring it back.” (Needleman, Pg. 134). Man was never the center of the Universe
until the entrenchment of religious dogma.
He was always the plaything of the Fates, the child of nature, the child
of the earth, one with everything, understanding the finite nature of his
existence. And then we became the ‘Sons
of God’, elevated above a world which now revolved around us. This became our reality until science slowly
began to prove that no; we were no greater than the ants that Needleman studied
when he was only a child and came to his own realization of the finite and
infinite of reality. We have fallen from
a pedestal of immortality, becoming nothing more significant than dust. This is daunting, terrifying and
dulling. We want to matter, we want
proof that we exist and that the world in which we live would be less without
us.
“Why
does it haunt the mind for so many of us, sometimes through the whole of our
lives?” (Needleman, Pg. 139) It haunts us because it is so terrifying, the
thought that we are potentially insignificant, meaningless; nothing more than a
mote of dust dancing on sunlight. We are
nothing to the powers that be, the creators of the machine. It haunts us because we are creatures who
create, we can see the patterns, the lines.
It is the patterns that terrify us because they are not random, they are
not chaos. And if they are perfect, then
we are nothing more than another perfect pattern, inside the perfect pattern.
Perhaps that alone is the main reason we turn away from deeper thoughts of self
actualization. We are afraid to open
Pandora’s Box and find there is nothing left.
Religion,
politics, morals, these are all creations of the ruling class, of those in
power. It is there system of laws,
morals and dogma that will dictate the actions of those over which they
rule. So when one is asked whether there
is danger in a society, any society, of its citizens acting irrationally based
on religious convictions, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Humans as individuals, if presented with
logical and rational argument will not, in most cases, be pushed into an act that
willfully hurts another. However, place
that same man in a group, fire them with words from religious texts, or from an
orator of a belief that he holds dear and watch him and those around him become
a frenzied mass. Man alone is sane and a
being of peace, man en masse is a violent, chaotic being that must be
controlled. It is that very reason that
we have governments and laws, for the common man cannot govern and rule
himself, therefore he is guided by higher ideals, those placed before him by
those in power, politicians and priests, parents and employers. Laws and morals and religious text are
created by the elite not the common man, “Rather
it was ‘the good’ themselves, that is to say, the noble, powerful,
high-stationed and high-minded, who felt and established themselves and their
actions as good” (1).
Religion
subjugates and rules the many, relieving them of the responsibility of moral
conduct. They are told by those that
rule, whether via political stance or religious dogma, how they are to
behave. What is good and what is
bad. Individuality has been replaced by
the fear of displeasing our God. The question of true morality is no longer raised;
humanity follows blindly at the trail dogma leaves for him. There is no responsibility to seek truth, to
seek out the divine, to ask if the God in which we believe is real and
therefore one to serve. We are raised
from infancy to believe and many never question whether that belief is valid or
in fact true. We believe in our shepherds the ones we trust have made
the right decisions. “So we are necessarily strangers to
ourselves, we do not comprehend ourselves, we have to misunderstand ourselves,
for us the law ‘Each is furthest from himself’ applies to all eternity – we are
not ‘men of knowledge’ with respect to ourselves”(2). How easy it is to lead man down a path of
destruction by simply telling him that the words are right and true, the
actions just. The moment man stops to
think for himself he will pause, step back and question. But one man in a flood of believers does not
keep the tide of religious zeal from destroying those around them.
A
simple glance through history shows us how evil has been done in the name of
God. In our current world we see it and
we are supposed to be an enlightened generation. We are supposed to live in a world of
tolerance and we see nothing but hate based on religious belief. It is not merely the religion that guides us
to these prejudices, because the religion itself, the words and teachings of
the beliefs that spread the globe are things of beauty, which teach love and
tolerance, it is the corruption of man’s ambitions and translations to those
words. It is his desire to control and
use the control that religion has upon mankind to further his cause. The true
believer desecrates the words of his religion, twists them to fit his need
for power. “In some cases, religious believers may not have a clear and self-conscious
understanding of their own beliefs, or may not be particularly adept at
articulating them. However this does not
alter that religious faith rests on beliefs about the kind of object in which
one has faith”(3) The power may not be for lands, or wealth, but it is
still a power struggle that is fueled by holy texts and justified by the words
of God.
In
current history we have seen people sacrifice their lives for their beliefs,
not just the suicide bombers aboard the planes that crashed into the Twin
Towers and the Pentagon on 9-11, but also the Jonestown Massacre of 1978. These events have forever changed the way we look
at religious zealots. The citizens of
Jonestown, Guyana chose to take their lives because they believed Reverend Jim
Jones “to be a living god and to have
raised some forty-three people from the dead” (4). The terrorists aboard the planes believed they
were doing God’s holy work, why else
would they have so willingly given up their lives? Man does not die for any cause greater than
that of his God.
We
look across the sea toward the Middle East and fear Muslims because of 9-11 and
the terrorist’s attacks, but it is not the faith that we should fear, but the
men behind it, controlling its believers.
The teachings of Mohammad are beautiful, so are the teachings of the
Bible but that did not keep Jim Jones from encouraging almost a thousand people
to drink cyanide laced Kool-Aid. If we
are to fear Muslims because of the actions of a few, shouldn’t we also fear
Christians? What about Catholics, they
were the ones who initiated the Inquisition in the twelfth century.
The
current war in the Middle East is not the first time that religion has been the
inspiration, that the true followers
of God have been encouraged to shed blood in the name of the divine. We can follow that path of destruction that
religion has created since before the Crusades led by European Kings to regain
the Holy Land. It was the church that
fanned the fears of the world and gave their blessing to the Inquisition that
ended the lives of thousands of heretics. The Christian Inquisition was created by the
church to eliminate heretics, thereby insuring obedience to Canon Law. The four Inquisitions throughout history were
set up as Tribunals to discover and eradicate heretics, but they were at the
basest core, political power plays, most demonstrably portrayed by the Spanish
Inquisition in which the Royalty incited the Inquisition with the blessing of
the Church. It is not faith and
spirituality that inspires men to destruction and horrors, it is the guiding
hand of government and politics, which twist and use the words of God, no
matter in what form, to spur men on to evil in the name of God. It was the words of the Pope himself in 1252
that allowed the church elders to accuse and incarcerate whomever they chose. “The bishop of a given diocese, omnipotent
by this decree, can, without violating either its spirit or its letter, arrest
and incarcerate anyone in his jurisdiction.”(5) How can we not fear the destruction that man
can create at behest of his faith?
It
is not faith however that should be questioned, but the manner in which it is
pursued. It is not the religion that
should be denounced, but the ignorance with which it is viewed. Man must choose reason over blind faith. Man must find a balance between spirituality
and religion. Religion is the dogma to
which man must conform, but he must find the faith within himself to follow his
spirituality and not allow himself to be ruled by manmade dogma. The end to religious strife may never come,
but it is only through the ignorance of man that it will continue.
Resources:
Quote
1: On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce
Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche
Quote
2: On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce
Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche
Quote
3: Reason & Religious Belief by
Peterson, Hasker, Rechenbach, Basinger
Quote
4: Reason & Religious Belief by
Peterson, Hasker, Rechenbach, Basinger
Quote
5: Ad extirpanda a papal bull by Pope
Innocent IV May 15, 1252,
The concept of God or a Divine Universal Being has been prevalent
in human culture since the beginning of time, though through the millennia the
“face” of this being and the name has changed.
As a species we have always sought a quantifying force that would
explain everything to us, give us the meanings to life, give us the purpose for
our being, comfort us in death and let us know that we are not alone. The belief in the Divine may not simply be a
wish inside of us for answers, according to geneticistDean Hamer, the director of the
Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the U.S.National Cancer Institute,
and author of the 2005 book The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our
Genes, it is a genetic coding in our very DNA. His hypothesis is that a specific gene
(VMAT2)
predisposes humans towards spiritual or
mystic experiences. Dean Hamer has taken strong rationalism to the ultimate level with his position. He is using absolute reason, science, to
prove that humans must believe in God.
But true strong rationalism will contest his findings and ask the
question “Does that prove God exists just because our genetics tell us we must
believe in something?” Strong
rationalism must have that final answer.
But God is more than a genetic marker, more than a need or
wish to many people. I personally was
raised in a very devout Baptist family.
We believed in God and never questioned, fideism was prevalent. We
never questioned the Bible, never questioned our beliefs with reason or
facts. With our family and beliefs it
was very much “if we test God’s Word by logic or science, we are really
worshiping science or logic rather than God!” as stated in Reason & Religious Belief by Peterson, Hasker, Reichenback &
Basinger. Faith was the only thing
needed and we were expected to believe without question, without reason, but to
leap blindly based on that faith.
As I matured I began to question my faith. I had to know WHY I believed what I did. There were too many unanswered questions in
the blind faith and religion I had been raised in. I began to question, not in the way of strong
rationalism but in critical rationalism
as I believed and still believe that the religious experience must in part be
accepted on faith and that some things the human mind cannot fully grasp at our
present evolutionary state. In seeking
answers to validate my faith, my view of God and the Divine Being changed,
evolved. I studied many of the world’s
beliefs, and found myself drawn to Paganism with a mixture of feeling and
reason. I have found in my spiritual
journey that I cannot detach one from the other. I will always question and therefore must
reason the course of my path, but I cannot deny my feelings or instincts. It is my belief that true spirituality must
be a balance of faith and reason, of feeling and knowing with mind and
heart. It is this balance that has led
me to what I believe God is.
God is the One, the universal energy and being that connects
and binds all things, the creator of the universe and life. The One is something the human mind cannot
fully grasp; a being of completeness is not something we can fully understand
as we are so incomplete. Therefore it is
human nature to try to quantify and identify God into a personalized
being. For me it is the dual aspects of
the God and the Goddess, the male and female, the two halves that I can relate
to. As a Pagan I take this even further
and divide the God and the Goddess into multiple gods and goddesses, choosing
polytheism, so that there is a god or goddess that I can relate to in every
aspect of my life. I do not, nor will I
ever claim that my path is the ONE path that all should follow, but it is the
current path that I must follow in my walk of faith.
But faith alone and even reason are not the deciding factors
in establishing the validity of religion.
Religious experiences are what inspire continued faith and push one to
know that there is a Divine. Dean Hamer’s hypothesis tells us that we are
“hardwired” to have spiritual experiences.
If we are hardwired to have these experiences and that is a “fact” according
to Hamer then religious experiences
are fact even if they may differ from person to person, or faith to faith. And it is these religious experiences that
prove that God exists regardless of reason.
Some people can see a religious experience in a malformed potato, while
others will look at the same potato and see nothing. But if Hamer’s hypothesis is a fact then it means the religious
experience of the potato is fact regardless of the perception of others viewing
the potato.
But if we disregard Hamer’s God Gene we are left with the question of why religious experiences
are not universal. Some are. Near death experiences recorded throughout
the world and through history have shared a remarkable similarity regardless of
the subjects’ social, economical or spiritual status. Does this similarity prove that religious
experience is real? Would a strong
rationalist accept this as fact? One
would posit that the similarities of the near death experience would prove that
religious experience is not merely a perception but a fact.
At first glance philosophy, religion and
science seem as far removed from each other as the north and south poles. Followers of pure science, logical philosophy
and devout religious conviction are zealous in their shared search for Ultimate
Truth. However, they will not, within
the near future, be able to create a relationship of mutual respect and
research, by the sheer lack of their willingness to compromise and see that
each path seeks the same Truth, only by different means. Those who believe devoutly
in their religious practices see science as a sacrilege to the profound
connection to the Divine. Science is a
threat to religious belief because scientific fact is replacing long held
religious truths. “Relativity Theory in
physics drastically reinterprets the concepts of space, time and causality and
thus challenges all religious perspectives that relate God to the world.”
(Peterson 239) Religion sees science as
the enemy to faith, while science sees religion as blindly clinging to
antiquated folklore and myth in the face of cold hard facts. Philosophy takes no sides in its pursuit for
truth. It is slave to truth, but neither
accepts science completely, as it knows that something’s even science cannot
create a workable hypothesis for. At
this time in human development philosophy understands that science cannot yet
test the reality of a God. It cannot
test what it cannot tangibly see, touch or contain. Philosophy demands logic and reason support
the claims of both science and religion, yet at this time there appears to be
very little fact to support the existence of God or the Non-existence of
God. The philosophical debate has raged
since the time of Plato and Socrates.
The question of what is reality, what is existence, what is purpose
fills the minds of every generation. And
though Science, Religion and Philosophy search for the answer in their own
unique way, they are searching for the same answer. It is in that search that they are most
alike. If they will ever work hand in
hand to answer the questions that fill our universe remains to be seen, each
adherent is vehement that their way is the only way in which truth lies.
Religion demands faith for the sake of
faith. Philosophy logic and reason
beyond all doubt and science demands testable hypotheses. And none of them have yet to prove their
superiority over the other in the number who follows them. Advocates for Philosophy are just as devout
as any religious zealot, the factual, data oriented scientist worships at the
altar of science and yet none will yield to the fact that all of them demand
the same question from the universe, an answer none of them have received yet. A true philosopher may be swayed by the very
logic that an answer has not yet been defined so therefore no ultimate truth
has yet been perceived so perhaps the religious path may yet hold the answers
philosophy has yet to define. By sheer
logic alone might they indeed attempt to establish a relationship, a merging of
religion, philosophy and of science.
Pure science however, though based on logic, is rooted in fact and the
scientist, though open to logic itself, eschews the beliefs of religion because
they are based on religious texts and dogma that was created by man through
centuries of societal integrations. Even
the roots of the world’s most prominent religions are rooted in oral tradition
and ancient scrolls that were passed down through generations, corrupted and
changed by those in power. There is no
substantive fact to persuade the scientific mind to accept religious belief and
experience as a means of seeking the Ultimate Answer. And religion will not accept that logic,
reason and fact are the only ways to prove the truth of belief. “For a sincere religious believer, the most
fundamental assumptions are found in the religious belief system itself.”
(Peterson 49) The religious person accepts on faith what logic and reason
cannot. The relationship cannot be
formed it neither of the parties will admit that their way is not the sole way
to truth.
