Jan 12
18
“The Great Tragedy of Science” or is it Religion?
"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony." REAL or Subjective mumbojumbo?
“The Great Tragedy of Science Religion . . .”
The rest of that quote in the original form (relative to science): “The slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact” …the challenge, as it relates to religion, is we assume there are no facts to bring to bear – only testimony to experience, which may be “evidence” in a court of law, which probably has no bearing on truth or fact either, but testimony is always subjective and hardly trustworthy for any variety of reasons to be considered as reliable “evidence” of anything.
The essence of the quote stands; however, that is, religion is a tragedy because it tends to be a shadow of reality. Some people insist that I write about religion because I quote Jesus and the Bible. My retort to that is that I quote the Bible and Jesus from an anti-religious foundation and bias.
Take Christianity as an example: A religion supposedly based on the life and teachings of Jesus. My rebuttal about that supposed basis is, “Oh yeah? …the life and teaching of Jesus, according to whom?”
If we limit our exposure to the red print in the red-letter editions of the Bible, which are those words the writers of the Gospels claim to be quotes of Jesus, we soon discover that Christianity, as practiced by and among many self-professed Christians, is antithetical to several things Jesus said.
I happen to believe (which I hasten to say doesn’t make it true) that putting some of the things Jesus purportedly said (in red) into practice can make for a positive life-changing experience. My favorite example of this thesis is Mohandas Gandhi, the man largely responsible for the upheaval in India which chased the British back to the U.K.
Gandhi was avowedly NOT a Christian, but rather a Hindu. He did not accept the deity of Jesus. He gave a rather interesting, in my view, reason for his rejection of that cornerstone of Christian belief; the behavior of British Christians towards the indigenous peoples of India. What was their treatment that was so repugnant to Gandhi? Listen up:
They paid attention to the religious claims of Christianity, but no attention to the words of Jesus which were the basis of Gandhi’s non-violent, civil disobedience to British rule and the model that Martin Luther King followed in the civil rights movement in the U.S.
How many British Commanders does/did it take to order Indian's to shoot other Indians. One.
Therefore, from Gandhi’s view, the teachings of Jesus had little to do with how Christian colonists behaved in India. May I say a hearty amen? I also like to point out that the teachings of Jesus have little to do with the behavior of Christians in general. It was my own behavior; and lack of any evidence that I had the ability to do what Jesus said I would do if I believed enough, while I still called myself a Christian, that made me question the belief system.
As I began sharing my own discontent about that fact with other Christians I found out that it was not a welcome topic for discussion, at least the way I was presenting it. As I enmeshed myself in absorption of the words in red, I grew more and more convinced that I either needed to prove what Jesus said was possible, or discard Christianity’s primary practices, rituals and powerlessness.
As I more and more discovered that what Jesus taught was possible, I found that the Christians with whom I was acquainted rejected what was becoming more and more evident in my own life. I decided that in order to “make a statement” I needed to withdraw.
Photo taken in Brad's back yard, next to the pool where he holds bible studies...NOT!
Am I religious? Of which religion would you say I belong? My claim is that it sure as hell is not Christianity from my own favorite set of Jesus’ teachings upon which I focus.
I quote the Bible where it supports my views about what Jesus purportedly said was the destiny of any person who believes enough that nothing is impossible – that destiny is to be able to do everything Jesus was able to do and more, which includes healing myriad diseases, restoring eyesight and hearing, getting rid of the unseen perpetrators behind much human misery and so on.
If that’s religious, point me to the religion that preaches it, particularly if it insists upon what Jesus insisted regarding human leadership, that is: “Don’t allow anyone to call you by any title that implies spiritual authority or superiority and don’t you refer to anyone else by any such title. You have only one spiritual Leader and Teacher and only one spiritual Father.”
I refer to this Leader/Teacher/Spirit collectively as our SPIRIT-PARENT and Jesus taught, metaphorically, that while this SPIRIT-PARENT was neither male nor female; all the attributes of both a perfect Daddy and Mommy were inherent.
Again, if there is such a religion that embodies all the above it’s got my vote, otherwise I steer clear of what I consider to be meaningless, powerless, ritual by whatever banner or label. If that makes me religious – well all right then, so be it!
That’s all, folks, at least this time around.