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Aug. 5th, 2008 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerI had an interesting conversation with NJS the other day about religion, that allowed me to talk out some of the things that had been percolating in my head.
I understand why people want some of the things they do from religion, like a sense of community or an acknowledgment that there is more to reality than the things we can describe and define with science and reason. I just keep stalling out when I look at any *specific* religion, because all of them seem to require acceptance of several things that seem not just improbable to me (that I could deal with) but seem downright *wrong* or totally unfounded and unbelievable (like assertions that there's an all-powerful god who is also just and loving, in any sense that those words can mean to humans, or that after we die at some point we get our bodies back again, or that when people die they go someplace really, really nice, and we get to see them again later). But I can understand the longing.
Hence, I'm becoming a great deal less prone to scoff as much as I used to when I was younger, less forgiving, and more callow, at people who effectively invent their own religion by picking and choosing elements they like from past beliefs and melding them with new 'traditions' to create some sort of elemental recognition of nature and the forces that work on all of us, for good or ill. I might even find, some day, that I'm inclined to do the same.
I'm still a bit impatient with those who insist that such things are 'rediscovered' historic truths, but even that I may stop grumping at, in time.
I understand why people want some of the things they do from religion, like a sense of community or an acknowledgment that there is more to reality than the things we can describe and define with science and reason. I just keep stalling out when I look at any *specific* religion, because all of them seem to require acceptance of several things that seem not just improbable to me (that I could deal with) but seem downright *wrong* or totally unfounded and unbelievable (like assertions that there's an all-powerful god who is also just and loving, in any sense that those words can mean to humans, or that after we die at some point we get our bodies back again, or that when people die they go someplace really, really nice, and we get to see them again later). But I can understand the longing.
Hence, I'm becoming a great deal less prone to scoff as much as I used to when I was younger, less forgiving, and more callow, at people who effectively invent their own religion by picking and choosing elements they like from past beliefs and melding them with new 'traditions' to create some sort of elemental recognition of nature and the forces that work on all of us, for good or ill. I might even find, some day, that I'm inclined to do the same.
I'm still a bit impatient with those who insist that such things are 'rediscovered' historic truths, but even that I may stop grumping at, in time.
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Date: 2008-08-05 10:19 pm (UTC)Yes, that's what I figure--it's easier for people to accept things that they have been taught from when they were very young that they would have issues with if they met them for the first time as an adult (hence, I think, many peoples' reactions to religions they learn about as adults--"How odd that people would think that!" while having no problem believing six of their own impossible things before breakfast, if you know what I mean. :-)
There are bits that you don't like, or that change or need work.
And, see, I'm astonished at the number of people who do that. I feel consistency is a virtue, and to me the idea of calling oneself a follower of religion A while rejecting many of its major tenets (and I mean simply rejecting them, not even interpreting them a different way) is totally nonsensical to me, a "does not compute" moment. But it clearly proves quite satisfactory and comfortable to others.
That said, I too hate it when people will take one thing from Buddhism, another from Judaism, etc etc and meld them together to form a do-it-yourself spirituality. So I see where you're coming from.
Actually, that's what I find myself more and more sympathetic to, though I think it works better with one religion and a spiritual practice, like Buddhism, or several earth-based religions that don't really have a modern doctrine and dogma, than from several different living religions.
I guess my feeling is that religion is (for me) most useful for encapsulating and carrying forward moral and ethical teaching, for acknowledging the power of nature, and for creating community. But I find that there are major elements of most established religions, either in doctrine or in practice, that I find *un*ethical and that I can't simply decide to ignore. And I can't feel much community with people who fiercely believe at least some number of things that I not only do not believe but feel to be wrong. So I'm left feeling that three isn't really a place for me in organised religion, and whatever needs I feel I will have to find a way to pursue on my own.