A church reversed its decision to ban interacial relationships in their congregation. Well, that's good news, isn't it?
I mean, it's good for a church to see the error of their ways and grow to become enlightened. But I'm not sure I really care; I mean, they shouldn't have been against it to begin with. It seems to me to be fundamental that a religion, a church, be enlightened enough to have known what to do in the first place.
Then again, Religion and hypocracy seem to go hand in hand.
Every religious person I've ever run into has claimed to believe in their religion and follow its tenets as ascribed in their Good Book be it the Bible, Koran, or whatever. But because these books are so contradictory, in believing in them you have to ignore certain parts, leaving you to do what you choose is good, and to not do what you choose is bad; but then you are still choosing to go against your religion. In a way it doesn't make you a bad person, it just makes you rational. Yet still, it does bring up a problem with the religion, something its followers either refuse to see, or simply can't. So how is that a religion?
They're really just another social club. Right? And this really annoys me. I will agree that some churches are better than others. But taken overall, I'm not real impressed with any of them. When you take on the call that you are the speaker for a Supreme Being, for a God, you're taking on quite a mouthful and you really need to live up to it. But I don't think any of them do. They all believe rather crazy stuff. Not just bigger than life stuff, but at times patently ridiculous stuff. And typically at major points in the religion.
Many will point out that we are all blindly finding our way through life, but I'm not so sure I agree with that, not when it comes to religion. They are not, and should be, held to a higher standard than anyone else. Yet, it is not like that. We cut them slack, give them breaks. Some religions even make insane claims like the world is going to end on so and so day, then it doesn't. Yet people stay with that church? Isn't that insane? At very least, delusional?
If they are dealing with God, the Supreme Being, shouldn't God know what is right and maybe, I don't know, let his people know?
I've always wondered how, if religion is the worship of a Supreme Being, why wouldn't that God want the people doing the following to get it right? How about getting it right the first time? What would it matter if Human rights weren't the Zeitgeist of the times, but simply the way it is and should be. So, shouldn't the Churches, being synonymous with religion, have been the ones professing what is right since the beginning of time? I've heard all the arguments to explain all this off, and at some point you just have to say, no, wait a minute. Okay? THINK, use your mind, that brilliant thing your God supposedly gave to you to, I don't know, use?
Shouldn't these churches have been the ones who said all along, that things we now believe in these modern times, things that are being generally accepted all through the wide world of all Humanity, shouldn't those things have been taught and professed as so, from day one by any church who has the ear of God? How is it "God's Word", is wrong so often and yet no one bats an eye over it?
And as a friend of mine on the phone just now pointed out, this also goes for sexual orientation, AIDS awareness, or any negative professed behavior from any church or group. Churches shouldn't be teaching negatives, they should be teaching positives. So, what's that about? Prejudice should be what a Church teaches you out of not into. Yet Churches the world over, through history have been prejudiced institutions.
We have seen time and again over history that religion pretty much follows what the general beliefs of the time (and location) are. Not the transcendental reality of a species, but a geocentric reality, or an ethnocentric one. It makes it look like their God is merely a local supreme being, merely to a region: Europe, or the Middle East, Mesopotamia, India, etc.
Wouldn't a God want those followers and worshipers (which is an entirely different issue I won't bother with here and now) to believe and work today through enlightenment of how they should be in the end, not how they should be right then. Otherwise, it makes no sense, does it? It has no realism; it's all guessing on the worshiper's part. And destined to fail.
I would consider the mass murders of the Middle Ages as failure. Successes simply pale in comparison and people always want to ignore all the travesties for the positive side. Kind of like rationalizing their beliefs so they can continue believing in nonsense. Which in Human endeavors is okay. But not in the realm of God.
You know, as a God, an all powerful super Being, I'd find some way to get that information to my people, as My worshipers. I'd give them enough so it wasn't such a crap shoot, leading to splintering and argumentation; if that's even possible with Humans. And I think an all powerful God could figure that one out. Yet, to date, that is not the case.
Discourse is good, but what has happened has been a horrible cock-up by any number of Supreme Beings. I might, as a God, give my people just enough so they have to have some Faith, though I'm still not so sure why that is so important. And if I created them all, why aren't "My People" all people? At least all Good People? I certainly wouldn't give them so little that what has happened over history has not only happened, but has repeated itself time and again.
That brings us back to churches simply being religiously oriented social groups; groups who really don't deserve their tax free status, unless they are doing something physically useful to the common and public good.
After all, if the Elks club, or the Eagles, or FreeMasons for that matter, have to be taxed, why shouldn't the Synagogues, Catholic churches, Islamic Mosques, and all the others? There is a tax free status that is available to any qualifying, but it should be qualification to simply call yourself a Church, or religion. Especially some of the newer religions, some of which have seemingly been set up on a lark or for the purpose of freedom from paying taxes. Or the nut jobs who anyone can see are simply full of religious crap.
This country offers freedom of religion. And that's fine, I think everyone should have freedom to their own personal delusions, or demons. It was a good reason at the time for supporting Human rights and freedom. But then we also had slavery brought in, supported and continued for far more years than was reasonable and extended up into the 1960s until they demanded their rights and finally got them. So, why does the Bible mention slavery and not condemn it? You can't be gay, but you can own another Human being? Come on.
Maybe we should drop that "In God We Trust" thing. Because I don't have a lot of faith or trust in God, not from what I've seen on Earth and read about what has happened over time. Or how badly God's representatives have acted throughout history. I don't see a problem with believing in an ideal of trusting in having and holding dear the concept of a perfect being, but that isn't some disconnected myth but rather an ideal to hold oneself up to try and imitate in an attempt to always try and better one self. But I don't see where religion has any real need in that effort whatsoever.
Basically, we're a bunch of hypocrites. Shouldn't we at some point, and now is as good as any, start trying not to be? Woody Allen in one of his films, when a friend accused him of modeling himself after God, in being so perfect he wouldn't have an affair; Woody responded, "Who should I model myself after? I figured God was a pretty good model to follow." But maybe not? Simply too much negative baggage there.
Maybe now is a good time to reconsider, and do something about it.
A few points. Bibles and the rest are only contradictory if you take everything there as literally true, despite some of it fairly obviously being a kind of poetry or parable. Besides, an intelligent attitude to divine revelation would be that God's message is conveyed through human minds and voices, so is coloured by their perceptions and limitations. There are ideas in the later books of the Old Testament or in the New Yestament that couldn't have made sense to an ancient nomad. Consequently the concept of God develops through time. To recongnise that is not to deny the concept.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very selective analysis to say that churches have always been for prejudice - or the contradictory position that religious belief always follows the conventions of the time. Of course it's influenced by them - but there are many, many cases of religious movements challenging accepted things. Early Christianity undermined slavery by treating slaves as equals and in Britain, the Caribbean and the U.S., the anti-slavery movements were predominantly based on Christian religion. Sikhism in the Indian subcontinent rejected both caste and sexual inequality: that the latter now does appear among Sikhs shows the power of social convention to water down the challenging religious message, but the message is still there and can be and is quoted to challenge injustice. There are many other examples. Because religion is often powerful, of course rulers, from Roman emperors to Rupert Murdoch, often do their best to co-opt it; but today, many religious groups outside North America play a leading role in environmentalist movements that challenge the status quo.
No, religions and churches are not just social clubs. At best, they're based on religious experience, and that's what your discussion doesn't engage with. Yes, there is much hypocrisy, as in politics and personal relations, but the concept of hypocrisy requires that there be something admirable and difficult the hypocrites are claiming to follow but not following.
Thanks for the comments, a thoughtful, solid argument.
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