Good Evening!
In Christopher Hitchens controversial book, God Is Not Great, he writes an indictment a case against God as the biggest perpetrator of hatred and murder in the civilized world. And although he makes a salient point that the death of so many innocents has been name of God, he looses the main argument( i believe) that it is not God that is to blame, but that it is man and his institutions that misunderstands the whole point of religion and therefore has made a mockery of it.
So the case I am about to layout is quite clear and straight forward. Faith is a belief system in which its participants recognize it ideas and precepts and conclude that is is a good way to lead a life affirming existence on Earth. They have complete free will in how they live by these ideas and are totally responsible for their actions. Religion on the other hand is a political system set up with a rigid set of rules and laws within a structured framework with a hierarchy to carry them out.
Within the faith system, you are on your own, you decide (based on your upbringing) the most basic of rules. What is right or wrong, good and bad, not black or white, but understanding the nuances that help you distinguish and navigate the differences. Religion on the other hand also helps you understand that there is good and evil in the world, the difference being they (through their peer pressure) dictate all the rules of engagement and therefore usurp you if the joy and responsibility of knowing the real differences and therefore blind you to some very important facts. Even within the structured religion of Judaism, it is a stated fact that all righteous people will have a share in the "world to come". There is no requisite for converting to their faith to earn the right to this after-life, in fact of all the worlds major religions, they discourage proselytizing, the finding of converts. All of the other major religions encourage, even demand fealty to their faith as the price for access to this special place!
Religion defines what is good and bad and therefore when it comes to killing of another human being (the word is murder as distinguished from kill). Who is considered OK to kill. We certainly do not want to kill the good people. The good (white) vs the bad (black, brown, yellow) you get the picture. Or there are the good blacks and the bad yellows, or any other group or individual they deem worthy of living. Religions like governments dictate who is good and who is evil. Faith has no such dictates. They only demand honestly, integrity and a high ethical center to participate and even on these bedrock values they have some wiggle room. There are religions out there who have no compunction about telling you who should be killed, and rail against persons or even other religions to drive home the point.
Do you get where I am going here. Is it starting to sink in. I am not indicting any specific religion (although I think you know who you are), rather I am making the distinction between faith based living and religion based living and showing you the inconsistencies and the danger of the latter. If you think of the histories of the world, their culture, mores and religions it is becoming painfully clear that there is huge elephant in the living room of the world. It can no longer be ignored on the pain of wholesale flight of peoples away from organized religions and this is a problem.
First, religion is not necessarily all that bad, it isn't all that good either. Religion, especially when we are young can be a character building experience, it can give us the values and ideas to be better people and therefore better citizens and stewards of this fragile place called Earth. The problem as I see it lays in the organization of religion and the humans who run it. We have leaders that have strayed far from the ethical path down a road of their own making, filled with all the all to common frailties we have come to identify with all the ills we encounter on a daily basis. All too often the rules are twisted or worse corrupted to make them all but unrecognizable and that makes them all the more deadly. Any religion that preaches superiority over another, or encourages its adherents to commit killings in the name of their God not only diminishes their Deity but also turns the dictates of their religion into meaningless dribble unintelligible to only the least of them who would follow any fools world into hell!
Second, even if your give religion its due as a framework of ethical living, you have to take the crap with carnations. And in so doing you have negated any good that could have become from teaching our youth the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. They only learn a warped version of life which could never serve them in good steed. So now we understand that man inspired religion is a corruption of man's search for meaning, stifling all human achievement and that faith, opens the doors of our minds to endless possibilities and to a better, endless and joyful future.
So what we have is a Mexican stand off so to speak. Well not really, what we have is a clear choice, either take religion full strength as is with all its foibles, warts and all. Or we have our faith, based on the true, good tenants of our religion. Stripped of all its mendacity's, double talk, hypocrisy, faith gives us all we need to be the people we were meant to grow up to be within the context of a world, not of out making, allowing for a Creator or not, but acknowledging the possibility that something bigger than us does exist, that makes all we see, feel, do and create seem a little inspired (in spirit) and therefore beyond the human mind to comprehend.
Have a great week,
Robb
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
SEPTEMBER , 2010
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LIVING IN THE PRESENT
Good Morning,
I hope all of my followers are enjoying the last days of Summer, as we get ready to enter the Fall season, this is a great time to hang out with ourselves and take stock of where we have been this year and to look forward to the coming days that lay ahead keeping in mind that to look too far into the future robs us of our most valued commodity, that being the present.
I am reminded of a quote I recently read from the great philosopher Lin Yutang. Although not known as a philosopher in the traditional sense, a philosopher none the less. "revere inaction as much as action, involve humor to maintain a healthy attitude and never forget that there will always be plenty of fools around who are willing __ indeed eager __ to be busy, to make themselves useful, and to exercise power while you bask in the simple joys of existence".
Quite a quote you may be thinking, and I would concur, I believe Yu was on to something as I read further his writings on the importance of living . I myself have been busy of late in creating my own philosophy so to speak (though I would hasten to add that I am also not a philosopher in the traditional sense). But by not being a true philosophy also frees me from the constraints of academic handcuffs and in so doing allows me to posit are more common sense view of life on planet Earth.
Having explained where I am not headed, let me layout the map of my journey. I was at a friends house for a BBQ and during what can only be explained as a most joyful evening, we were talking and complaining about our lives. All of us being in our late 50's and early 60's, we all felt we had a pretty good slant on life and where we all fit in. As usual as you can imagine, the conversation came around to my blogging on life's challenges and how we all contribute ( whether we think we do or not), to our place and our life's circumstance.
I started out with a quote that for better or worse has become associated with my writings. "If you are what you do, then if you don't you are not". One of the guests quipped, "I never thought of my life as such, but I really am what I do, and if I didn't do my work, where would I be". He looked at me in with that wanting look, as if to say, "you hit my life on the head, you really understand where I am, and where I am is not at all where I want to be. I am so much more than my work, but also I am so much about my work". I could see the searching in his voice and eyes. Then I said, " that is the whole point of what I write about", we are all so much more than what we do, or what we have.
I knew this was going to be an interesting evening, though even I did not fathom how much it would be. I started out by explaining that you couldn't possibly be the sum total of your work or things for that very reason, for without our profession or things, out lives wouldn't couldn't possibly even exist. That for each and everyone of us, there is one overreaching idea that puts us exactly where we are and the whole point of this will forever and always "why" we even here! In the amazingly funny and poignant movie, The City Slickers, the scene where Billy Crystal's character Mitch and Jack Palance's character Curly are having the famous bonding moment when Curly brilliantly posits lives eternal truth, that there is just one thing that makes us who we are and that plants us firmly in the ground, but places out minds and souls in the Heavens. What is this point, what is the secret to our existence her on Earth, what is our raison d' etre, out reason for being?
Curly points his crooked index finger and drolly says, that is it, this is the one thing that makes our lives complete, well what is it Mitch exalts Curly to reveal. Curly says, " that is for you to figure out, that is your quest, that is your holy grail". Well at the party I was at it finally hit me like a ton of bricks, I finally figured out what the "Secret" really is. I can tell you it is not found a book by that name, in fact it is found in many books, in many faiths and in many philosophies. I am sure you are very curious by now, and I won't hold you in suspense any longer.
What I figured out that Sunday evening in the company of friends, what had alluded me for most of my adult life, what I has thought about, what I saw on the fringes of my existence was, Joy.
Yes, plain and not so simple the answer is joy. How to live a life of joy and fulfillment and equally important, how help others live their lives and find their joy. Mind blowing huh, well for me, this was it, this was the whole point of the story. This was my Moses on the mountain top story, my Stanley finding Livingston epic, my digging in the sands of time and coming up with the parchment to my story. What was coming out of my mouth was the thing I had been searching for, but for whatever reason, it never reached the inner recesses of my spirit, my soul like this did.
Well this moment absolutely just blew me away, it shouldn't have, but it did. I had been writing about this very ideas for the better part of a year, yet in this moment, at this place, it all came together like a lighting bolt hitting a tree and alighting it. To say it was a "light bulb" moment would be an understatement, yet at the same time, it was so simple, so right there in front of me, so I get it, I really get.
Do you get it, do you get your time and purpose here. Do you think for a second that this is just chance, all happenstance. That the forces of nature and history just places you here randomly. Not for second friend do you get to just take for granted your being here at this time and place. Now it is your turn to travel to that place where you life comes together, where you ponder and think about all that you are about. What are you going to do, where are you going, and better yet, where are you!
I guess this may be a tad much for some, but I think not. In any case you no longer have an excuse for your life, do with what you will, but I hope I have made you think about. It may be a bit uncomfortable, but who said life was easy, who said it couldn't get messy and I can't remember my parents ever saying that life wassn't messy.
Enjoy your time and may the new year bring you, happiness, joy and of course peace.
L' Shana Tova,
Robb
Good Morning,
I hope all of my followers are enjoying the last days of Summer, as we get ready to enter the Fall season, this is a great time to hang out with ourselves and take stock of where we have been this year and to look forward to the coming days that lay ahead keeping in mind that to look too far into the future robs us of our most valued commodity, that being the present.
I am reminded of a quote I recently read from the great philosopher Lin Yutang. Although not known as a philosopher in the traditional sense, a philosopher none the less. "revere inaction as much as action, involve humor to maintain a healthy attitude and never forget that there will always be plenty of fools around who are willing __ indeed eager __ to be busy, to make themselves useful, and to exercise power while you bask in the simple joys of existence".
Quite a quote you may be thinking, and I would concur, I believe Yu was on to something as I read further his writings on the importance of living . I myself have been busy of late in creating my own philosophy so to speak (though I would hasten to add that I am also not a philosopher in the traditional sense). But by not being a true philosophy also frees me from the constraints of academic handcuffs and in so doing allows me to posit are more common sense view of life on planet Earth.
Having explained where I am not headed, let me layout the map of my journey. I was at a friends house for a BBQ and during what can only be explained as a most joyful evening, we were talking and complaining about our lives. All of us being in our late 50's and early 60's, we all felt we had a pretty good slant on life and where we all fit in. As usual as you can imagine, the conversation came around to my blogging on life's challenges and how we all contribute ( whether we think we do or not), to our place and our life's circumstance.
I started out with a quote that for better or worse has become associated with my writings. "If you are what you do, then if you don't you are not". One of the guests quipped, "I never thought of my life as such, but I really am what I do, and if I didn't do my work, where would I be". He looked at me in with that wanting look, as if to say, "you hit my life on the head, you really understand where I am, and where I am is not at all where I want to be. I am so much more than my work, but also I am so much about my work". I could see the searching in his voice and eyes. Then I said, " that is the whole point of what I write about", we are all so much more than what we do, or what we have.
I knew this was going to be an interesting evening, though even I did not fathom how much it would be. I started out by explaining that you couldn't possibly be the sum total of your work or things for that very reason, for without our profession or things, out lives wouldn't couldn't possibly even exist. That for each and everyone of us, there is one overreaching idea that puts us exactly where we are and the whole point of this will forever and always "why" we even here! In the amazingly funny and poignant movie, The City Slickers, the scene where Billy Crystal's character Mitch and Jack Palance's character Curly are having the famous bonding moment when Curly brilliantly posits lives eternal truth, that there is just one thing that makes us who we are and that plants us firmly in the ground, but places out minds and souls in the Heavens. What is this point, what is the secret to our existence her on Earth, what is our raison d' etre, out reason for being?
Curly points his crooked index finger and drolly says, that is it, this is the one thing that makes our lives complete, well what is it Mitch exalts Curly to reveal. Curly says, " that is for you to figure out, that is your quest, that is your holy grail". Well at the party I was at it finally hit me like a ton of bricks, I finally figured out what the "Secret" really is. I can tell you it is not found a book by that name, in fact it is found in many books, in many faiths and in many philosophies. I am sure you are very curious by now, and I won't hold you in suspense any longer.
What I figured out that Sunday evening in the company of friends, what had alluded me for most of my adult life, what I has thought about, what I saw on the fringes of my existence was, Joy.
Yes, plain and not so simple the answer is joy. How to live a life of joy and fulfillment and equally important, how help others live their lives and find their joy. Mind blowing huh, well for me, this was it, this was the whole point of the story. This was my Moses on the mountain top story, my Stanley finding Livingston epic, my digging in the sands of time and coming up with the parchment to my story. What was coming out of my mouth was the thing I had been searching for, but for whatever reason, it never reached the inner recesses of my spirit, my soul like this did.
Well this moment absolutely just blew me away, it shouldn't have, but it did. I had been writing about this very ideas for the better part of a year, yet in this moment, at this place, it all came together like a lighting bolt hitting a tree and alighting it. To say it was a "light bulb" moment would be an understatement, yet at the same time, it was so simple, so right there in front of me, so I get it, I really get.
Do you get it, do you get your time and purpose here. Do you think for a second that this is just chance, all happenstance. That the forces of nature and history just places you here randomly. Not for second friend do you get to just take for granted your being here at this time and place. Now it is your turn to travel to that place where you life comes together, where you ponder and think about all that you are about. What are you going to do, where are you going, and better yet, where are you!
I guess this may be a tad much for some, but I think not. In any case you no longer have an excuse for your life, do with what you will, but I hope I have made you think about. It may be a bit uncomfortable, but who said life was easy, who said it couldn't get messy and I can't remember my parents ever saying that life wassn't messy.
Enjoy your time and may the new year bring you, happiness, joy and of course peace.
L' Shana Tova,
Robb
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
