TM 186 - Religion
Many of the responses to this question have taken the default Western humanist position: spirituality is good; organized religion is bad. This argument then continues by relating evils committed by groupthinking fanatics serving a supposedly holy cause. This fact, of course, cannot be denied: much evil has been done in the name of many gods. In my travels, which have covered more years and lands than most of you can comprehend, I have seen more suffering in the name of faith than I care to think about.
I have also visited lands that had no gods. I have seen bodies defiled and left to rot. I have seen. I have witnessed people abandon and betray each other because they had no higher purpose, no instinct above that of an animal. I have seen such things in the distant past, before humanity was struck with whatever spark we, however naively, call faith. I have seen it in the distant future, when all hope of a better world -- of any world that existed outside the whims of a terrible, unstoppable tyrant -- had been lost. And, yes, I have seen it in what you would call the present, where sadistic individuals, or unfeeling societies, do their best to condemn their fellow beings to lives without hope, without light, and yes, without faith.
Let me put it another way. Cruelty, bigotry, and oppression can exist without a religious creed to support them. Their opposite -- love, faith, altruism, and the desire to make things better -- cannot, I think, exist without a higher cause to believe in. If religious institutions become immoral, it is because institutions of every kind, in the interest of sustaining themselves, appeal to the lowest common denominator. If we speak of organized religion as hopeless, this condemnation is only part of the larger, fatalistic -- and, I fear, eventually fatal -- assumption that good people working together can do nothing to change the course of history.
I have seen the course of history, and if anyone is to lack hope, it should be me. And yet, in spite of it all, I am a believer. If I can do it, then why not you?
I have also visited lands that had no gods. I have seen bodies defiled and left to rot. I have seen. I have witnessed people abandon and betray each other because they had no higher purpose, no instinct above that of an animal. I have seen such things in the distant past, before humanity was struck with whatever spark we, however naively, call faith. I have seen it in the distant future, when all hope of a better world -- of any world that existed outside the whims of a terrible, unstoppable tyrant -- had been lost. And, yes, I have seen it in what you would call the present, where sadistic individuals, or unfeeling societies, do their best to condemn their fellow beings to lives without hope, without light, and yes, without faith.
Let me put it another way. Cruelty, bigotry, and oppression can exist without a religious creed to support them. Their opposite -- love, faith, altruism, and the desire to make things better -- cannot, I think, exist without a higher cause to believe in. If religious institutions become immoral, it is because institutions of every kind, in the interest of sustaining themselves, appeal to the lowest common denominator. If we speak of organized religion as hopeless, this condemnation is only part of the larger, fatalistic -- and, I fear, eventually fatal -- assumption that good people working together can do nothing to change the course of history.
I have seen the course of history, and if anyone is to lack hope, it should be me. And yet, in spite of it all, I am a believer. If I can do it, then why not you?