Edit 5/1/10: I apologize for not realizing this sooner, but this post may be misinterpreted if you have not read this first: Religion is Art
I understand now why I cannot accept Christianity as the one true religion. It is because while exploring other religions I have come across Truths and wisdoms that I cannot deny. Truths that I have felt with the entirety of my being. Truths that I was never able to experience through Christianity. Sure there were things that I was told in Christianity that I know to be true but they only ever made sense in the context of other religions. Christianity told me a few truths. Buddhism, Mysticism, and Witchcraft REVEALED them to me.
For example the koans of Buddhism present a student with a rationally impossible question or contradiction. Through contemplation the student eventually finds a way to accept the contradiction, an answer is found and Truth is revealed. I was faced with one of these contradictions myself: I know that I do not know everything (and therefore I know nothing) but I must believe that I am correct. When I was finally able to accept this my life changed drastically for the better.
Another Buddhist teaching is to not run from pain and suffering but to embrace them. This is one of the teachings that has probably helped me more than anything. Running from suffering only causes more suffering because there always comes a time when doing the right thing will cause you suffering. You must embrace this suffering because it is what is right. When you have the strength to embrace this, you find that suffering is not so terrible when it is right. Buddhism teaches that suffering is a natural part of life and by believing this I am able to be a better person who acts with courage and upholds his morals. Many of the teachings of Christianity are about being saved from suffering if they only follow the rules, but I believe that this leads people to do things so that they can be saved, not to be righteous. By believing this many people never face their fear of suffering and become courageous because they are waiting to be saved from their fear. So, when times are good they are decent Christians but when the going gets tough many of them falter.
Most of the rituals of Witchcraft are truly not much more than ancient methods of mind hacking. You take advantage of the symbolic meanings that your mind uses and use them to focus your mind on whatever goal you want to achieve. By focusing your mind, it is always subconsciously working towards that goal and coming up with new ways for you to achieve it. The results are pretty miraculous. It works.
Religion reflects your interpretation of the world. It is the meaning you find in life. A source of answers for the questions that you cannot answer.
Certainly many of you have found many or all of these same Truths through Christianity. I could not, but I did find them elsewhere.
People practice different religions because they WORK. If they did not find true fulfillment in it, then they would not practice it. Of course there are some people who practice a religion without really caring about it. These are the people who never found Truth in the religion they were taught and never realize what they are missing. The thing is, I've never met a Buddhist, Mystic, Witch or Pagan who had not found Truth in their religion (I know several people who practice these). Whereas MOST of the people I know are essentially non-practicing or what I like to call "Holiday Christians." Besides a hand full people, the only Christians I know who have really found Truth and meaning in Christianity are very old.
Christianity is a religion with relatively inefficient teaching methods, they are far too indirect. Why are we still teaching only in parables? Parables are for illiterate people who must pass down values and wisdom through oral tradition and they are FANTASTIC for this. But in today's world literacy is MUCH higher. Relative to the people of Israel some 2000 years ago the people of this country are pretty well educated. Besides this, these parables are AT LEAST 2000 years old. Most of the literature from the bible is not written in today’s terms. When you combine this with the previous fact it is no wonder it takes a Christian her or his entire life to realize Truths that monks in Tibet knew by the time they were 10.
For one thing, Christianity doesn't really tell you what you need to do in order to communicate with God. The best I got was vague advice like : "Just listen for God and he will speak to you." "Pray and God will answer." "Look in your heart, God is there." No priest EVER told me HOW to listen for God. I know that there are Christians out there who know how to do this, and could explain it and teach it but it is NOT part of the core teachings of Christianity. What Christianity does is give people a set of rules to follow so that they can be a good person instead of showing them how to listen to God and have him tell them himself. This is fantastic for uneducated people because EVENTUALLY through living this way they WILL find God (pretty much by chance though) and you never really have to explain a thing to them. They follow the rules because they are afraid of the consequences not because God is leading their heart. This is why Christianity is so popular, it is a religion for people who do not want to focus on spirituality. But for the persons who really are seeking to find Truth, there are much faster methods. Buddhism and Witchcraft directly teach you first to heal yourself and connect with divinity. You then use this connection to know what to do in tough moral situations instead of consulting the rule book which may not apply to the situation anyways AND will be written in a form that was designed to relate to peasants from thousands of years ago AND has been translated through several languages.
If people KNEW God, they would not behave in the way that they do.
The Church has pretty much destroyed everything that Jesus set out to do. Jesus wanted people to get to know God and let him touch your heart and show you your purpose. The Church wants you to follow rules. The Church has failed at its ONLY goal.
I'm not saying that Buddhism is perfect. I'm saying that no religion is perfect. Different people need to hear things in different ways in order to understand them and so different people NEED different religions.
True, I could be wrong and based on Christian theology I am putting quite a bit on the line here. People have used this as an argument against me and I could not answer until now. I cannot just follow a religion because it COULD be right because anyone can make up a religion and tell me that if I don't follow it I'll be screwed. True, Christianity is well established making it a bit more likely to be true. But several other religions are well established and Christianity hasn't been established for as long as many of them. Earth based religions are the oldest. I judge a religion by the quality of life (level of fulfillment, satisfaction, wisdom, good works towards others) of the people who follow it and how quickly they achieve it. Of the religions to which I have had a fair amount of exposure, Christianity is in last place.
A true student of Truth needs to study all of the major religions in order to find ALL the Truths that humanity has uncovered. Truth is undeniable. Truth cannot be told, only experienced. Christianity currently uses the "easiest", but most roundabout way of teaching its Truths. By applying wisdom from other religions I have been able to discover some of the Truths of Christianity.
Perhaps one day a great person will come to unify the Truth's of these different religions. Or perhaps as a collective we can work together with other religions to share these Truths and build our own perfect religion.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
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19 comments:
I think Jesus was a great person who wanted to help poor and oppressed people. But a lot nof modern Christians are just the opposite.
Thanks for commenting!
Yeah, don't get me wrong. I think that Jesus' teachings were awesome, but the Church today is not teaching these well.
I agree that the church as an institution does not recognize the spiritual Truth common to all religions. The administrators of the churches are trained to organize and manage and not to contemplate spiritual matters. I pay salutations to the Divinity within those individuals who stand up for Truth despite the condemnations.
Thank you for sharing this, Thelema. I read your first two posts and I see much Truth in what is written. I will have to look further into the religion to see what it can reveal to me. It sounds as though the core teachings involve the idea that there is one final Truth that cannot be put into simple statements and rules. And so the only way to act in accordance with Truth is to be united with God. Which is achieved by unifying ourselves because the core of our consciousness is God. Is this accurate?
Thanks, Soma. I think that Christian Mysticism could mean salvation for the Christian religion if the Church would embrace the wisdom of the Mystics. Unless of course Thelema's theory is correct. lol.
"I understand now why I cannot accept Christianity as the one true religion. It is because while exploring other religions I have come across Truths and wisdoms that I cannot deny."
For this to falsify Christianity Christianity would have to claim that there is absolutely no truth or wisdom in any other religion. However, this is not the case and this is impossible for a Christian to deny because of the many similarities between various religions and Christianity.
"Running from suffering only causes more suffering because there always comes a time when doing the right thing will cause you suffering. You must embrace this suffering because it is what is right."
If you are saying that running from suffering (short term) is bad because it causes MORE long term suffering, you can still technically say that you are running from suffering in the long term. I think I agree with what you are saying. I also think that doing what we ought is more important than short term or long term suffering, that is another argument that is too lengthy to go into at this moment.
"Many of the teachings of Christianity are about being saved from suffering if they only follow the rules, but I believe that this leads people to do things so that they can be saved, not to be righteous. By believing this many people never face their fear of suffering and become courageous because they are waiting to be saved from their fear."
If being saved from suffering is to avoid MORE long term suffering then it is perfectly consistent with your own views about suffering. If you are saying that Christianity encourages people to run from short term suffering even if it causes them to suffer more in the long term then I would like to see some verses to back that up.
"So, when times are good they are decent Christians but when the going gets tough many of them falter. The thing is, I've never met a Buddhist, Mystic, Witch or Pagan who had not found Truth in their religion (I know several people who practice these). Whereas MOST of the people I know are essentially non-practicing or what I like to call "Holiday Christians." Besides a hand full people, the only Christians I know who have really found Truth and meaning in Christianity are very old."
This is no doubt a problem with many current Christians in this culture but that does not mean it is fault of Christian teachings, as there have been many different sub-cultures associated with Christianity at different places and different times. Christianity is currently a very popular religion and it is easy to be a Christian in many places. If fashionable then there may be many people who adopt it for solely that reason. That these people will falter when the going gets tough is a truism.
"Christianity is a religion with relatively inefficient teaching methods, they are far too indirect. Why are we still teaching only in parables?"
There were times when Jesus taught ONLY in parables, but many of the teachings of Christianity are also presented in other forms in the new testament, the letters of the apostles are direct instructions to different churches that also include theology.
"People practice different religions because they WORK. If they did not find true fulfillment in it, then they would not practice it."
Define WORK and fulfillment. I would like to think we are talking about truth here, although I don't know if most people are interested in that.
"Besides a hand full people, the only Christians I know who have really found Truth and meaning in Christianity are very old."
The number of people who say they find truth and meaning in an idea should not be a gauge for the idea's accuracy.
"For one thing, Christianity doesn't really tell you what you need to do in order to communicate with God. The best I got was vague advice..."
This might be because it isn't possible to follow a set of rules to do this. It is odd that you criticize Christianity for emphasizing rules in other areas and then want it to provide you with a set of rules for communicating with God. This also directly conflicts with your later statement "Truth cannot be told, only experienced." I don't think the main point of Christianity is rules, but that is another issue.
"Christianity is well established making it a bit more likely to be true."
Being well established shouldn't make it more likely to be true. I guess if you want to argue that if God wants to be known he would be more likely to select a good method of communication with humans, which would make popular religions more likely, but this assumes that God wants to be known by a large number of people, so you have to make some kind of argument from our teleology first. (I have made arguments like this before but I don't know if they are true anymore)
"I judge a religion by the quality of life (level of fulfillment, satisfaction, wisdom, good works towards others) of the people who follow it and how quickly they achieve it"
For judging a religion's positive social impact (more exactly the people who follow the religion at that time) this might be a good method. Truth is otherwise. You need a logical argument that takes me from the premises "gosh these people are nice" to "their beliefs are more likely to be correct" I've heard you criticize the Mormon beliefs before as being easily refutable, but you have to admit they are some of the nicest and happiest people.
"But several other religions are well established and Christianity hasn't been established for as long as many of them."
It is impossible to know what beliefs were actually established first because if you go back far enough we don't have historical records. Christianity has its roots in Judaism, and Judaism states that it was established from the beginning of the human race. This is of course impossible to verify but you would need to falsify this to say "Christianity hasn't been established for as long as many of them." All you can say is "this appears in the historical record first" and Judaism as it was practiced at its beginning was not a religion that would leave a lot of historical evidence of its practice.
Overall I think your critique of Christianity makes some valid points, but all the valid ones are against the current pop-Christian culture or against the church, which I am in agreement with you on. (however I also don't think that all churches deserve this criticism, but it is generally true in America) Anyways, you also seem to be mainly concerned with how a religion helps people find satisfaction and fulfillment in this life, which isn't the main point of Christianity. Christianity states that it is much more important to worry about how enjoyable eternity will be for you than how enjoyable your current life is (I can show you those verses if you wish). You also just assume that the most important truths are the ones common to all religions, which can only be experienced not told. I can't argue with you about this because any argument on my part will already be begging the question. Of that which we cannot speak we must pass over in silence.
"For this to falsify Christianity Christianity would have to claim . . ."
If Christianity is the only true religion then it is the only way to access the Truth of God. If this is the case then other religions can have truth, but not Truth. In my personal experience it has been the exact opposite. If I am practicing another religion then I should not be able to connect with God and KNOW that I am moving in a direction that is beneficial. Yet this is exactly what has happened to me. However, I can accept you not believing that these connections were not true connections with God for I have no way to prove it.
Your responses to my comments on suffering:
Perhaps I shouldn't have worded the parts about suffering the way I did, because the real reason you learn to accept suffering is not so that you will not suffer more in the future but because When you accept suffering it is possible to be a good person, no matter the circumstance. Thus, you are more likely to act as a good person.
"If you are saying that Christianity encourages people to run from short term suffering even if it causes them to suffer more in the long term then I would like to see some verses to back that up."
I am saying that many of the ways that Christianity is taught lead people to have the wrong motivation for being good people. Admittedly, this could easily be the fault of bad Christians and not the teaching's themselves. The reason that I pin this on Christianity and not on the Christians is because there is so much focus on the consequences of not being good. I think that teaching about these consequences makes it too easy for people to be "good" for the wrong reasons. When you are being "good" for the wrong reasons, you aren't really being good because you aren't really improving your relationship with God. The teachings about hell were invented to provide motivation. But that is an opinion, we have no proof either way, only fear. I do not believe in hell. I would say that this is because it is not consistent with the universe, but because of the is-ought problem I cannot really look at the universe and make assumptions about how things ought to be. So, this reasoning must simply be an excuse my mind came up with for my opinion.
"This is no doubt a problem with many current Christians in this culture but that does not mean it is fault of Christian teachings. . ."
It is difficult for me to separate Christianity from the Church in my view of Christianity. Perhaps there is some form of Christianity that I can find that I could accept but I have not found it yet (of course I am still exploring). So, I am not a Christian at this point in time. I mean, in a WAY I am a Christian because I believe the majority of what Jesus has said. But for that same reason, I am not really Christian because I believe the Bible is flawed and I believe that is why I don't believe EVERYTHING Jesus said, because I think the Bible got some parts wrong. I have not gone through the Bible again yet though so I cannot back up my reasoning. This post (and the next) are my attempts to document as accurately as possible where I am in terms of my religious understanding of the world. it is a foundation for me to build upon. I am hoping that they serve a double purpose in also getting people to start thinking more about these things. If I never put my views out there I cannot hope to work on them together with humanity and I think that this is the whole point of community.
What I am attempting to do now is search all of the religions I can find for any piece of Truth that I can glean. I am slowly assembling this into a view that I use to base my actions upon. Currently, I do not believe that my end result is going to be a form of Christianity, at least not one strictly based off of the Bible. Of course, maybe that is EXACTLY where I will end up. Maybe along the way I WILL come across a Christian interpretation that fits perfectly, but at this point, no. I do really like a lot of what I have heard from you on your own interpretation (don't really know if interpretation is the right word here. . .) of Christianity and I intend to attempt to understand your view points as best I am able. I am hoping that we will be able to have to really beneficial discussions as I work my way through the Bible again.
"Define WORK and fulfillment. . ."
Yes, by saying that the religions "work" and provide fulfillment I do mean that they provide Truth and Truth is the reason they are able to find fulfillment. Because Truth leads us to knowing and completing our purpose. Working towards our purpose brings fulfillment.
"The number of people who say they find truth and meaning in an idea should not be a gauge for the idea's accuracy. . ."
Keep in mind that I am not talking about truth, but Truth. Obviously, it is easy for people to miss the truth in a statement and to thus reject it. We all know that this happens time and time again with almost every truly great idea.
But the POINT of a religion is to provide Truth and to provide it to everyone. If a religion is not doing this, then it is failing at its purpose. Unless God wants us to follow a certain religion just because he said so and not because it connects us with God.
"This might be because it isn't possible to follow a set of rules to do this. It is odd that you criticize Christianity for emphasizing rules in other areas and then want it to provide you with a set of rules for communicating with God. This also directly conflicts with your later statement "Truth cannot be told, only experienced." I don't think the main point of Christianity is rules, but that is another issue."
I say this because other religions have been able to provide simple techniques and methods that seem to lead to a personal connection with divinity through ritual or meditation whereas the modern rituals of Christianity (that I have witnessed) insist upon letting the priest do all of the connecting to God and interpretation of the bible. Obviously some people do go on to study the bible on their own and come to their own understandings and connections with God but I do not think that they provide enough explanation of how to do this.
I do not believe that Truth can be told through simple explanation or rules, but connecting to God does not require knowledge of Truth. It requires you to have healed yourself properly to connect with God AND the correct mental state. There are techniques for reaching these mental states. But I openly admit that I am not an expert on these techniques by any means. I have experienced a few of them
"Being well established shouldn't make it more likely to be true. . ."
One of my base assumptions is that God does want to be known. If this assumption is wrong then Christianity is clearly wrong as well since a big part of it is sharing the Good News with the world. If this is so then my assessment of Christianity as being not for me is correct but some of my reasoning is wrong.
"For judging a religion's positive social impact (more exactly the people who follow the religion at that time) this might be a good method. Truth is otherwise. You need a logical argument that takes me from the premises "gosh these people are nice" to "their beliefs are more likely to be correct" I've heard you criticize the Mormon beliefs before as being easily refutable, but you have to admit they are some of the nicest and happiest people."
We are assuming here that God wants for us to be happy and improve ourselves as a whole. I think we can both agree that this is fine to assume since otherwise we're screwed anyways and that isn't a very "productive" way to think.
I have refuted a lot of Mormon beliefs but you have to remember that I do not think that one religion is right and one is wrong. I am saying that we have to search to find Truth wherever it is and I DO believe that the Mormons have got A LOT of stuff right. Some of the theology is what many people would consider "silly" but part of my argument is that theology cannot be exact so there will always be various interpretations that will differ in written form. What is important is the Truth that can be revealed by accepting that theology. That Truth can then perhaps be judged by the good that it does for the world? Gets murky here.
Your closing argument lays out even better why I am not Christian. I do not hold this belief that we are just here preparing ourselves for the next world. I cannot accept this at this point and it is not something that can really be debated in a meaningful way. I have faith, however, that if it IS true that this will be made apparent to me in my life as I strive to understand more and to be as good a person as I know how. I believe above all and most importantly that God does care about us all and that those of us who work hard at being the best we can for the sake of the world WILL find Truth.
If I believed that God would abandon anyone who honestly did the best they could, then I would not be capable of motivating myself to do ANYTHING. Simply because my life would be overrun with the fear that I may not be perfect. I really do believe that the effort you put into discovering Truth is MUCH more important than following the "right" religion. If there is a "Right" religion I have to have faith that God would lead anyone there who tried to find it. I think that we do agree on this and it is this that allows us to work together. The only real difference is that you believe that you have already located the correct religion and I don't believe that I have.
"If this is the case then other religions can have truth, but not Truth. In my personal experience it has been the exact opposite......"
"I am saying that we have to search to find Truth wherever it is and I DO believe that the Mormons have got A LOT of stuff right. Some of the theology is what many people would consider "silly" but part of my argument is that theology cannot be exact so there will always be various interpretations that will differ in written form."
So let us say that Truth can be accessed in different ways from belief systems who's beliefs are at least mostly false (because of the many conflicting beliefs between religions). You cannot separate the beliefs like "we need to get rid of our Thetans" from the theology (or atheology) because those things are given as reasons for doing things like meditation and such, and they influence the way in which you do that meditation. Why then bother with religion in the first place? why not make something up that you like better? You said that most of the Mormon beliefs are made up, yet the theology that is constructed on them leads to A LOT of Truth, but there is a huge difference between making something totally up and taking a different stance on an interpretation of something..
"the real reason you learn to accept suffering is not so that you will not suffer more in the future but because When you accept suffering it is possible to be a good person, no matter the circumstance."
Christianity says exactly what you said:
"And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." - Romans 5
"I think that teaching about these consequences makes it too easy for people to be "good" for the wrong reasons."
Causality, especially emotional causality, is difficult to establish, and in addition one may ask if these people are "good" for the wrong reasons would anything else be able to change that? Whether to do what you ought is a decision you personally make. If teachings about suffering happen to attract these "good" people to Christianity then so what? The question is whether these teachings are correct not whether they attract the right crowd in all cases. But as I said I don't think that teaching about suffering necessarily implies that avoiding suffering is the reason you should be good. I sense you may be contradicting yourself when you say that you are assuming in your religious investigation that God wants us to be happy. If God wants us to be happy then he wants us not to suffer, and then any religion with truth in it may contain instructions for avoiding things that cause suffering and the consequences of not doing so. So why do you take issue with Christianity for that?
"It is difficult for me to separate Christianity from the Church in my view of Christianity."
Just because I don't like muzak doesn't mean I don't like the style of jazz itself. You shouldn't take a popular spin on something and say that it represents the original intent of the idea. To discover this, one needs to look further into the genera. Of course, I do not mean to say that all churches have this problem, although no doubt all churches have problems just like everyone has problems, that does not contradict Christianity.
"Obviously some people do go on to study the bible on their own and come to their own understandings and connections with God but I do not think that they provide enough explanation of how to do this."
Once again a criticism of the church not of Christianity. I agree with you, in many cases they don't.
"But the POINT of a religion is to provide Truth and to provide it to everyone. If a religion is not doing this, then it is failing at its purpose."
You also have to know if the people are actually following the religion, and if they are being "good" for the wrong reasons, which is very difficult.
"We are assuming here that God wants for us to be happy and improve ourselves as a whole. I think we can both agree that this is fine to assume since otherwise we're screwed anyways and that isn't a very "productive" way to think."
You are equating happiness in this life with our overall happiness (you were talking about qualities that we can observe in this life, satisfaction, wisdom etc...). Also if I didn't believe in the holocaust (and other similar things going on today) I would be a slightly happier and more optimistic person, but my belief wouldn't be true. So truth does not necessarily produce more happiness in THIS life.
I do not think Christianity is just about preparing ourselves for the next world, since so many instructions are given for life in this world, so many proverbs about practical everyday things. And there is in fact suggestions that we should try to enjoy our lives here:
"13Eat honey, my son, for it is good;
honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.
14Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul;
if you find it, there is a future hope for you,
and your hope will not be cut off." - Proverbs 24
Since the only reason given for eating honey is that it is enjoyable, it doesn't claim it is healthy, and in other places it says not to eat too much, but the point nevertheless isn't about honey, but that you should try to enjoy life. Nevertheless, the comparison of eternity to a finite period of time is always overwhelming.
I also think we agree on many things. And what is funny is that I used to have most of the same ideas you do. In fact if I teleported myself three years ago through time to today and he happened upon our discussion, he would be agreeing with you and arguing against me.... but then if I was teleported, I wouldn’t be here, which would mean I wouldn’t have teleported him...... but you get the idea.
Thanks again for sharing. I'm going to need more time to reflect before I can provide any meaningful response, but didn't want to just not respond at all.
All I know is that teleportation and time travel are messy technologies that I do not want to be on the cutting edge of. haha
Thanks again for sharing. I'm going to need more time to reflect before I can provide any meaningful response, but didn't want to just not respond at all.
All I know is that teleportation and time travel are messy technologies that I do not want to be on the cutting edge of. haha
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