I want to start a new religion and I need your help. Religion in its current form has failed and proven itself false. We need a fresh perspective, one that serves reason as well as emotion – a holistic faith that allows for the sacredness of personal experience as well as the power of shared group vision. Sound good? At the end of this post I’ll let you know what you can do.
On a broad scale, popular religions like Christianity and Islam have mainly served to divide us with the bloody blade of intolerance. Millions of dead, entire cities and towns full of innocent people slain in the name of God or Allah or whoever. That bloody blade’s given name is Love, but that is just to cover up what religion really is: an instrument to control and exercise power over the masses.
The Church’s hidden agenda has lain just under the skin of humanity, festering for centuries until today the sickness of the monster has surfaced and lies exposed for all to see. While people starve for physical and spiritual nourishment, the Pope lives in splendor in a guarded palace, his fount of power wasted trying to conceal the decadence of the Church.
Religion has become diseased and people are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with doctrine that just doesn’t make sense. Dogma – the idea that one should believe something or do something just because it is the expected norm and not because of any logical reason – is becoming unacceptable because people are asking questions, questions the Bible and the Koran are unable to answer without relying on dogma. “That’s what it says in the Bible” is no longer enough to satisfy the increasingly sophisticated curiosity of modern thinkers.
So, what are these questions and what are the answers? Well, I was hoping you would know. Maybe we can figure it out together as we create the new religion, actually more a kind of anti-religion.
Want to help? Send me your religious and spiritual questions, especially the ones that religion has failed to answer. Post them here as comments and I will repost them for discussion by the community. Once we reach a consensus, the new religion will be born and then who knows? I always wanted to wear one of those crazy Pope hats.
Tags: anti-religion, dogma, Inquisition, new religion
April 15, 2008 at 10:31 am |
Religion should be about believing and having faith in yourself. End of it. Trusting your instinct goes a long way.
April 15, 2008 at 11:12 am |
Hello garshleyentertainment. I agree that religion should include having faith in yourself. Yes, I think that is important. I remember the exact moment when, as a baby, I realized that I was separate from my mother. Prior to this epiphany it was not that I believed my mother and I were one. Rather it had not occurred to me that there was an “I”, separate from others. Probably my earliest memory.
Anyway, that realization (that I exist) is the only thing I can be really sure of. God, you, this keyboard, all of these could be illusion, but me I am sure of. So, do I have faith in myself? You bet. Trusting my instincts just follows from that.
However, I must object to the statement, “End of it.” There is no end of it. To believe that one has the definitive answer to anything, especially something as esoteric as religion, is a form of self-induced blindness. For example, I believe in God but I also accept that I might be wrong. There is simply no way to know. Even Richard Dawkins, best-selling author and leading proponent of atheism, admits there may be a God, however remote that possibility.
Thanks for your comment. There are lots of questions with no wrong answer.
Speaking of questions, anyone have one for the group to ponder?
April 15, 2008 at 12:05 pm |
Seems like one’s beliefs should be associated with an unchanging truth. That would superceede the notional. Personally, I would pass on basing beliefs and certainly a religion on myself or trust in myself. It is my experience that I cannot be trusted always. I want to trust in something or someone worthy of trust. Enjoyed your blog.
April 16, 2008 at 9:52 am |
Hello bshelley. Although your comment is fairly short, it is filled with thoughts that are worth considering.
The Pope claims to possess un unchanging truth, as do the Ayatollahs, the Dalai Lama and every other mainstream religious leader. Heck even Jim Jones and that nutjob who had his cult drink poison so they could go meet up with the comet thought they knew the “real” truth. They were and are all wrong.
So, my question is, “Which truth is the real unchanging truth?”
When I was born into this world, I had me. I was given a mind that could think, eyes that could see, and ears that could hear. I was not given a special radio that I could use to listen in on what God was saying. (WGOD, not on AM or FM, but on HM – Holy Modulation.)
Rather, I was issued a mind, eyes, ears, and a host of other tools to percieve the world, interpret it, and make my way through it. Yes, I am fallible, but then so is that preacher you want to believe in. The Bible was wriiten by men no better than me and it is fallible as well.
God created you and equipped you to succeed in this world. Use the tools he gave you to find your own path. Be wary of the motivations of others who claim they want to help you find the “true” path. All paths lead to God.
If you cannot trust in yourself, I cannot see why you would trust in man-made institutions created by other men who did not and do not have your best interests at heart. I have to disagree with you here. True faith, the kind of faith that does not fail in the end, starts with knowing the divine within you first and advances outward from there.
All religions, like all really big ideas, start with a notion. Some people prefer other people’s notions, trust other people’s notions, more than their own. I have often prayed for God to reveal himself to me in a way that I could understand. As a result I do “trust in something or someone worthy of respect” like you described. The only difference is that I trust God directly, rather than through a fallible mediary.
bshelley, I know this sounds like a critical response, but I am not arguing here, just trying to establish a little lively but good-hearted debate. Read what I said with the same care and respect I paid your words and then come on back.
Unexamined faith is worthless and unchallenged ideas weak. If my ideas cannot withstand a balanced rebuttal, I probably need to revise them. Thanks for being one way by which I hone my faith.
April 16, 2008 at 10:19 am |
[...] my previous post, I asked for help to start a new religion. Ok, maybe I really don’t want to start a new religion, but I do really want to wear one of those [...]
April 16, 2008 at 9:57 pm |
This goes along with your latest post. I recently finished reading Joshua in the Bible. My question for G-d is this: How is that you can expect your followers to be good and full of love and forgiveness whilst you, who is “a jealous” and wrathful god, killed the Egyptians’ first born and told Israel’s children to murder tribes of innocents for land?
Shamanism instantly came to mind. Groups of people worldwide and not in touch with each other share the same beliefs and have many of the same techniques. Personal experience was/is very sacred and accepted as such by other tribe members.
Religion is the opium of the people. ~Karl Marx (I believe)
April 18, 2008 at 8:34 am |
Hiya Mish. The whole Bible in general, and the Old Testament (OT) in particular, is filled with vivid descriptions of an angry, vindictive, violent, judgmental, wrathful, and controlling god.
Adding to your list, here are a few more of the many examples:
So, let’s see… The church wants me to believe that God condones:
1. Killing innocent women, children, and infants.
2. Rape, presumably of children. (Sound familiar?) No objection by the angels is recorded.
3. Cruelty, vidictive punishment, forced cannibalism, hate, destruction.
These are not my words but the words of the Bible. This is the god that the church wants us to believe is the true God. Hopefully, people will not confuse man-made religious dogma with the real and eternal Creator himself. Just because Christianity is invalid doesn’t mean God is too.
Never confuse religion for God.
Anyway, thanks for the great question. That makes three questions for God so far:
1. Who are you really?
2. How can you expect us to be full of love and forgiveness while you are portrayed as a jealous and wrathful god?
3. If you are unchanging, why do you seem to be two different gods; angry in the OT and loving in the NT?
July 7, 2008 at 10:23 pm |
BOOM!
Thus, the expansion of the universe began! Current theory holds that 15 billion years ago all of the matter and energy of space was located in one place until an incredible explosion occurred currently known as the Big Bang. We will never know how and why this process began although our attempt to understand this sudden expansion of the universe begins with theory of the Big Bang. Thanks to the amazing Hubble telescope, the science of today has determined that the universe is and has been expanding since the Big Bang. Observation, has determined the speed and direction of entire galaxies as they continue to move away from where the Big Bang of long ago occurred. Therefore, we can now determine where and when this event occurred.
Most scientists believe that the Earth, Sun, and all of the other planets and moons in the solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago from a giant cloud of gas and dust known as the solar nebula. Our science can determine the age of the Earth and the remains of its once living inhabitants by the rate of decay of various elements of the makeup of the material tested. While this is not a date certain technique, it is far more accurate than the claims of ancient religious documents that wrongfully state the age the universe and humankind.
If God created the universe the 15 billion years ago, the time revealed by the sound application of basic science, I find it hard to believe that He remains ready today to hear our petty prayers. The recent discoveries of the planets of other stars lend credence to the belief of many that there may be incredible numbers of intelligent life forms living in the universe created by our God. It would follow that these other children of God are also worthy of the same attention that many believe we receive from God.
Therefore, the God of humankind must be over 15 Billion years old and perhaps serve thousands or even millions of other sentient races in the universe he created. Humankind’s perceptions of God are most notable for the way they assume that God is afflicted with human traits such as vengeance, anger, and a sense of insecurity requiring the reassurance our worship provides.
The ancient Egyptians created many Gods with heads that resembled a variety of animals. Atum, their first God, appeared and then spat out Shu, God of air and Tffnut, God of moisture. The passage of time marked the arrival of more Gods, including, Horus, King of the Earth and Osiris, King of the underworld. The Gods of Egypt brought fear as their legacy while the Gods of today offer both love and fear to their followers.
As time advanced, the early Greeks created an association of Gods known as the Titans. Eventually, another association of Gods known as the Olympians replaced the Titans. Mythical tales suggested that romantic love could occur between the Olympians and common people thus clearing the way for common people to both love and fear their Gods.
The Roman Empire with a population from many tribes and many lands was really in need of a religion that could codify its existence. By this time, creating Gods and religions was a well-established cottage industry that clearly realized that multiple Gods resulted in multiple temples. This diversity diluted both the power of influence and income potential of promising life everlasting to the gullible.
The many religions of today include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the emerging Baha’i Faith founded a mere century and a half ago that now claims to have more than five million followers. The acknowledgement of the influence of Abraham gained these religions the creditability of the Old Testament as a foundation of faith. A lifetime of study of the contents of this paragraph would perhaps help you understand only a few trees in a vast forest of religious knowledge.
The point of the foregoing is to establish the fact of human influence in the creation of religions. Consider the Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 and centered in Salt Lake City, Utah. It like many of the religions of humankind claimed that God chose a human messenger to deliver the will of God. While common belief of today holds that there is but one God, it is strange that so many versions of God’s will have surfaced.
The common thread of many religions is the promise of everlasting life for your soul. Trying to define the meaning of the word ‘soul’ through research is a frustrating experience when your first hit is ‘soul music.’ Then Encarta provided the following:
“Buddhism is unique in the history of religions because it teaches that the individual soul is an illusion produced by various psychological and physiological influences. Thus, it has no conception of a soul or self that can survive death.”
I found this to agree with my beliefs, as I do not believe that there is life after death and I do not believe that there is a God known to humankind. I do not believe that we are merely the whimsical result of evolutionary quirks either. Fifteen billion years ago, the Big Bang began a journey to today and beyond and it may have been an intentional act far beyond our understanding.
However, I sincerely believe that religion and the fellowship it inspires is a vital part of our lives. Mother Teresa and even ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has shown that human love for others can be God like in results. I fear that religion faces great danger in the future as science continues to disprove its many claims. Religion should adapt to the challenges posed by science and remember that all the knowledge regarding community and fellowship are just as important as science. Our children need the best parts of religious activity and perhaps should now worship an unknown creator who may have set off the Big Bang
July 8, 2008 at 8:25 am |
Alan F. Kane – Thank you very much for your post. Your cogent thoughts mimic my own in many ways. You obviously spent a considerable amount of time developing your thoughts for us.
The Big Bang: Funny you mention this first. The Big Bang is one of the primary reasons I believe in a transcendent creator (God). The singularity that precipitated the Big Bang must have come from somewhere. Science tells us that matter is energy and that energy is not created or destroyed – it just changes form. I think it it more logical to assume that energy originated from somewhere rather than from nowhere, from something rather than from nothing. That somewhere or something is what I call the creator.
That God does not desire our worship: In another of my posts on this blog, “God is not a Megalomaniac”, I come to a similar conclusion. If God created us merely to worship him, that would make God a monster. If we were created for a specific purpose, it has to be something greater than that, based on the complexity and limitlessness of the universe.
On mankind’s innate desire to create religion: This cannot be denied. The huge number of different world religions and their splinter religions belies humanity’s innate desire to explain something that cannot be explained. But just because a man dreams up a mythical god to explain lightning doesn’t mean that lightning is not a process created by a true God. It just means that humanity has failed to understood the true God. As the old saying goes: Is it more likely that God created us in his image or that we created God in ours?
You seem like someone with an open mind and I welcome your comments on this or any of my other posts. You can bet that I will be visiting sastrugi.net very soon.
July 10, 2008 at 11:10 am |
Alan: Nice response.
IMABBB: Nothing new to add, but thought I’d say “hi”.
July 14, 2008 at 9:19 pm |
Hi Imabb,
I see this thread didn’t really get off the ground big time – we all know how long this discussion could get I guess
– but that’s not to say there isn’t some interesting and insightful stuff here !
Which probably illustrates the first little thing I’d suggest in answer to your question “Which truth is the real unchanging truth?”
The question is a tautology when you think about it – all truth is unchanging, although the situation being described may change and thus a different statement needed to accurately describe it.. but that wouldn’t make the original statement untruthful, just inaccurate in the present.
However I think we all know that the sort of “truths” you are referring to are not simply descriptions of a situation that can or will change – eg the origin of the universe, the nature of man, the purpose of life ..unless of course someone has embraced the evolutionary philosophy to such a degree that they actually believe that the people of today are somehow essentially different to those who have gone before !!
But I digress (albeit enjoyably
.. any thing that’s truth on these matters does not belong to anyone… it belongs to everyone… and any claim to a corner on truth by ANY religious leader or religion is immediately and patently inaccurate.. (especially when the “unchanging” truth has regularly changed and is clearly documented as having done so – a la Roman Catholic church !).. and of course every claim to have “secret truth” available only to devotees is the hallmark of a cult (scientology, masons etc)…
However, these many glaring inconsistencies in positions on truth amongst religions should not preclude the possibility that any religion could not have some truth that IS unique.. especially if it was a truth that a deity chose to reveal (love to say more on that idea..maybe next post
… but the important point is that if anyone has truth then it’s not theirs… truth can’t be owned.. and it’s ours as soon as we know it..and it can become others’ as soon as it’s shared…
So really you’ve already taken the first step to your little funny hat “your thoughtfulness” because there’s plenty of truth in this thread ..
But I digress again (LOL)… I mainly wanted to just respond briefly to a couple of those statements where you quoted and discussed some passages from the Old Testament.
I hope you won’t mind if I speak candidly, but it seems that you are either being a bit disingenuous here, or perhaps there IS something to the claim that my Christian friends keep making that a lot of people can’t *understand* the bible properly until after they *accept* the bible (yeah I know, go figure the chicken and egg there !
)
I realize I could be overstating here, but are you really suggesting that somehow your (obviously clever) brain can’t read the old testament and apply the usual discernment that you would when reading any other book ? Things like working out whether you are reading narrative or reflections, taking a statement in it’s context etc etc… surely you just said some of those things to try and get some of those bible-bashing types riled ? (not the best way to start a religion I would have thought.. but then again .. maybe it is
LOL)
Seriously though, I read that whole section about the angels and Lot… and I would have said that offering your daughters to a crowd of guys so gay that they want to pack-rape your out-of-town male guests was actually quite a clever diversionary tactic.. especially as they were adult daughters (I found that in the next couple of pages) and they had been living in the town for a while so Lot would have known whether the crowd would have been even remotely interested in his apparent offer..
You are right there is no objection by the angels recorded… in fact there’s no record of them saying anything at that point … but there is *action* recorded – they hauled Lot inside and then struck the crowd with temporary blindness.. in this case actions definitely spoke louder than words
.. and your original “argument from silence” (ie that no objection is recorded to Lot’s offer) is not something that any of us would like done to OUR writing… so it’s not really fair for us to do it to the bible either, just because it says some things that we disagree with…
As I said, that could be quite disingenuous … did you realize that you’ve said “the Church wants you to believe…” “these are not my words”.. but in fact it is your interpretation that you are referring to ? I’ve never heard of any church or christian writer suggesting the things that you’ve said.. doesn’t mean they don’t exist of course.. but I certainly don’t think it’s fair for you to speak “on behalf” of the christian viewpoint and then knock your own statements down… I belive that’s called setting up a straw man ..
Mind you, if you are truly able to represent the position of other religions, then maybe you are closer to getting your little hat than you think..
Well enough from me for now,
Cheers to anyone who actually reads this.
Wazza
July 17, 2008 at 9:16 am |
Warren, thanks for your insightful comments. You realize, of course, that I was in a very cheeky mood when I wrote this post. I have absolutely NO desire to start a new religion, or to wear a hat – no matter how funky.
I guess I was just trying to point out how silly religion can be if you take it literally. I use the Bible as an example because I was a fundamentalist Christian for over 20 years before I found the courage and spiritual integrity to question what I was being taught.
The Biblical examples I cite are just a few of the countless stories (particularly in the Old Testament) that clearly cast God as an insecure, judgmental, violent deity who rules by fear and intimidation. There is no interpretation required, and that is why I included the chapter and verse for each. I am not trying to take anyone’s writing out of context because it is quite compelling, even more so, IN context.
I have to admit that I never considered the possible wisdom in offering women to a crowd of gay men! LOL, that is funny, and perhaps it was the only solution that Lot could come up with. It is not a solution I would have considered – I would never do that to my daughters, would you? The crowd was obviously crazed, otherwise why would they have appeared as a mob at Lot’s door? Who knows what would have happened if the angels had not intervened. (This is, of course, assuming that any of this actually ever happened.)
I believe that there is some truth in most religions, but that none of them contains the “only truth”. If there are 6.8 billion people on the planet, then there must be at least 6.8 billion ways to find God. If God is truly transcendent, then by definition ALL paths lead to him in the end. If there is only one way, why are we all so different?
I am only trying to get people to think for themselves about these critical issues. Is there a God? What does she want from us? Why are we here? I have my opinions, but I don’t want people to follow me any more than I think they should follow a preacher or the words written in a dusty old book. If you want to know God, go directly to God.
I will admit there are a lot of things I still don’t know about the Bible. If it were really God’s word you would not need a degree or any special training to understand what is written there. Of what value would such a text be if the common man for whom it was presumably written could not understand it without an intermediary? In my opinion, the Bible is either a ready guide for all people for all times or it is a tool of the establishment designed to control the masses. If the Bible was created by men as a tool, of course it will need interpreting, and who better to interpret it than the ones in power, the ones it benefits? How convenient for the priesthood.
It just doesn’t make sense that God created us and then made the instruction manual impossible for the average person to follow. It shouldn’t be that hard. If I was hired to edit the Bible for future generations, I would distill it down to one thought, known as the Golden Rule, namely that you should love your neighbor as yourself. Stated another way, the Golden Rule tells us we should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This so-called “ethic of reciprocity” is universal to nearly every religion that exists today. Go ahead – Google “ethic of reciprocity” and you will see what I mean.
Perhaps this simple “lowest common denominator” is the only “true” truth that religion has to offer.