Saya hanya ingin mengulang menyampaikan apa yang telah beberapa kali
saya sampaikan disini:
Sejak beberapa dasawarsa terakhir dan berkat adanya scanner canggih
yang bisa menyigi apa yang terjadi di benak homo sapians sapiens
(saat orang budhis bersemadi misalnya), maka beberapa neuroscientist
seperti Newberg menyimpulkan bahwa otak homo sapiens sapiens itu
tersusun ("wired") sedemikian rupa, sehingga ada semacam desakan
("urge") untuk percaya kepada Tuhan atau dedemit...
Jadi, urge inilah yang memungkinkan lahirnya bermacam agama di dunia
ini.
Diperlukan kecerdasan dan kesediaan (dan kegigihan) untuk
menentang 'urge" itu buat bisa sampai kepada kesimpulan bahwa,
seperti apa yang dikatakan Fuerbach di bahagian pertama abad ke XIX,
bahwa bukan Tuhan yang menciptakan manusia, tapi manusia yang
menciptakan Tuhan.
Antropolog Perancis Pascal Boyer menulis buku yang searah dengan
omongan Fuerbah itu dengan menjuduli bukunya "Et l'homme crea les
dieux" (Dan manusiapun menciptakan Tuhan...) sembari mendasarkan
kesimpulannnya kepada tulisan neuroscientist Dennett.
Kita kayaknya berada di ambang penjelasan ilmiah tentang fenomena
agama...
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "ldharyanto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
There is an almost silly question that pops out of the discussion on
religions among friends the other days: are those religious people
imbeciles?
We could laugh out loud. We easily scoff at a rubbish question like
that. Of course, it is just a crap. But, hold on. Think again. Try to
honestly think about the answer. Could it be a yes? Well, it could
actually be a yes, or no depending on the function of the mind.
Yes, when someone becomes addicted to a religion, it is when he or
she becomes closer to being imbecile. A religion addict hinders the
mind from functioning properly in this context. When someone becomes
a religion addict, it is when the religion has achieved its ultimate
goal that is, making the religion as god itself, and making the
followers follow it blindly.
Just open any page in a holy book of Abraham descent. It is easy to
find a flow of instructions that are immediately followed by threats.
And, because the marketing positioning of religions is based on the
love for God, there is always a promise of that famous reward the
heaven. But read just any page, the essence of the message is usually
clear - you get to follow blindly. Do not argue, do not question, and
you'll be heavenly rewarded. Otherwise, you'll be severely punished.
To achieve the ultimate goal of recruiting faithful followers of no
arguments, no thinking, no doubts, the writers usually tried to
arrange the words in such a way that the words would leave no room,
no grey area for the mind to argue. The programming uses language or
words that are mostly based on sets of opposites: do and do not,
should and should not, must and must not. The basic premise of these
dualities is - for anything to be labeled as something, its opposite
must be excluded.
So, as the story tells, according to the holy words - there is only
one truth. And, anything that is not labeled as such must be a lie.
Also, according to the holy words - there is only one way to
salvation. Anything that is not labeled as such must be a sin. The
premise of "either-or" ignores the very basic sense of life itself
that is, the aspects of which the writers tried to distinguish
actually exist simultaneously without borders. Life is not just about
black and white, nor good and bad all the time. The complexity of
life cannot be empowered by this simplistic premise alone. In fact,
it is possible for people in some points of life to experience an
absence of all distinctions.
The fact of the matter is - this premise makes people fail to realize
that they actually have an extraordinary range of unbounded messages
of life from various sources. In fact, the whole universe is an
unlimited source of messages. But because they choose to close the
mind and simply follow the book instructions blindly, they actually
have missed many possibilities or alternative ways to experience
life. This also means that they have missed many things that life is
able to offer to enrich humanity.
When a religion addict bets his or her life on a book alone, clings
his or her life to words of that book alone for support, he or she
does not realize that words are only symbols. Though we could not
deny the value and importance of words, we have to realize that life
is too complex to be expressed in words alone. More often than not
words fail to represent the real meaning because the meaning of words
change across time, and the situations they are supposed to label
also change. An addict tends to abandon the power of mind and follow
the claim of the words literally that they hold the ultimate truth
of the whole universe, across time, across lives, across all
situations, across everything. An addict tends to ignore that the
words often fail to acknowledge that life is naturally about
evolution, that life is actually about a constant change.
So, there it goes. History has showed us again and again that
religion addicts would willingly do anything, anything whatsoever in
the name of God - even if that anything would cause an unimaginable,
horrified misery to all humanity. This kind of people would buy in
anything, anything whatsoever, with a God brand on it. They might
think they worship God, but in reality they actually undermine the
power of God by refusing to use the power of mind. Not realizing that
they actually have lost sight of the real God, the religion has
become the god instead.
Yes. There is a name for people who refuse to use the mind for
heaven's sake. They are imbeciles. They are zealots.
***
Now, there is this second group of believers. These people are
sometimes able to use the power of mind. Occasionally these people
are willing to think, to question, to criticize, to argue - even
though they mostly are in the state of denial, or ignorance. Like
those zealots, this second group of people has also been stuck in
what is called the social programming too, but they usually do not
bet their lives fully on it.
And, what is a social programming? Throughout our lives - our
thoughts, our actions, and also our emotions have been formed and
guided by language from our earlier encounters with words directed at
us by our closest family and society. We are told to do this, or
don't do that, to follow this, or forbid that - and the process goes
on and on and on, throughout our childhood years, adolescence, and
into adulthood. For most people, those assumptions and values upon
which they've been nurtured throughout lives are rarely challenged.
Therefore, those assumptions and values have become their second
nature.
This second group of believers simply follows this second nature
because it is the only way they know to live a life, often without
any pretension. It is not about a choice, because there is never a
question of choice. It is just about norms. About being synchronize
with the society.
So, what makes these people different from the previous group? Funny
things happen when these people meet with some challenges. They won't
easily change their point of view, for sure. By any measure, it is
forbidden to challenge the holy words. But because they are able to
use a little bit of their minds, they are usually busy finding
justifications and reasons for everything that they find less-than-
perfect. They notice that some of their own people have actually
twisted the rules and norms for gaining money and power or even for
abusing other people. However, because the holy words say that people
of their own are always the privileged, the chosen ones - they would
always find a way to tolerate even the most devilish acts of their
own people. When there is no more excuses, no more justifications, no
more reasons can be found, these people prefer to keep silent in
confusion. They are definitely the safety players.
There is only a little hope left of any reformation or change that
could be done by these people. But, there is still a hope anyway.
When these people have a chance to meet with a strong leader who owns
a strong spirit and determination, they are able to courageously open
and widen their mind to follow the leader. Once they are able to step
out of their confusion, they would be able to become some agents of
reformation themselves.
***
And last but not least. There is also a group of people who
consciously explore religions as a necessary stage of growth in order
to understand life. They realize that without stepping into this
area, and learning about its essence, they will never fully
understand life. For these people, every step of life has its own
purpose and meaning.
Unfortunately, these people are already difficult to find. Not
because they are only few, but because most of them have usually
reached an understanding that all those hocus pocus are not important
anymore. They have understood that religions are only tools to
understand life, and religions are not the only way for achieving the
same goal. They have come to a stage where the reward accounting, or
the heaven and hell, or the truth and sin, or the love and fear, or
the chosen and the non-chosen, do not matter anymore.
But once again, they cannot just simply explain their experience to
others in words. Life is always too complex to be explained in words
alone. Words as they understand - are not the only tools to express
the ultimate truth. Words are only insignias. Only symbols.
So are dogmas. So are religions.
However, most of us are not there yet. Here we are, all are still in
love with the hocus pocus. We judge. We judge a lot. It is always
easier for us to judge rather than to widen our perspectives. It is
easier for us to embrace bigotry rather than to hold on to open-
mindedness. It is easier for us to be prejudice rather than to be an
enlightened person.
And, who knows what the future might bring?
At the end of the day, we might finally understand. We might finally
come to an understanding that those imbeciles are there for a purpose
too
***
-------------------- m2f --------------------
dikirim lewat http://forums.apakabar.ws - tanpa moderasi
http://forums.apakabar.ws/viewtopic.php?p=98061#98061
-------------------- m2f --------------------
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