The Power of Popular Culture Part # 6 Appendix The Lost Gospel
Religion as Education Needless to say, no religion, any religion, is infallible. All religions have limitations and characteristic shortcomings. Yet there are truths that nearly all religions teach us, truths of great value. You can think of religion, most religions, as enshrining many of the most important lessons of history so that these truths are not forgotten and are always available to us. Religion is more than education but this dimension of faith needs to be emphasized. Any kind of viable education has to be based on identifying mistakes as well as affirming truths. This means that we need to have a positive outlook about criticism of religion. Not name-calling "criticism," not heated disagreement based on visceral hatred, but civil and objective criticism that is part of an honest search for truth. Unfortunately neither the Religious Right nor the Religious Left understands the principle involved. For most traditionalists and most modernists, criticism of religion is verboten. It cannot be tolerated, it must be shut up or shouted down. That kind of outlook is stupid beyond belief. Stupid and infantile. There is a far better approach. My favorite text on this subject was published in The Hindu newspaper as an editorial in December 1993 under the title: My 10 All-Time Favorite Criticisms What this is, is an annotated list of criticisms of Hinduism collected by a Hindu for his own reflection. It starts with these observations: "To be sure, Hinduism has its adversaries. I for one hope they are strong, not caring much for a wimpy rival. It seems to be the Law of Things that good rivals make for great achievement, whether in sport or science, politics or religion." "...a sage once told me: "A truly great man can be measured by the greatness of his enemies." Wishing one's enemies strength is strength-inducing." "In that spirit, much gratitude is owed to the critics of Hinduism. I have collected criticisms, much like others collect first edition novels, baseball cards or exotic stamps." "No one teaches us in school how to cope with criticism, how to turn it to our advantage. They should, but they don't." "To rectify the absence of training in "critical appreciation," we offer here the world's shortest course on "Adept Management of Criticism." Never cringe before criticism. Take it like a man, even if you're a woman. Winnow the true from the false, but keep them both. Rise above it. Smile at it. Better yet, understand it; best of all, learn from it. And never, never offer the offender quid pro quo. End of the course." How completely refreshing, and these excerpts only suggest the overall content as the author goes through other people's criticisms of Hinduism, usually defending his religious beliefs, but in a couple of cases, conceding that the critic has valid points. How different in attitude and outlook from the viewpoint of most other religions. To be sure, it is not much of a problem in imagining a Buddhist doing something similar, collecting criticisms of Buddhism and thinking about them for the purpose of self clarity and sharing insights with others. But much beyond that and it is hard to imagine anyone else doing something similar. Actually I can at least conceive of some Christians and some Jews doing likewise, but only those in the rara avis category. But it is impossible to imagine this for so-called Fundamentalists or Orthodox Jews. And it is doubly impossible to imagine any such thing for Muslims of any persuasion. And don't even think about such criticism on the part of today's so-called "liberals." I have been down that road, being de facto censored by a liberal clergyman during city-wide "open hearings" who, in the process, gave carte blanche for Muslims to misrepresent Islam, lie about it, and deceive others at will. But my experience with contemporary 'liberals' is not much different than the experience of David Horowitz and Anne Coulter and others. Which is anything but because I supposedly am conservative, which is false, but because I am liberal about free speech and remember very well when Liberalism meant that free speech was sacrosanct. In any case, education about religion that excludes education about criticisms of religion is, maybe, half of an education. Atheists criticize Christians on a daily basis, Buddhists and Hindus criticize each other, Jews criticize Christians, Christians criticize Jews, et. al, and Muslims criticize everyone else and damn them all to Hell. We are not supposed to notice? Moreover, the scriptures of the world's faiths invariably include criticisms of people of other faiths, which is true for the Bible, the Buddhist Tantras (one of which, the Kalachakra Tantra, characterizes Muslims as barbarians and criminals), the Hindu Puranas (one of which also criticizes Muslims as criminals), and, needless to say, the Koran, which takes the view that all other faiths either are false or extremely false. What is needed is what has scarcely begun, criticisms of the strict monotheist view that all non-monotheistic faiths are inferior and necessarily deficient. But is Christianity actually completely monotheistic? Eastern Orthodoxy certainly is not; the cult of Theotokos, the "Mother of God," a glorified Virgin Mary, is de facto henotheisitic. Something similar can be said of Catholicism and certainly of the Mormons -who not only believe in God the Father but in a Heavenly Mother. Which is to refer to authentic historic religions, not in feminist travesties of religion based on matriarchies that never existed. Nothing said here is supportive of male-bashing gender feminism, a worldview that can safely be characterized as reverse misogynism, a system of gender prejudice. What this is all about, instead, is gender partnership, in which each sex is necessary to the other, in which men and women compliment each other, and which is absolutely and unequivocally heterosexual. Religion is a system of education. It is also a system of psychology. About which Buddhism is superior to everything else. Religious faith is also a matter of culture and the arts, about which nearly all religions have contributed much of great value. This is important inasmuch as meaning in life depends, if it is healthy, upon love of the beautiful. And the beautiful helps immeasurably in understanding one's own faith. The book that deals most effectively with the human necessity of art and the arts is David Rothenberg's 2011 opus, Survival of the Beautiful. Evolution produces beauty because it is a human need, or a natural need more generally. Religion, most religions anyway, are predicated on recognition of the value of some forms of beauty and on the creation of others. This results in very natural interest on the part of many people in the faiths of others because they can see for themselves, or hear for themselves, that there is more beauty to be thankful for in the world than what one finds in the one religious tradition which someone is familiar with from childhood. Hence the constant blending of different religions throughout history, motivated by a quest for beauty. Hence a social process among religions analogous to exogamy. Religious faith provides ideas that can give us a sense of purpose. Of lasting purpose, of the right purpose. A self-chosen purpose. Unlike Islam, which denies free choice in religion and punishes those who leave Muslim religion with death, and punishes those who even talk to a Muslim about some other religion. There are non-lethal problems with all religions, however, from false certainty to misguided expectations. Part of healthy faith is a quest to identify these shortcomings and replace them with something else, something that makes life better, not worse. ----- Everything said here is predicated on the extreme value of a search for truth. It is also predicated on what seems to be a genuine need in the modern world, for a fresh start to religion, a new kind of religion, one that affirms all the values of traditional faith but expands our horizons and builds something new upon those foundations. This is not an easy path. Instead, it is the Way of difficulties and opposition and spiritual loneliness -not in everything but often enough. It is the Way of creation, however, and of the value of truth -to make any new religious creation a product of objective truth: The truth about our past as a social species and about each or our personal pasts as imperfect people seeking to be less imperfect. Finally, this is also about the future........ Proverbs 8: 1-12 Hear how Wisdom lifts her voice and Understanding cries out. She stands at the cross-roads, by the wayside, at the top of the hill; beside the gate, at the entrance to the city, at the entry by the open gate she calls aloud: ‘Men, it is to you I call, I appeal to every man: understand, you simple fools, what it is to be shrewd; you stupid people, understand what sense means. Listen! For I will speak clearly, you will have plain speech from me; for I speak nothing but truth and my lips detest wicked talk. All that I say is right, not a word is twisted or crooked. All is straightforward to him who can understand, all is plain to the man who has knowledge. Accept instruction and not silver, knowledge rather than pure gold; for wisdom is better than red coral, no jewels can match her. I am Wisdom, I bestow shrewdness and show the way to knowledge and prudence. The future is the result of our choices. Those choices usually are the consequence of alternatives given us by Popular Culture. It takes time and willingness to think things through to identify better choices than what drifts our way from mass media, from conversations with others, from the opinions of politicians, or, for that matter, the views anyone else who is not educated to subjects that require study in depth. Still, it is possible to simplify the problem of making the right choice about anything that is important to you. What is your model for the future immediately before you? Are you satisfied in being the captain of a sinking ship when you could be a lieutenant on board a newly commissioned vessel just setting out on a voyage? And this metaphor may not be all that accurate; most people, including those with decent careers, may not hope for better than to be a lieutenant on a sinking ship; to become a ship's captain you may need to agree to command a modest size boat. Another way to frame the problem of any new departure in religion is to reconsider the adage about the "tried and true" -with the implication that an existing institution is superior on the merits since departures in religion may well be proven false. However, what if the situation is better described as tried and half true? For that, you may agree, is the condition of our normative faith traditions today. Obviously something is not working; even Evangelical churches have 'only'stopped growing, while mainline Protestant denominations continue in free fall. But even the Evangelical future looks bleak; they are losing the young. And the condition of Judaism -and even Buddhism- is not optimistic. This is true to speak of the West even if this is not the case for the global South. But the issue here is the modern world. The ship is slowly sinking and everyone knows it. The reasons why should be obvious. It all comes down to the issue of relevance. American culture is increasingly irreligious; in some parts of the country it is anti-religious. Christian beliefs simply are less and less convincing. What else could be true when truth counts so little? On the Right this consists of insistence that there cannot possibly be anything wrong with existing religion and on the Left by insistence that so much is wrong that one may as well jettison most of everything and read the New York Times as a substitute for the Bible. The choice is unavoidable, if not today soon enough: Either the truth or the status quo. Beliefs are not the same thing as truths. What is unfortunate is that the truth is so readily accessible and yet is ignored. Bart Ehrman has commented about this exact phenomenon. A good number of the things said here are already known by graduates of America's leading divinity schools. But you would never know it from Sunday sermons or what is published in the denominational press. You would think this was still 1957. Which, if this clearly is excessive to make a point, is sufficiently true to make a real problem easy to understand. We have reached a point in the history of religion where it is necessary to start over. Reasons to belong to an existing Church are valid as far as they go: Identity, psychological security, a good environment for the kids, the need for a conscience for the community. But, while some truths are part of the mix, "the Truth" is out of the picture. The watershed we are at is similar to past watersheds, times of civilization-wide transitions from one 'world' to another. For us at this moment of history it is time to leave Islam in the past, to totally abandon the most criminal religion ever conceived; to make a clean break. But at the same time each of the other faiths by which men and women live are in need of massive reconstruction. In cases the best solution is to create something altogether new, not by throwing away the real truths enshrined in these traditions but to insist that religion must be based on cold sober truth each step of the way. It is time to show how this can be done. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
