Religion, Faith, Belief, And Understanding

I'll start this post by opening a can of worms: What is religion?

There are many, many answers to that question. Some say that religion is a social construct. Others say that it is a system used to control a populace (Marx's "the opiate of the masses"). Others say that it is a mystical union with the Divine. Others say that it is a narrow way, a union only with a specific Divinity. Others say that it is an outdated remnant of our evolution. Others don't care what it is, and others don't know. What is a person to do when confronted by so many different - and often conflicting - viewpoints?

The term "religion" supposedly originates from the Latin term "re-ligare", or "to reconnect, to rebind"; a more free-form translation may be "to re-unite". This brings up the idea that we are somehow separate from something which we should not be, and that religion is a system of practices to reunite us with that thing. Many people interpret the Sanskrit word "yoga" the same way: to reunite, to re-yoke. The biggest and most problematic issues arise when people start trying to define the "thing" from which we are separated.

I've personally been through many states with regard to religion. I was raised in an agnostic household; my parents didn't really care about religion, faith, or God. In my teens, I became an atheist of my own accord, arguing against the existence of any deity. In my late teens, I converted to Christianity and remained there for about 12 years; in this tradition, I was training to be clergy. After a serious tragedy in which I didn't feel that my religion had given me the support I needed, I became an atheist again. A few years later, I realized that I may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, and I have since returned to an open mind concerning religious matters. I now believe that there may be a deity or deities, or there may be nothing, or there may be an amorphous, unconscious "greater state" which creates, sustains, and destroys the universe. None of my beliefs are deep-seated at this point, as I'm not yet sure of anything.

I do, though, hold one deep-seated belief: human beings need religion. They need faith, community, belief, ritual, and most of all, understanding. Religion isn't about gods or prophets or enlightenment or salvation; religion is about understanding. Human beings want to understand the universe around them. They want to understand themselves, and their relationships between themselves and their environment and other human beings. This is the basic abstract goal of any religion, belief system, and/or on the planet: understanding.

Why do people get so upset when their religion is attacked or insulted? They become upset because they believe that they will lose understanding, that they will be cast back into the darkness of ignorance. They want to know. It's a very strong drive, almost as strong as pure survival, so they fight back.

Which religion you follow hardly matters (yes, there are a few bad apples; with a little research, they fall by the wayside very easily). What matters is that you desire understanding and that you approach your religion/belief system/faith with an open mind and an open heart. You must also be open-minded with regards to others who may disagree with you. If you believe that the main goal for all of this is "understanding", then you have gone a long way towards getting along with your fellow humans, your environment, and your self.

Understand your religion/belief system/faith. Understand yourself. And understand others. These are the tenets of every religion on the planet. They just all word them differently and drape them with different clothes, languages, texts, and rituals.

No, No, No - That Can't Be It

A meteorite fell near a small Peruvian village this past weekend. The residents reported headaches, dizziness, nausea, and other physical symptoms, which they blamed on the object. Before a single scientist had been there to research what happened, there were plenty of "scientists" saying that the villagers were wrong, and that the meteorite couldn't have possibly sickened them, no way, no how! Then they called the villagers liars, saying it was psychosomatic sickness, or maybe that it wasn't a meteorite at all but a geyser of some sort which belched sulfurous fumes and that the villagers just think they saw a bright streak in the sky beforehand and heard sonic booms and crackling. And, if it was a meteorite, it had to be metal, and there couldn't be gas in a metal meteorite, no way, no how, the "scientists" belched.

Now, real scientists have been there. It was a rocky meteorite, just like the villagers said. Doctors still see no evidence of sickness, but they took tissue samples to check for contamination of some sort.

Why do people rush to judgement, especially so-called "scientists"? Why does the news report shit like that? And, why can't people get over the idea that it is possible that things fall on the Earth all the time, and they can contain various compounds, and that those compounds can have an effect, from causing a pretty streak in the sky, to sickening plants and animals, to helping create life?

Frankly, when I first read the article, I was hoping for some strange bacteria or virus that sickened the villagers. That would have been proof of extraterrestrial life. But, alas, we get gas instead.

A Quote About Science and Magick

"Instead of opposing magic and science, it would be better to compare them as two parallel modes of acquiring knowledge. Their theoretical and practical results differ in value (as science is certainly more successful than magic from this point of view, although magic foreshadows science in that it also sometimes works). But both science and magic require the same sort of mental operations, which differ not so much in kind as in the different types of phenomena to which they are applied.

These relations are a consequence of the objective conditions in which magic and scientific knowledge appeared. The history of the latter is short enough for us to know a good deal about it. But the fact that modern science dates back only a few centuries raises a problem which ethnologiests have not yet sufficiently pondered. The Neolithic Paradox would be a suitable name for it."

--Claude Levi-Strauss, from his book "The Savage Mind", excerpted in "Shamans Through Time: 500 Years On the Path To Knowledge" edited by Narby and Huxley.