Religion appears to becoming an unacceptable obstacle to spiritual growth just as politics is seriously threatening effective government.
The Catholic Church is again under fire for not only for its violation of trust by criminally abusing minors in its care, but also for its hypocrisy and image-protecting dishonesty. The evidence is leading directly to the Pope himself. What no one has asked is how long has this been going on. The fear is that the answer is something like 800 years but maybe 2,000. According to some true believers, this was to be the next to the last pope. The last one being an evil one. Could this one actually be the last?
The Protestants are not doing much better. The Episcopalians, also known as Anglicans or Catholics Light, are splitting up over the ordination of homosexual priests and bishops. Some are in favor, and others are opposed. The Lutherans and the Methodists have basically merged. Now the former must learn what the method is. Many Methodists must have long wondered.
Then there are the Baptists who while appearing to be the true guardians of orthodox morality have no doubt been saddened to see leader after leader fall prey to the worst of temptations.
Christianity itself may have gotten off to a bad start by advertising that we are all sinners and the Christ died to atone for our sins. Christians seem to have taken the religion at its word, perhaps feeling that they just can’t help but keep sinning knowing they will be forgiven.
Meanwhile, it must be getting much harder to be a Muslim nowadays. While being tarnished by the small minority of followers who are radicalized against Jews, Israel, America and Muslims of the other sect (Sunni versus Shiite, Shiite versus Sunni). This small radical minority of only an estimated 10 percent of their population, equalling a mere 100 million jihadists, do not hear their mullahs preaching against the violence. They don’t hear them saying that suicide bombers do not go to paradise and do not get 72 virgins. They do not hear every Muslim cleric in the world saying “Stop the violence, it is actually a sin, perhaps the worst of all.”
The Jews have been out of the news for a while. It appears that many have been secularized enough to stay under the watchful radar of religious critics and atheists. Many Jews consider themselves part of an ethnic group more than members of a theistic religion. They are proud of their ancestors but don’t want to be like them by following their laws and praying to their one G-d. Many have never had a chance to study what their religion is actually about besides strange holidays.
Many in this country have looked to Buddhism as a kind of religion light. They believe it to be atheistic and psycho-philosophical unlike their old-time-religions. Many Buddhists do not think that the Buddha nature and the Tao have anything to do with G-d, meaning that they too really do not understand their religion.
Then there is still Hinduism, claiming many loyal followers. But this too must be feeling the strain of the modern age and India’s industrial evolution. Many will find it harder to keep track of the many gods and taboos that no longer fit their lifestyles. How many remember Swami Vivekanada and his wonderful lectures on Vedanta, the crown jewel of Hinduism?
If this all sounds like the happy conclusion of a religion-hating atheist, don’t believe it. It is quite the opposite. It is the resigned realization of a pan-religious, monotheistic metaphysician who is or has been Jewish, Catholic, Hindu (Vedantic) and a Mahayana Buddhist (the Zen variety) and a past follower of a Sufi Mystic named Meher Baba.
So is G-d rendered dead?
Maybe not. Maybe He was never the same as religion.
Many followers of Western religion have the impression that G-d is like a very large and powerful person. He is seen as a father figure who wants only good for his beloved children. Some were led to believe that tragedies had nothing to do with G-d. The belief was that though He was infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, our failures and misfortunes were somehow outside His jurisdiction. Some hope that by praying He would intercede on our behalf against these outside forces. Others think that it is wrong to pray for themselves, believing prayers should only be the global good like world peace or whirled peas.
But many have seen their fellow humans do terrible things. While history is full of Man’s transgressions, the most recent ones have caused many to lose faith. How could G-d have let six million of his chosen people die so horribly in the 1940s in addition to 25 million others? Why does he allow people to do terrible things like murder, torture, rape, kidnapping, pedophilia, embezzlement, fraud, lying, vulgarity, or even double parking? Some fear that perhaps He has died. Others wonder whether He ever existed. Many have lost faith in their image of our supreme being. Maybe He wasn’t as nice as we thought or as powerful or as wise.
Eastern religions, especially Buddhism, claim to be non-dualistic. If all is one, then there is no separation between G-d and Man and therefore there is no G-d. Could it be that there is no separation and therefore there is no Man? Or, what if our Western definition of G-d is wrong? What if our G-d is not like a very large smart and powerful father, but is rather an impersonal force of which all things are a part? What if instead the infinite ruling the finite, what if the infinite were finite and the finite infinite?
How about this idea. What if though all is one, as the followers of Buddhism, Vendanta and Kabbalah believe, it is made up of an infinite number of finite beings. And though they are all inextricably linked, each being has an individual consciousness. These beings include not only humans but all animals, vegetables and minerals as well as every cell and sub-atomic entity in existence.
An analogy would be the human body. It has fingers, toes, eyes, ears, blood cells, organs, micro organisms. While they are all part of one body, each appears to be a separate identity and each has its unique role and function. What if each had consciousness and believed that it was choosing to do what it was doing? That is what Chinese medicine believes. And even Western medicine has found that individual organs when detached from the nervous system connections to the brain, continue to function as though by their own consciousness.
Scientists found the observation effect in play when studying cells under a microscope just as it affects humans when they are being observed. The cells behavior changed because they were being observed. Were they aware of being spied on and then did they decide to move differently?
Does every outside have an inside as students of Kabbalah believe and is the below a reflection of the above as Christians believe as in the Lord’s Prayer (Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven and Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us)?
Do our modern religions answer any of these questions? Could it be that they are actually obstacles to our asking these questions and then to our finding the answers within ourselves?
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