Why religion?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by homeboy

If it came to it, I would go to hell and back to keep my wife happy.

Sometimes I am in hell keeping my wife happy. :wink:

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Robin

The farther I get away from it, the less I appreciate it. Can someone help remind me why religion, in the world, is a net good?

This past weekend I read a passage with a quotation in the New York Review of Books that is apropos to this question. The article was about Stalingrad and the Soviet victory over the Nazis, and the passage I'm referring to said something like this (I'd quote the passage, which is quite lengthy, but this particular article isn't online and I'm not going to take the time to type it out): The Soviet myth of the brave, humble, stalwart Soviet soldier who through his greater virtue defeated a better equipped, more sophisticated and more educated enemy came to be believed by the soldiers themselves, who knew different because they saw first hand the ill-preparedness, brutality, at times cowardess, etc. that characterized the Soviet army. Even the soldiers themselves had to embrace a myth they knew to be false because the alternative was intolerable--to deny the truth of something for which they had given up everything.

The rulemaking function of religion is religion's most self-evident benefit to mankind. But usually overlooked is our need as humans--it seems literally to be in our DNA--to have founding myths. To us the Illiad is no more than a great work of literature. To the Classical Greeks, who invented the public ideals that we hold most dear and now pretty much take for granted, the Illiad was a sacred text no less than the Bible is to many Americans.

What's interesting to me about the above observation regarding the Soviet soldiers is that people who think they are free of their fathers' myths have to make up new ones. The Soviets called religion the opiate of the people, but they had to come up with their own narcotic to replace it. (It has been written many times that the Soviet Union was just another theocracy, a particularly brutal one, not unlike some forms of institutionalized Christianity.) We enlightened Westerners are no different. We need our opiate just the same. We just invent new ones, I'm sure. Becaue we're modern and have the printing press, computers and science ours may be more nuanced and subtle; they're myths just the same.

This leads me to believe that the myths are in their own right sacred and powerful without regard to their factual falsity.

[Mormon Red Death]

So basically Seattle you are saying "if god did not exist it would be neccessary to invent him"...

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Mormon Red Death

So basically Seattle you are saying "if god did not exist it would be neccessary to invent him"...

Yes. Absolutely. Absent their myths humans would accomplish nothing. Perhaps we'd all be sitting around in a state of black despair. I don't really know, but I do know that humans who accomplished the greatest things had their myths. It's also interesting that the often misunderstood Epicurus, whose philosophy closely resembles the materialists or atheists of our age in that nothing is believed unless the senses perceive it, admonished people to live a life free of competition, stress, etc., essentially selfishly and simply. He believed that physical pain was the very definition of evil and we should order our lives to avoid the prospect of that. He's misunderstood because people think he advocated for unbridled satsifying of ones physical wants. But that oversimplifies his views. He believed too much rich food was bad because it led to painful death, etc., sex needed to be controlled or else it could lead to love, which was all about pain, etc. My point is that if you practiced this credo--developed by folks who tried to discipline themselves to reject all myths--you'd accomplish very little in life.

I'm making no comment here about whether God exists. Maybe myths themselves are a part of his plan. It appears they may be.

[Robin]

As a missionary, and 'person of faith,' I used to share a particular spiritual experience with investigators and members when I would talk about feeling and recognizing the promptings of the spirit.

When I was eight, my grandmother died. I remember my mom getting a call in the morning, and leaving in a panic. She came back two days later. It looked like someone had beat her up. She walked into the house. She gave each of her children and uncomfortably long hug. Then my father led her to their bedroom. After some time, my dad came out and shared the news -- our grandmother had died. That night, I lay in bed, my stomach tied in knots. I could not shake a terrible sense of guilt. The last time I had seen my grandmother, I could not recall if I had told her how much I loved her, and now I realized that I would never be able to do that again. The weight of that feeling, believing that my grandmother had died without understanding my love for her, was crushing me. I sobbed for what seemed like hours. Finally, I rolled out of bed, and began to pray.

"Father in heaven. I have a message for my Grandmother. Please give it to her. Tell her that I love her very much, and I wish I would have told her that more when she was alive."

That was the essence of my prayer. I took that simple message and repeated it twenty different ways. Then something happened. A wave of calm washed over me. The tension in my clutched hands, my quivering chin, and puffy eyes, all gave way to a powerful release. I stretched out in my bed, and had the distinct feeling that God had heard my prayer, and had delivered my message to my grandmother. Whether it was God's love or the love of my dead grandmother, I felt the presence of the divine, and it rocked me to sleep.

When people that knew me as a person of faith remind me of this experience, I share with them a different spiritual experience from the same time of my life.

I believed in Santa Claus. Each Christmas, during the time I believed in Santa, I would put out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. On Christmas morning, I would run down the stairs to see if Santa had taken my gift for him. Sure enough, each year I would find a plate of crumbs, and empty glass, and a hand-written note from Santa. It would usually say something like this, "R, thank you for the cookies and milk. I have a lot of children I need to visit tonight, and your cookies helped to give me the strength I needed to cary out my important mission.' The feeling I would get when I would read that letter! It was powerful! Now I am not going to try to pretend, in retrospect that the spiritual experience that came from helping Santa serve all of the children of the world was anything like the experience with my grandmother. But I BELIEVED in santa, and my belief turned the experience into something real.

To this day, I have no doubt, that my Santa experience was a REAL spiritual experience. And why not? My heart was full of genuine compassion. In my mind, I believed that I was performing a real act of service. It was a labor of love. I don't believe that God would deny a child access to real spiritual experience, simply because of the false teachings of his parents. Cookies were baked, Milk was poured. A letter was written. Hearts were touched. Little Robin learned a powerful lesson about service, kindness, and universal generosity.

I share the Santa experience because it is an example of the spirit working in my life, even though I was totally off base from the truth. I think that there are probably some false assumptions about the nature of life-after-death, upon whch the experience with my grandmother was based. When I die, I hope to learn more about all of those things. But God heard my prayer, and whether my grandmother literally heard my voice and knew my love, the outpouring of the spirt was real all the same.

One might think that experiences like these would make me a more religious person. To this day, they continue to make me a more spiritual person. But the lesson I take from these experiences today is this -- The spirit may be a powerful comforter, an incredible motivator to spark in our hearts the desire to be good, but I am not sure that it is an accurate measure of TRUTH.

My own loss of a testimony was not the noisy rejection of a church I felt was evil. My loss of testimony was simply the letting go of the belief that the spirit is an accurate measure of universal truth. I gave up trying to divine the secrets of the universe, one burning bossom at a time, and found sollace in ambiguity and unsureness.

I can fully understand the desire to learn the truths of the universe, and I hope to learn them some day, when my vantage is right. Until that time, until that life, it is enough to know that an all-loving God visits the children of Islam just as He visited me on Christmas morning. It is enough to know that when a Hindu child prays for comfort at the passing of her grandmother, and finds peace in the Grandmother's return as a new kitten, that the spiritual rest she will receive is just as real as the spiritual rest I felt at the passing of my own grandmother. It is enough to embrace the love of God, to let it fill me with the desire to be good and to serve and to love, and to have patience for the day when I might actually be in a place, and have the tools, to know something with the absolute sureness that I never expect to have in this lifetime.

R.

[MikeWaters]

I wonder if Timothy Leary was trying to find "solace in ambiguity and unsureness" like you.

[cajuncoug]

How about others? If you didn't believe in that the church was 'true' would you stick to it anyway?

I grew up about as devout as they come. I was loyal to the cause, but had inherent doubts since my teen years. I actually realized on my mission, that I didn't really believe in the literal truthfullness of a number of texts (i.e. if Joseph Smith couldn't have known of something in his lifetime, I instinctively turned to the Bible, not the BofM, etc.). I felt I was doing mental gymnastics to convince myself of an increasing number of things over the years. I went through the same faith affirming steps we've all recommended, and it wasn't working. I gradually got tired of doing it.

I finally left one calling and turned down another because I felt hypocrtical in holding them--to do so amounted to affirming beliefs I didn't hold. I became totally inactive for a couple years. Had I felt that other churches had the answers, I may have gone there. But I felt that certain things fell apart when given the same scrutiny I instinctively gave the church I was raised in....

I've slowly returned to being marginally active. Despite what others have stated, I did miss the sense of community; there are tangible benefits to being involved, particularly in a sparse LDS area. I probably have the highest ratio in the ward when it comes to service project vs. sacrament meeting attendance, and that's fine with me. Being somewhat involved also keeps the peace with my wife (Current Relief Society President) and very active extended family. My skepticism aside, the Church remains an outstanding organization, and abiding by its principles offers real value to a number of people. I'm still proud of my pioneer ancestry, and to the outside obersver, my lifestyle largely reflects that of an active LDS.

Adhering to everything the Church asks certainly requires one's belief, but fair minded doubters can still give credit where credit is due. The Church offers a great many positives to those who live by the principles it teaches. I don't involve myself in certain aspects of the LDS experience. But I've found that one's complete devotion, while welcomed, isn't prerequisite for showing up at meetings, ativities, etc. Without question, it's an imperfect situation, but weighing my current course vs. the time I was completely inactive, it's a net gain.

[Robin]

Originally Posted by cajuncoug

I grew up about as devout as they come. I was loyal to the cause, but had inherent doubts since my teen years. I actually realized on my mission, that I didn't really believe in the literal truthfullness of a number of texts (i.e. if Joseph Smith couldn't have known of something in his lifetime, I instinctively turned to the Bible, not the BofM, etc.). I felt I was doing mental gymnastics to convince myself of an increasing number of things over the years. I went through the same faith affirming steps we've all recommended, and it wasn't working. I gradually got tired of doing it.

I finally left one calling and turned down another because I felt hypocrtical in holding them--to do so amounted to affirming beliefs I didn't hold. I became totally inactive for a couple years. Had I felt that other churches had the answers, I may have gone there. But I felt that certain things fell apart when given the same scrutiny I instinctively gave the church I was raised in....

I've slowly returned to being marginally active. Despite what others have stated, I did miss the sense of community; there are tangible benefits to being involved, particularly in a sparse LDS area. I probably have the highest ratio in the ward when it comes to service project vs. sacrament meeting attendance, and that's fine with me. Being somewhat involved also keeps the peace with my wife (Current Relief Society President) and very active extended family. My skepticism aside, the Church remains an outstanding organization, and abiding by its principles offers real value to a number of people. I'm still proud of my pioneer ancestry, and to the outside obersver, my lifestyle largely reflects that of an active LDS.

Adhering to everything the Church asks certainly requires one's belief, but fair minded doubters can still give credit where credit is due. The Church offers a great many positives to those who live by the principles it teaches. I don't involve myself in certain aspects of the LDS experience. But I've found that one's complete devotion, while welcomed, isn't prerequisite for showing up at meetings, ativities, etc. Without question, it's an imperfect situation, but weighing my current course vs. the time I was completely inactive, it's a net gain.

Your experience sure rings true with me. I have this image of the temple on newsprint. I take a piece of silly puddy, and press it onto the temple, then pull it off with the image transfered to the puddy. Then comes an issue -- blacks and the priesthood, and I find myself stretching the silly puddy in order to cover that under the church, and still feel okay about my membership. Then comes the views on homosexuality and the treatment of gays -- big stretch. Then comes the literal belief in the truthfulness of the BOM as an historical text - big stretch. Then comes a myriad of early church history issues and how they jive with a sense of right and wrong -- stretch. Then comes the balance of reason with my views on faith -- stretch.

One day I'm sitting in church, and there is a print of the temple hanging on the wall. I look down at the image on the silly putty, and it looks nothing like what I see on the wall. All of that stretching had been done because I valued the church, and wanted to find a way to continue being an 'honest' member. But the reality was that I was a member of the 'silly-puddy church.' My church just happened to meet in the same building at the same time as the local LDS branch.

I can respect the pragmatic idea of coming back to the 'community.' My brother does that. I tried to stay in the church for a number of years for exactly that reason.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.