This new blog proposes to explore a way of thinking that seeks to transcend religious conflicts by exploring a common denominator of all religions, not just those that descend from Abraham.
Most of us are appalled by the numerous and dangerous conflicts between Christians and Moslems, Jews and Moslems, Christians and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, not to mention Moslems and Hindus, Buddhists and Hindus, Sunnis and Shiites, Believers and Atheists, even between Atheists and Agnostics. Wherever we journey, we often are in danger of wounding someone's sacred cow by word or action. Rather than bringing order or conflict to the world, religions appear to lead to arguments and wars.
For example, a few years back I was having lunch with a good friend, a well-educated man who had been born in Brooklyn, in a largely Jewish environment, and through his intelligence and diligence had made a distinguished career for himself as a doctor, a scientist, a professor and consultant. At some point in our conversation, he amazed me (I had grown up in a totally different region and religion) by saying, "You can't imagine how startled I was in school to start studying the Protestant Revolution and to read about the wars it set off. Until that point in my life I had no idea that Christians killed Christians. I thought they only killed Jews. What a relief!" His amazement and relief still showed in his face and his body language.
What a commentary on the effects of our religions that little anecdote was. It and other tales like it lead us (me at least) to search for a way around such destructive misunderstandings. And that search has caused me to wonder what trait is it that religions share. What is their common denominator?
In this blog in the weeks ahead, I wish to explore the answer that makes most sense to me. Stated briefly it is that peoples believe in their religions because they seek comfort from them. Whatever the religions' differing claims about the nature of reality, about truth, about the past and the future, about causes, about our sources of knowledge--however these differ, the religious find that their beliefs bring them comfort. They have a psychological benefit.
Therefore, I take this psychological function seriously and plan, with your help, to explore it in future installments of this blog. I invite you to share your thoughts with me. So please feel free to respond as you see fit.
Well then, as Hamlet said, "There is Divine providence in the fall of a sparrow". I might change my name to Sparrow.
ReplyDeleteBy CHANCE - or maybe not - I sat today in a class that I had registered for which was being taught at the Catholic seminary. I am not Catholic, but the Toronto Theology Schools are a combination of 7 affiliated seminaries. I've taken classes before at the other Catholic seminary, and enjoyed them and been treated with respect. But today - nope - today was different. Today I was invisible, and worse than that, I sat through several hours of Catholic men talking about the ingorance and sinful nature of women. Protestants weren't much better off. It was a bad day. So I find this subject particularly relevant at the moment.
As for the function of faith, it also provides identity. For many races of people who have experienced in their history any dislocation, their faith always records their history. It preserves culture. So I would say that those are two functions - comfort, and cultural history/identity.
Not much comfort in that class for women--nor much useful support for their identity. But you can easily discern the comfort the men received in building up their gender by running down the women.
ReplyDeleteI don't see identity as different from comfort, especially the compensation for inferior feelings that come from identifying with an omnipotent being or claiming, as men were doing, they were created in the image of such a being. The women only lot a rib--what a joke.