Food for thought. Jesse brought up some similar questions last night, after allowing as how in his youth, he went to church mostly to meet girls. Heh.
I can never decide if religion is a method of understanding the universe and humankind's place in it that is (and ought to be) completely separate from science, or if it's an atrophied remnant of a more ignorant stage of our existence. Possibly both. I do not think that religion should be solely about seeking comfort, or finding a replacement for your parents, or numbly mouthing the same words every week because it's your sure ticket to a better afterlife, or blindly refusing to allow any understanding or worldview that is not yours. I think that a religion that cannot be challenged isn't worth much as a system of thought, and that religion should challenge its adherents. I think that if God exists, it is not as a separate transcendent being that exists somewhere outside reality. I think that regardless of all that, how human beings treat each other and the world around them is the best measure we have of what kind of people they are.
And maybe all of the above is a half-assed attempt at justifying what is really a seeking after comfort in something bigger than me, or maybe not. My own thoughts on this are still only half-baked, if that. I will say, though, that the blind adherent seeking comfort and a sense of superiority is counterbalanced in my personal experience by the person who constantly questions, constantly challenges, and constantly reaches out to other people via a framework that may depend on faith but also depends on that person's capacity to be a rational being.
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syntheid
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Date: 2005-10-20 03:34 pm (UTC)I can never decide if religion is a method of understanding the universe and humankind's place in it that is (and ought to be) completely separate from science, or if it's an atrophied remnant of a more ignorant stage of our existence. Possibly both. I do not think that religion should be solely about seeking comfort, or finding a replacement for your parents, or numbly mouthing the same words every week because it's your sure ticket to a better afterlife, or blindly refusing to allow any understanding or worldview that is not yours. I think that a religion that cannot be challenged isn't worth much as a system of thought, and that religion should challenge its adherents. I think that if God exists, it is not as a separate transcendent being that exists somewhere outside reality. I think that regardless of all that, how human beings treat each other and the world around them is the best measure we have of what kind of people they are.
And maybe all of the above is a half-assed attempt at justifying what is really a seeking after comfort in something bigger than me, or maybe not. My own thoughts on this are still only half-baked, if that. I will say, though, that the blind adherent seeking comfort and a sense of superiority is counterbalanced in my personal experience by the person who constantly questions, constantly challenges, and constantly reaches out to other people via a framework that may depend on faith but also depends on that person's capacity to be a rational being.