Everyone knows about the current life and death struggles between the various religions, and also between “non-religious understanding” and religious concepts.
One minute on any social media site will show the degree of struggle between these various ideologies.
But the problem is much larger than social media, and we all know this.
This is one persons explanation, and a suggestion about how to move forward in our understanding, free ourselves from the prison of dogma, while finding the true roots of our origins.
In the Beginning
All of the worlds cultures began with the human species interpreting natures events in terms of gods or spirits. All of our ancestors felt the need to explain the unexplainable, and the unseen forces which moved in nature.
Most all of the religious texts which rose from this long era, carried these types of explanations. Thor beating his hammer when thunder was pounding.
Here is a listing of some of these “deities” or Gods and what natural things they “controlled”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nature_deities
Also, most of these explanations carried the human characteristics (anthropomorphic characteristics) which our ancestors knew and understood about themselves, so the gods were happy/angry, satisfied/envious, pure/lascivious, just as the humans that imagined them were.
That is a very short summary of where these original concepts grew from, but trying to not make this an unbearably long read.
It also was obvious that many of these concepts grew out of the fear of what nature could do to them, and what they thought they needed to do to mitigate the circumstances when those gods got angry at them.
Also, there was the boogeymen that their minds, controlled by survival instincts, imagined and their imaginations painted scary creatures in their mind …. and likely, also used these interpretations to control their children from running off…..
The beginning of scientific thinking
As humans progressed, (by the time of Greek culture and earlier) they became progressively aware that these natural occurrences were NOT necessarily controlled by some unseen deity, but that SOME of those occurrences were actually nature itself at work. Yet, some things were still interpreted as fate, good luck and bad luck….. unseen forces that gave a bad or good result. (and still are interpreted that way)
As better explanations of these unseen things have been uncovered thru a deeper understanding of science, the superstition which is the child of this old way of seeing things, has become less and less believable.
But still, the survival instincts of modern humans are far deeper than logic, and logic is still often ditched for the survival instincts when one is afraid. Fear is not controlled by logic, but it can be “enlightened” by digging thru to FACTS that create an “aha” moment that dispels that fear.
Doctrines and other circular reasoning
But, in the western traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, where they had formed fixed scriptures, they had built rules based on the “truths” that were contained in their scriptures. These doctrines formed the concrete unyielding concepts we see today.
While Judaism was more open to the concept that many of the old stories contained there might be varying degree of physical truth and metaphor, thus bringing a more scientific interpretation of their scriptures, there are still some within that religion that stand firm on the literal interpretation of those texts. (Yes, the creation story is literal, the flood DID cover the whole earth, etc)
As I am not that familiar with the contents of the Islamic scriptures, I rely on the acting out we see, of their being imprisoned in ancient ways of thinking. They refuse to move into our modern times regarding their laws, their treatment of women as chattels, etc. These are also doctrines built on their interpretation of their scriptures.
In Christianity, there are some groups who consider that their scriptures are largely a mystery, which needs to be interpreted by their inner guide.
But there are other groups, which also stubbornly hold to their literal interpretations of their scriptures. The modern day fundamentalist evangelical groups are in this category.
Some folks who do not hold these dogmatic positions choose to remain in the congregation of those who are strict literalists, and do what they can to seed truth where they live.
Most folks that have actually exited orthodox Christianity, and moved forward from these literal interpretations have gone one of two paths. The first and easiest route, is to say BS to what they were taught, and move into some form of Atheism. Often this way is filled with bitterness against the indoctrination they went thru as children.
There are others, like myself, that, rather than becoming bitter and angry about being “indoctrinated” in these fundamentalist groups, have chosen to truly break free of that indoctrination, keep an open mind, and look for the metaphors hidden in those texts, that can help us to understand ourselves, if there are any. We consider ourselves seekers, and often have been cast out by those congregations.
So What?
I have found that trying to bring indoctrinated fundamentalist Christians to freedom from doctrine is virtually impossible.
The Doctrine Prison
Doctrines were made up from the texts of the Bible, to keep folks from going astray. They form a very logical base that can be used as missionary tools, to bring in the lost souls.
When the doctrines are seen clearly for what they are, one can see that, as the circular reasoning is broken, the whole house of cards falls down.
But the fact is that this is very frightening to folks who have relied on the worldview they were brought up with. Kicking the doors down only shows the intruder to lack compassion for others who need help to exit the prison.
Note:
I am of the opinion that kicking the legs out of a persons coping mechanisms is the worst type of mental and emotional violence. Because of this, i do not support the tearing down of this house of cards in a manner which can cause suffering.
I became a searcher, because what I was taught didn’t fit together properly, and as a pastors son, i was very early in life “cooked in the soup” of fundamentalism, and was faced with many situations that regular churchgoers bumped into only at a later age, including doctrinal instruction (even if it was just listening second hand, to discussions with the Bishops and Superintendents that visited our home) I began to see the holes in the doctrines…. (and paid dearly for bringing them up)
So what?
The struggle between those who are no longer superstitious (no longer see natural occurrences being controlled by by unseen spirits or gods) and the folks that still hold literally to the dogma of a guy in the sky (micro-managing everything that happens) has become an epidemic, in that many of those who think they have been enlightened, have lost the compassion to allow others to have a different viewpoint.
What are these doctrines
This is not a full list of Christian doctrines, but are the framework of the incotrination prison.
The first doctrinal position is The Divine Inspiration of the Word of God
“The Bible was written by God, using human hands”
This is a superstition that precludes anyone from questioning the written words contained there…. “If you believe any of it, you must believe it all”
The second doctrinal position is the Pot and the Potter (Chasm Theology)
“God created humans, and the essence of a human is separate from God’s essence.” This doctrine’s purpose is to explain how humans can be darkness, while God is light: If we were of the same essence as the Creator, then the “problem of evil” raises its ugly head.
The third doctrinal position is the Fall of Man.
“And Adam fell, and his sin was visited on all his offspring”
Because Man is a separate essence from God, there is a fundamental difference between them, which holds the possibility of them being at odds with one another, and God punishing them for things like disobedience. This creates a separation between God and his human children, which are basically throw-away.
The fourth doctrinal position is the possibility of the Chasm between God and Man to be bridged by a Redeemer. IF we are lost in sin based on Adams sin, then we would need a Redeemer to bridge the chasm so we can be back, connected to God.
The fifth doctrinal position is that God sent his Son, Yeshua to pay for all humans sins and therefore, if we believe in him, we are restored to our child of God position.
Where does this circle of doctrines break down?
If every human that is born, is the same as Adam, with no attributed “sin”, then those humans are NOT disconnected from God (Lets use the word Creator or Creative force) then there is no need for any “salvation”…. because, what are we being saved from? If the doctrine of original sin is incorrect, then the whole set of doctrines needs to be re-examined.
There is a catch
The catch is, that humans DO have the ability to act harmfully to other humans, and that this “evil” is active in the minds of humans.
(I believe it is THIS issue that is being spoken to in the doctrine of original sin…. but that it is incorrectly misunderstood as a literal entity, and therefore the depth of its psychological meaning gets lost.)
What then?
I hold to be true, that there is no pot/potter scenario, that we are of one essence with the creative force….. i hold to be true that all human beings are born with all our connections intact, that our relationship with the root of all is fully connected.
If this is the case, then we are all connected to the same source (don’t see multi-sources in the physical universe… but… ) and if we are all connected to that central source, then we are all receptors of that source, and, in each of our limited ways, translate what our limited understanding of this, to put a “Face” on what we see the Creator or Creative force to be.
Different cultures place different faces on the Creative force, and if we can just admit that we are limited in our understanding, there is room for all of us, in our own unique way, seeing the “elephant” from our various perspectives.
IF we see that there is One Source for all, and that it is not a tyrannical source, but our deepest life connection…. if we realize that our anthropomorphic interpretations are not correct, but that they are extensions of how parents see children, then the moralistic small minded god becomes the Creator of all, and that nothing can be done to separate us from that, as long as we still breath.
There is room for us all to live together with this understanding, and put away our weapons….. but that would require a Society where rules are put in place that minimize our ability to hurt one another.
To be continued….
Reality is Dharma 