Fear Not

Philosophy is the tool with which to seek and discover religion.

Friedrich Von Schlegel
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I am amazed at otherwise intelligent, rational people who can sacrifice all reason when they enter a church or other religious institution. People will listen with no comment and with some undeserved degree of respect and belief to the ignorant, egregious and often belligerent interpretation of their sacred writings. One religionist is praying for the failure and death of our president, another is advocating burning the books of a different religion, another is molesting children, one is claiming the divine right to turn people out of their homes, another is calling for homosexuals to be hung to death, and another is ordering a woman to be stoned to death for adultery. What madness!

Extreme religious fundamentalism is the scourge of the world and it has become rabid, a pandemic. All religious texts call for love, compassion, charity, forgiveness and brotherliness. But instead of hands of help the brotherhoods and sisterhoods of the earth are holding out sharp claws.

Margaret Thatcher wrote "Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy." I know for a fact that there are many intelligent Christians in this country and elsewhere. Some of the most important philosophers of the past and present have been Christians. They are hardly being heeded today. Instead there is a large group of professing Christians who are buried in a mental tunnel which leads nowhere. They will vehemently claim that this is a Christina nation. Well, it is. It is also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation and a nation of Atheists. Only a non thinker can't understand and accept that.

Ordinary people who can express themselves on their opinions about things back off into the tunnel when the subject of their religion comes up. Well, the Bible says so and so. My Pastor says such and such. I want to ask, "Yes, but what do YOU say?" One doesn't have to throw out one's Bible in order to think for oneself.

Now we are confronted with a silly argument about why the founding fathers never meant there to be a separation between religion and government. Here's the First Amendment to the Constitution
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

How can that be interpreted to mean that Congress is obliged to recognize one particular faith or set of beliefs as the official set for the country any more than it obliges it to allow only a certain set of speeches to be made? Many times I hear someone citing what the founding fathers really meant by the Constitution. An interpretation that is merely an opinion. Here's what Thomas Jefferson, the American philosopher and statesman who wrote that amendment, had to say: "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

Fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the unexplainable. Fear of difference. Fear of others who are not like us. The unconscious, unacknowledged fear that maybe our faith is not right no matter how many words have been written about it. The deep down hidden fear of offending a God we do not understand. It is safer to hide in the mental tunnel of belief than to face the fears and "question with boldness" the reason for our faith.

Dana Bate - The Vagabond

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Worship

When I do good, I feel good, when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.

Abraham Lincoln
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Well, the National Day of Prayer sure has got the cauldron bubbling.

US District judge Barbara Crabb of Wisconsin issued a ruling saying that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, and that has a lot of people with their knickers twisted. They think she's saying it's illegal. But all she means is that the Constitution does not allow for a religious celebration to be a national one.

We have some national celebrations, most of them holidays, such as the 4th of July and Thanksgiving. And we have others that are not national holidays such as Halloween and Christmas.

We are, thank goodness, a multi national, multi lingual, multi religious nation. We have the right to worship, but not the right to impose our religious beliefs on the rest of the nation. The right to pray is a constitutionally confirmed right, but it is not a national obligation.

But the United States is a Christian country, founded on Christian principles. Oh? The founding fathers, those that were religious, were Christians by default. They came from Christian countries. To say the nation was founded on Christian principles the fathers would have had to deeply investigate and seriously consider all the world's religions and then decide on Christianity as the basis for American government. But they didn't do that.

Let's say we are a "Christian" country. We have to round up everybody and find out what God they worship. Do you worship Yahweh, Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Shiva, the Copper Woman, Zeus, Quetzalcoatl, Osiris, Astarte. Satan? Are you a deist, an atheist, anti religious, areligious, animist, agnostic? Are you a monotheist, a pagan?

Alright, now we have separated the Christians from everyone else it's testing time.
How many believe Jesus was God? How many don't?
We've lost half of them. But the testing goes on.

On which day did God create the beasts of the field?
What did Adam do to earn the Lord God's curse?
How long did the flood of Noah last?
Who built the tower of Babel?
How many children did Jacob have, what were their names, in what order were they born and who were their mothers?
Who first said to "love they neighbor as thyself"?
How many of Jesus' disciples were fishermen?
How many beatitudes are there in the Sermon On The Mount and what are they?
What is the Mother of Harlots?

Well what do you know? There are a few true Christians who actually know the answers to those questions. Now one final question.

Do the few of you that are left go forth every day to "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleans the lepers and cast out devils"?

I thought so. Well, that more or less does it for our "Christian" nation.

There is a difference between a Christian and he who is trying to become one. And so it is with anyone on an earnest spiritual quest, whatever his religion.

The Vagabond
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SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

Only 7 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

Thank you.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
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