My Religious Leanings
Religion to me is often a loaded subject. There are many problems with religion in the world today and in the past. Howeve I accept that all people need some form of belief in their life. From my first blog I stressed the notion that belief is a daily occurrence, that we have to accept some things as truths in our lives and not have to go through the scientific reasons for them constantly (such as opening a door or turning on a computer). At the suggestiong of a sociology/anthropology professor I know I’ve looked into Ba’Hai. Ba’hai promotes personal spiritual growth and an acceptance that all faiths have something to offer to your personal spiritual growth. I haven’t been able to find a good Ba’Hai local group that seems as much more than social clubs, but it seems to fit my ideas better than Universal Unitarianism does.
I was raised Christian, namely Methodist-and I still hold the trusts I have gathered from that close to my heart. Today I receive buddhist, hindu, muslim, christian, and jewish teachings in my inbox from beliefnet. I normally try to read them but find the buddhist, hindu and muslim teachings better because they seem more concise and to the point.
I often get into arguments on christianity because of how I choose to believe and express my view points. The trinity, in my opinion, represents three paths to the Way or God. The father represents society and law, the son represents interpersonal relationships and individuals impact on our lives, and the ghost represents the spiritual and the ritual (like prayer). It is common for me to hear that God chose to go amongst us as a person via Jesus, whereas I normally believe that the only way most of us can truely commune with God is through the flesh of another. The trinity equalizes these three approaches to God, each has a distinct flavor to it, none invalidates another. It is true (to me) that we can bring each other closer to God. In that respect I believe each of us brings Christ into us, as we serve as an agent of God when we better (or worsen) the lot of our fellow man. If I have a problem, I can discuss it over with a friend, I can pray, or I can seek to bring about some social awareness/change. Each accomplishes the same goal as making me more aware of the problem and hopefully closer to the truth. I take a more gnostic [gnostics were hunted down following the writing of the bible for refusing to accept it] approach to biblical teachings, believing more on the spiritual and metaphysical truths of biblical stories than on any historical accuracy. The fact of what Jesus did is not as important to me as the impact of his actions as a truth apart from the action. The action to me was merely a method of communicating it such that we could understand.
I try to benefit from as many religions as possible. For example lately I’ve puzzled over a Muslim teaching which described why people could only pray 5 times a day. It was established that most people could not commune with God for a longer period of time, and five was the number that a human being could handle in a day. I also give a great deal of thought to why, under budhism, both joy and sadness can hamper our perception of the way.
It is the literal truth of religious texts that I think causes the most social problems. If we could only find the truth as it is, and how it relates to our life, I think we would be less concerned with having someone agree with us verbatim, and more concerned with our own roles in the world.
