Sunday Thought, January 4, 2015: An Excuse for Godlessness?

"I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else.  We have lethal Sunni v Shia, Catholic against Protestant, but no agnostic suicide bombers attack crowded atheist pubs."

-- Simon Hoggart (1946-2014), English journalist and broadcaster

Mr. Hoggart attended King's College, Cambridge, where he excelled at history and English.  Far be it from me to speak ill of the dead, but Simon would seem to have faked his way through the history classes.  As an Englishman one would think he would recall Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union and their distaste for religion being, as Karl Marx put it, "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.  It is the opium of the people."  Religion was viewed as a crutch that holds back human development.  The Nazi atheists weren't satisfied killing the Jews and the Christians, they had to go and attack the Soviets.  I would define this as "atheist against atheist" even though the Soviet religious minority was said to have thrown their lot in with the government against the encroaching Nazi war machine.  And what of Chinese communists and their war on religion, which continues to this day?  

It would seem to me, Mr. Hoggart's attempt to rewrite history to suit an agenda was probably a product of education rife with questionable facts and personal opinion, which our own educational system also suffers far too much from.  Unlike mathematics and other disciplines guided by rules and theorems, history and religion are all too easily subjected to personal opinion and political whim.  We tend to gloss over the facts of world history and rely on stories with questionable origin and accuracy as a basis for our many religions.  We tend to take it all on "faith."

"Doubt is part of all religion.  All religious thinkers were doubters"

-- Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991), Jewish-American author

But, is Mr. Hoggart's statement to be construed as an excuse for Godlessness?  I sincerely hope not.  If Godlessness means we have to revisit the Nazi "final solution" or the Soviet work camps of Siberia, I think I'll take my chances with God, thank you very much.

Does religion have its problems?  Absolutely, but it would also seem that agnostics and atheists are not immune to problematic philosophy.  Hopefully we all learn from history and correct our errors in judgment.  Karl Marx was absolutely correct in his analysis that religion is "the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions."  It may very well retard our growth, but at least we will grow.  I'd like to think the slow pace of our growth would allow us the time to reflect on past mistakes so we might avoid them in future.  I'd like to think we will plod along with the dignity of tolerance and respect for each other and our varied peaceful beliefs.

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church.  For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit."

-- Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese artist, poet, writer

Albert Einstein was said to be an atheist, yet never used the word to describe his own thoughts on religion.  He viewed God as a word used by people to describe a concept which was beyond man's grasp and their descriptions as a collection of childish stories.  But was this an admission of a lack of faith, or a great mind seeing beyond the limitations of man's concept in order to embrace a loftier consideration?  I think he was saying what I have always thought.  How do you define the indefinable, or describe the indescribable?  Do we dare try, or is best left a personal concept for each of us to wrestle with on our own?  Can we all just agree that there is "something," an energy that gives the universe rules?  With those rules we get creation, destruction, and balance.  We learn to understand that the mere concept of nothing is itself a confirmation of something.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

-- Albert Einstein (1879-1955), physicist, philosopher 

I do not care to imagine my world without the many peaceful spiritual philosophies and religions which give us so much interesting diversity.  This Sunday maybe we could put our chosen faith aside for a moment and consider a world without diverse religious thought.  Has religion really retarded our growth?  We must remember which religions contributed to the roots of medicine, mathematics, engineering, physics, and the arts.  Our growth was retarded by faith?  

I think not.



Note from Pastor Tony, the founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance, as well as the author and editor of "The Path," the Congregation's official blogsite:  

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion.  It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other.  An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth.  After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human.  God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.
  

Frank Anthony Villari, Pastor