Saturday, July 16, 2005
Faith and Perception
Okay, I am going to start with something that may be a bit burdensome right out of the gate. I am not sure if this will set any sort of tone or not, but it is what I was thinking of when I was lying in bed this morning. So here goes.
While I am not a religious man by any definition, I feel that at some level I do seek to understand what is "divine" and feel that there is a deeper meaning behind our physical existence. I believe this is something I have in common with most humans. It may in fact be beyond me to describe the nature of the divine, but like most people, whether they admit it or not, somehow I feel that something is there. This widely and deeply held human trait is not the property of any religion exclusively, and may in fact be the greatest evidence that the divine exists. Granted, I lack the spiritual dedication of the devoted disciple of practically any faith, but I don't think this excludes me from being able to make some observations about a simple truism for religion in general: religious faith is based entirely on human perception.
To me, the common ground that I and one of the devout is the curiosity of what our reason for living is, and what lies beneath and beyond the realm which we call the "physical". I have been accused of resenting religion on several occasions which I believe to be a be rooted in political or ethical views, which are a feature of the physical world. To me, the enlightened person is the person that through their faith experiences or otherwise has hewn such a potent spiritual perception of the divine they cannot help but let it affect their physical lives, making their course in this world a reflection of that.
This is where I make a distinction between a person's reaction to a religious experience and religion. Where I get castigated for being against religion is when I talk about how the effects of religion in this world seem to often be anything but that, spending time fighting amongst each other over some earthly squabble. What I feel is the great Irony is that extra-religious disputes are actually infighting. This is because the devout, regardless of their faith or their degree of closeness to their ideals, seek to understand and be a part of what they believe to be divine- the same thing. This is a huge commonality, and is a part of what makes us human. What is even more odd is that three of the four largest religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam (in their order of appearance) all worship what is in effect the same central figure of the divine. Whether it be God or Yahweh or Allah or Jehovah, no matter how they make their spiritual connection, they are looking the same direction: skyward, if you will.
This essay could easily become a ponderous analysis of how the perception of the divine IS the religion, but what I am simply talking about is human history. At one time, the ancestors of the members of each of those three aforementioned religions were at one time all worshipping the same named god (not taking into account conversion and so forth.) Throughout history, the lives of certain men - Moses, Jesus and Mohammad - had such impact on faith that a divergence of the beliefs of the devout was the result. The crux of the divergence hinges upon how each these three resultant religions see who these three men were and what impact they had on humanity's connection to the divine- a belief that is again about the nature of an earthly thing. This is what brings people of a common religion together- not whether or not there IS a god but how this god makes communion with humanity and through whom it does. This also is the domain where different religions get into dispute with each other, over the human perception.
So what I am getting at is the things which divide us are not what is beyond the physical realm, but on how that is perceived here on earth. That what is truly beyond our comprehension is in effect the one thing that we truly have in common because it is what is really beyond our control to change, regardless of how we perceive it. To believe there is a spirit beyond our selves is to believe that our perception of the spirit is our spiritual identity, not the spirit itself. The perception is what affects us. Whether the spirit has a hand in our daily lives is unknown. All that is known is our perception, which may or may not be that the divine has a hand in our fate.
An atheist might say that there is only the perception and no spirit, but perhaps this perception is the biggest hint of the existence of the spirit, and that the reason so much of humanity has this in common infers this. Saying that humanity is being simultaneously duped about a perception of the existence of a higher power sounds akin to conspiracy theory. While none of us may be right, chances are, we clearly are all on to something.
To me, where religion turns against the divine is when its earthly organizations find themselves in a contentious place with each other over the hows and whys- the subjects of debate both secular and theological. What each religion has in common is they are a collective perception of what is divine and holy, and that perception is of this earth, even if what they perceive is not.
While I am not a religious man by any definition, I feel that at some level I do seek to understand what is "divine" and feel that there is a deeper meaning behind our physical existence. I believe this is something I have in common with most humans. It may in fact be beyond me to describe the nature of the divine, but like most people, whether they admit it or not, somehow I feel that something is there. This widely and deeply held human trait is not the property of any religion exclusively, and may in fact be the greatest evidence that the divine exists. Granted, I lack the spiritual dedication of the devoted disciple of practically any faith, but I don't think this excludes me from being able to make some observations about a simple truism for religion in general: religious faith is based entirely on human perception.
To me, the common ground that I and one of the devout is the curiosity of what our reason for living is, and what lies beneath and beyond the realm which we call the "physical". I have been accused of resenting religion on several occasions which I believe to be a be rooted in political or ethical views, which are a feature of the physical world. To me, the enlightened person is the person that through their faith experiences or otherwise has hewn such a potent spiritual perception of the divine they cannot help but let it affect their physical lives, making their course in this world a reflection of that.
This is where I make a distinction between a person's reaction to a religious experience and religion. Where I get castigated for being against religion is when I talk about how the effects of religion in this world seem to often be anything but that, spending time fighting amongst each other over some earthly squabble. What I feel is the great Irony is that extra-religious disputes are actually infighting. This is because the devout, regardless of their faith or their degree of closeness to their ideals, seek to understand and be a part of what they believe to be divine- the same thing. This is a huge commonality, and is a part of what makes us human. What is even more odd is that three of the four largest religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam (in their order of appearance) all worship what is in effect the same central figure of the divine. Whether it be God or Yahweh or Allah or Jehovah, no matter how they make their spiritual connection, they are looking the same direction: skyward, if you will.
This essay could easily become a ponderous analysis of how the perception of the divine IS the religion, but what I am simply talking about is human history. At one time, the ancestors of the members of each of those three aforementioned religions were at one time all worshipping the same named god (not taking into account conversion and so forth.) Throughout history, the lives of certain men - Moses, Jesus and Mohammad - had such impact on faith that a divergence of the beliefs of the devout was the result. The crux of the divergence hinges upon how each these three resultant religions see who these three men were and what impact they had on humanity's connection to the divine- a belief that is again about the nature of an earthly thing. This is what brings people of a common religion together- not whether or not there IS a god but how this god makes communion with humanity and through whom it does. This also is the domain where different religions get into dispute with each other, over the human perception.
So what I am getting at is the things which divide us are not what is beyond the physical realm, but on how that is perceived here on earth. That what is truly beyond our comprehension is in effect the one thing that we truly have in common because it is what is really beyond our control to change, regardless of how we perceive it. To believe there is a spirit beyond our selves is to believe that our perception of the spirit is our spiritual identity, not the spirit itself. The perception is what affects us. Whether the spirit has a hand in our daily lives is unknown. All that is known is our perception, which may or may not be that the divine has a hand in our fate.
An atheist might say that there is only the perception and no spirit, but perhaps this perception is the biggest hint of the existence of the spirit, and that the reason so much of humanity has this in common infers this. Saying that humanity is being simultaneously duped about a perception of the existence of a higher power sounds akin to conspiracy theory. While none of us may be right, chances are, we clearly are all on to something.
To me, where religion turns against the divine is when its earthly organizations find themselves in a contentious place with each other over the hows and whys- the subjects of debate both secular and theological. What each religion has in common is they are a collective perception of what is divine and holy, and that perception is of this earth, even if what they perceive is not.
