Throughout all my theological studies, a question that I'm consistently asked is why is religion important. I'll be the first to admit that the very core of any religion is the connection between worshiper and deity. It is necessary that this relationship is personal and intimate. A consistent aspect of this relationship is supplication. Whether you call your deity Yahweh, Allah, God, or by some other name, you're speaking to your higher power. This is the core of continued conversion to one's faith, the manner that one seeks guidance and a common mediatory tool.
Despite this truth, religion is generally pushed as necessary. It is necessary to look at this need logically. If there is a deity that does listen to the litany of their followers, then it would make sense that there is a system of communication established. These communications are not linear, or one-way, but interactive. Both sides send and receive information. Across all religions, these interactions are riddled with directions for life.
With a population of the world being around 7 billion, and an estimated 86% of them are religious, there are roughly 6.02 billion religious individuals in the world. Thus, again, if deity speaks in reciprocation to those who communicate, then one can conjecture that over 6 billion people are receiving guidance from deity. This is, however, distinguishing that all religious individuals are either praying to no deity, the same deity under different names, or separate deities that all exist. With this being a religious blog, and for logical structures that will be explained later, it will be addressed under the view established by the two latter versions of communication and direction occurring.
The blessing of organized religion then comes into play. When individuals come together as an organized group, they are able to create community and continuity. Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe that there is a living prophet on the Earth. A prophet means that there is a signified person on earth given direction over the entire church. Seeing that most Christian churches do not have this, except Catholicism, and no centralized leader in other world wide church, such as Taoism and Hinduism. Because of this lack of structured world-wide communication, individuals are forced to rely solely on their own flashes of inspiration. When you put hundreds or thousands of these flashes of inspiration together, you have a unified vision in received messaging. This position, along with the community of supportive assistance included in religion, illustrates the necessity of organized religion.
*** These thoughts are just a fragment of a defense for the purpose of organized religion. It would take another couple thousand words to solidify this argument.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Introductory ramblings:
Before anyone begins to look at religion with just their mind, it is important to recognize that this is impossible. The sciences and faiths of the world seek to answer the questions of how and why the world is. These questions, in many cases, far surpass the limits of man's cognition. The very nature of the eternal, or infinity, is incomprehensible. Zenos and the turtle expresses this dilemma within the race of the turtle and the hare.
If the turtle is given a head start, an infinite regress will occur. For the hare to catch up with the turtle, let alone get to the end, the hare must reach the mid-point between itself and the turtle. Furthermore, before that mid-point, there is another mid-point that needs to first be met, and a mid-point before that. You can continue this process through without end, but this is just the start.
The average person thinks of infinite as a number scale that continues without end. Though this is true, we also have to realize that there is an infinite number of fractions between one and two. There is also an infinite number of fractions between one-half and one. This regress shows us that infinity is not just all encompassing, but it is every present.
A case can be made for time being infinite. If this is true, then it is also mandate that there are an infinite number of potential events. Albert Einstein is rumored to say that the likelihood of the world just happening into existence is similar to taking a pocket watch, dismantling or destroying it, placing it in a bag, shaking it up and it coming back together. Even though this seems impossible to us, it is possible for this to occur, something Einstein himself would not contend. Any one of us could spend our life shaking up that bag for it never to work, but our small existence is less than a speck in the realm of eternity.
Despite the fact that I will, for the sake of argument, call myself a progressive pragmatist, yet a strong believer in God, I know that it is not because it is impossible for there to be no deity or higher power. In my mind, and on the grounds of logic alone, I will not say that one is more balanced, believable or reliable than the other. The purpose of my writings are not to intellectually convince someone that my way is better than any other. I merely hope to illuminate the mind of the reader enough to see that there are multiple paths that can be taken.
All of these paths are just as solid and feeble as the next. To those already on certain paths, the others seem so far away and unfamiliar. They may also seem less than our chosen ways because they are so distant, different or even attacked by those on our current paths. I am just as human and fallible as the next person who hear or read discussing religion. My only request is that everyone take hold of any question or doubt that they have and attack it as socratic as they know how. Knowledge can be subjective, just as history can be retold in many different ways. The most important thing one can do is be willing to ask why, that same thing all do while still in their infancy.
This very act, the continual “why,” is something that each child has while developing. Somewhere along the way we start to lose the need to know why. We begin to think we either know everything or that people will only give us the full truth; however, each person can remember times they answer a question without fully knowing that you are correct. Each of us can remember times when something did not sound quite right, but we took it as fact and went on our way. So, the most important thing that these writings are suppose to accomplish is encouraging people to ask why, then waiting for an answer. No being as Pilate, when asking Christ, “what is truth,” before walking away without an answer.
If the turtle is given a head start, an infinite regress will occur. For the hare to catch up with the turtle, let alone get to the end, the hare must reach the mid-point between itself and the turtle. Furthermore, before that mid-point, there is another mid-point that needs to first be met, and a mid-point before that. You can continue this process through without end, but this is just the start.
The average person thinks of infinite as a number scale that continues without end. Though this is true, we also have to realize that there is an infinite number of fractions between one and two. There is also an infinite number of fractions between one-half and one. This regress shows us that infinity is not just all encompassing, but it is every present.
A case can be made for time being infinite. If this is true, then it is also mandate that there are an infinite number of potential events. Albert Einstein is rumored to say that the likelihood of the world just happening into existence is similar to taking a pocket watch, dismantling or destroying it, placing it in a bag, shaking it up and it coming back together. Even though this seems impossible to us, it is possible for this to occur, something Einstein himself would not contend. Any one of us could spend our life shaking up that bag for it never to work, but our small existence is less than a speck in the realm of eternity.
Despite the fact that I will, for the sake of argument, call myself a progressive pragmatist, yet a strong believer in God, I know that it is not because it is impossible for there to be no deity or higher power. In my mind, and on the grounds of logic alone, I will not say that one is more balanced, believable or reliable than the other. The purpose of my writings are not to intellectually convince someone that my way is better than any other. I merely hope to illuminate the mind of the reader enough to see that there are multiple paths that can be taken.
All of these paths are just as solid and feeble as the next. To those already on certain paths, the others seem so far away and unfamiliar. They may also seem less than our chosen ways because they are so distant, different or even attacked by those on our current paths. I am just as human and fallible as the next person who hear or read discussing religion. My only request is that everyone take hold of any question or doubt that they have and attack it as socratic as they know how. Knowledge can be subjective, just as history can be retold in many different ways. The most important thing one can do is be willing to ask why, that same thing all do while still in their infancy.
This very act, the continual “why,” is something that each child has while developing. Somewhere along the way we start to lose the need to know why. We begin to think we either know everything or that people will only give us the full truth; however, each person can remember times they answer a question without fully knowing that you are correct. Each of us can remember times when something did not sound quite right, but we took it as fact and went on our way. So, the most important thing that these writings are suppose to accomplish is encouraging people to ask why, then waiting for an answer. No being as Pilate, when asking Christ, “what is truth,” before walking away without an answer.
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