Wayne, I like what you said about uncertainty.
The way I see it, the less we know about a proposition, the more staunchly we tend to defend it. It happens in science too much. But it happens in religion, even more. In the end, we can know with some certainty what we feel at the moment. And with a great deal of reasoning we can be pretty sure of the proposition "I think I think; therefore I think I am." Further afield, we actually know very little.
So I tend to think that the truth of a religious proposition lies not in some essence of fact, but in how we would feel about living in a group, a society, a world that embraces the same proposition. For example "all people are equal before the law."
When religious ideas and practices help us to be more kind, reflective, and open to other people, I think they can help us feel better about our place in society. And they can help us be part of a happier society. It is my opinion, however, that a great deal of theology - written reasoning about religious ideas - is nothing but an attempt to maintain an unnecessary and often unhelpful level of control over "believers." For example, Aquinas proofs of God I see as being of this ilk. (So too, much of what little I've read of his writing on most subjects - to the extend that I comprehend it.) On the other hand, Christ's entreaty that one "Love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength: And love your neighbor as yourself," strikes me as a helpful proposition. It is simple and easy to comprehend. Hard to do, but often the doing of it is quite helpful. Therein lies its truth.
I think that from an institutional standpoint, religions need to define what they stand for in order to endure and serve the needs of their constituents. They certainly cannot, however, prescribe what their members experience. I think religious experience must therefore be an interplay between institutional ideas and living practice. The validation of religious ideas is found in the way the ideas work in people's lives.
I have heard it argued that what makes Winnie the Pooh endearing (except to people like Dorothy Parker who live and die by the sheer energy of intellectual spark) is his essential "learner's mind" a kind of unconditional acceptance of the way things are at the time, and a low key ability to meet the world and the beings in it on their terms. There is a sort of kindness here that transcends religious dogma. It is the sort of kindness that one can find in people of every religion. And, in fact, when one finds a world fighting in the name of religious institutions, it is the sort of kindness one finds first among the least religious.
I think it is not by accident that Christ identified "your neighbor" as being someone from outside the tribal group ... the kind of person or entity who is far enough away to be "other" but close enough to have competing claims on resources. Our rituals and practices that drive us into tribal (family, group, religious, affiliations) membership and around owning and keeping property tend to make this kind of existence very difficult.
Constant fear of scarcity
Aggression as its child...
Religious practices that lead us to overcome tribalism, and encourage us to deal kindly and generously with the "other," our neighbor, strike me as being consistent with the core of most religious belief. But they are somehow absent from too many religious advocates.
So I wonder... How does a religion get its members to embrace people in other tribes as real people if it spends too much of its energy defining people in those other tribes as being deficient in some special quality -- specifically tribal membership? Anyone read Poisonwood Bible?
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