These are excerpts from an ongoing back and forth discussion I'm having by e-mail with a good friend who is Catholic.
I apologize for the length of it.
You can sip a little and go on about your business and come back later.
Ryan has the dark text and my responses are in the lighter texts.
... someone may be born into a Christian denomination but that doesn't mean they will stay with that particular denomination. They may move from being a Catholic to a Baptist to a Methodist until they find what they're looking for. While there are Jews who become Christian and Christians who become Muslims, etc., I don't think that's nearly as common.
The religions with strong ethnic and historical identities are routinely found in society's where you cannot prosper if you leave that identity. For example, convert from being Muslim you will be put to death.
And I would agree that most people make emotional, not intellectual decisions.
What we value makes us strongly respond. We are taught what to value, usually, by religious tutoring. The consequence is shame, discipline or being cast out. That creates an emotional response.
Still, the situation remains that when someone asserts a belief in something that isn't self evident -- ghosts, ufos, Nessie, the Yeti -- the burden of proof is upon those claiming their truth. Where is the self evident proof that God exists?
I think it was Carl Sagan who said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Science only really got serious when it combined Karl Popper's idea of testing through "Falsifiability". The ancient Greeks abhored "testing". It was unthinkable! You had to PROVE your assertions only through argument.QED. That is how Aristotle got away with saying a heavier object falls faster than a lighter object for so many centuries. Nobody until Galileo tested it by EXPERIMENT.
As far as God is concerned. It isn't PROOF that is asserted as the cardinal virtue. It is FAITH. If Faith can give proof through testing we stop calling it Faith and call it Science Theory.
There are any number of religious denominations out there. Which ones might have the truth, or even a glimmer of it? I think some of the criterion you list further down for societal norms might work here. It would seem that the religions of the world that are the largest and the oldest would be the ones to look at. Because of their longevity and the size of their membership they must have something going for them. They "work" and despite some missteps and mistakes have worked for a long time.
To state this fairly, humans have not been Free Agents until fairly recently. Having a protected "right" to assert personal opinions could get you killed in older Society's. June 1, in 1660, American colonist Mary Dyer was hanged in Boston for violating Massachusetts Bay Colony law by preaching Quakerism.
So, it seems to me that if I was approaching religion looking for answers I would look at the "successful" groups, not the johnny-come-latelys, the fringe, or the new. These older, established groups have already done a lot of the work, answered questions, and established many of the rules incorporated into our society..
If I properly frame my response, I would have to say it was only after Freedom was established through Constitutional means the critics, Johnny-come-lately types could come forward to plead their case without being stoned, hanged, or thrown into the hands of Torquemada.(during Torquemada's tenure as Inquisitor General there is a general consensus among the scholars that about 2,000 people were burned at the stake due to prosecution by the Spanish Inquisition in the whole of Spain between 1480 and 1530.)
So, historically, in 1492, one historic religion (Catholicsim) kicked the other historically older religion (Jews) out of Spain.
They did this, as you say, because they established many of the rules incorporated into society.
If "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is a truth, then is it any less a truth when Ted Bundy repeats it but fails to heed it? Too often people confuse the failings of the messenger with the message, deeming it a lie because a human with failings didn't live by the rules they promote. The failures of a beloved religious leader are simply proof of humankind's general state of imperfection and our need to be constantly reminded of the rules.
Ted Bundy was a nice looking guy who wore his arm in a sling and asked for assistance from females. They responded to his benign appearance and ended up brutally murdered. When it came to his own execution for these crimes he was all about: Thou shall not kill. Him, that is. As to whether he would EQUALLY apply this injunction to include his own wielding of death is a separate question. It isn't the great LAWS which make us great, but, the just application and interpretations.
The failures of a beloved religious leader such as a priest, can only be confused as failings of the messenger if the Institution of the Church quickly takes steps to oust them and turn them over to the Law to prevent further damage. By, simply forgiving them and moving them to another and another location, the implication of cover-up drowns out "it was only the failings of imperfect men" and attaches enormous stigma to the Church as a whole. Were this not true, how could the Church be sued and have to pay?
I've personally known non-believers who are amazingly charitable, kind and benevolent and I've known deeply religious people who are privately monsters in their own household. I think something MORE than belief, faith or knowledge activates the human species.
The only explanation for Love or Kindness I can fathom is this. As helpless and totally dependant infants we had nurturing, consideration of our needs and some kind of positive structure. We have this personal history to thank for our well-being. To the extent we reflect on this and mirror it we find cause to reach out to others and provide. It is that echo of "mother" in us. Norman Bates notwithstanding!
This raises the age old question of whether we are innately good or have to learn how to be good. Very hard to say. Watch children at play. Some get along with others, share, and show compassion. Others are bossy, won't share, and are mean. ...
We talk about learning social skills. Why would we need to learn them if we intuitively understood how to get along and treat people? Why do we need leaders and lawmakers if we all know how to act in the best interests of everyone?
We are born DEPENDANT.How we INTER-depend leads to success or failure unless we cheat and get away with it. Leaders and Lawmakers have never created better humans. They have created litmus tests for identifying and dealing with behavior.
I've known athiests who were wonderful people. J ust as I've known "Christians" or "religious" people who, at least on face value, seemed to fall short of their professed beliefs.
If my child is drowning in a Lake and I can't swim, will I prevent the Atheist from rescuing her? Will I insist on a member of my own church? Nobody would! Why? Effectiveness trumps beliefs. Actions are louder than bromides. In Retail, just one wrong word to the wrong person at the wrong time will out-shout all the perfect words before it. The customer doesn't care how perfect you were yesterday.
Welfare programs take from the rich and give to the poor, and not in a sense of stealing, though I know at least one person who considers his money stolen against his will. We have poor who need help and Welfare is the appropriate response.
Personal charity by private organizations is the alternative. You target the recipient and can vet the effectiveness of the administration. When government does just about anything there is waste, fraud, abuse and miles of red tape. My old friend George has glaucoma. He can't work, can't drive and has to wait 3 months to appear before the VA doctor who will decide if he NEEDS treament. Then, more scheduling and waiting....
In Oregon the state covers the medical expenses of children believing that no child should be without medical treatment. But we can't address all the ills of the Earth. More needs to be done but compare the human state of the past even within our own lifetimes.
"The State provides" means only the people who actually pay taxes and don't get it all back in a refund. With government picking who wins and who loses the private sector is pushed out by the superior resources of Government. Solyndra was a company that made Solar Panels. the U.S.Department of Energy guaranteed a loan of $535 million dollars for this "green" company. It then received a $25.1 million dollar tax break. What could competitors do to in any way FAIRLY COMPETE with this governmental one-sided favoritism? Private investors jumped at the chance to go with Solyndra with $198 million. Within a year the firm was Bankrupt, the FBI raided its offices and 1100 employees sued for loss of jobs.
Private strategy with private funding and private charity seems a better way to address the ills of the Earth. At least you are more likely to get transparent accountability than with Government.
I have great respect for the eldest religions, the ones that have survived a thousand years or more. I don't have to agree with them, just recognize that they offer something of value to their followers else they'd never have lasted so long or have such large memberships.
To be fair, the eldest religions used the DEATH PENALTY, torture, shunning, maiming, Inquisition and banishment as inducements to remain "loyal". Is that a test of "value" or power? My kids with Leslie are considered Jews just because their mother was Jewish. Is that an indication of their choice of religion. No.
In short, it is difficult for me to accept that a religion started last year by Reverend Joe would suddenly glom onto all the truths that the great religions of the world have missed for the past two or more thousands of years.
As I stated previously, people weren't really "free" to actively question great Truths without risking punishment until fairly modern times. The Ten Commandments were enforced, not mere suggestions! Even very recently a Danish cartoonist who pictured Mohammed was given a Fatwah death sentence by Muslim clerics! A fiction book, Satanic Verses brought a Fatwah to author Salmon Rushdie. Would Great Truths not appeal more to reason than fear of death?
Rev. Joe would be using as his primary foundation The Bible, a document which is, first, owed to the Jews and their sources, and, later, to the Catholic Church. Rev. Joe recognizes that these institutions were good enough to compile the correct,essential information for him, but got all the interpretations wrong and have taught falsehoods lo these many years.
Each of the Great Religions is fragmented with sectarian violence among its most devout members through all of history. Jesus' greatest enemies were his own religous leadership. Wouldn't Jesus be the Rev.Joe of his day to the Pharisees?
... it's generally useless to point these people out, even the Jihadists, because they are not in community with the majority of their fellow believers.
To state this equably, the Leaders of the established religion must make a public outcry to remain innocent of the deeds of their most fanatical adherents. The Mullahs, even in the U.S.A. have not spoken out PUBLICLY denouncing the terrorists who strap bombs on and kill innocent bystanders. By remaining silent, even as the aforementioned Catholic hierarchy with pedophile priests, the taint of collusion, intrigue and CYA (cover your ass) redounds to the religion as a whole. Otherwise, how could the victims sue the Church and collect?
But I don't go work soup lines or do Meals on Wheels or join up with charitable organizations. The proactive is much harder than the reactive. Yet, among my personal friends, I have very few who are even reactive.
Not until I started hanging out with charitable people (proactive) did I overcome my personal reluctance. And even then, it didn't come easily. I think it is a learned behavior in most of us.
Galileo suggested that we were not at the center of God's universe. Big, radical ideas often take time to be assimiliated, whether merely assailing current science or threatening religious belief. Galileo, of course, was right and the church now agrees with him. But the core truths of the church really haven't been thrown out the window, they've been amended and enriched.
A point to consider: if ideas are treated as neutral opinions until investigated you have progress without violence. It is a matter of process and review. However, honestly, Galileo was not shown the counter-evidence of the Church. He was shown the instruments of torture! His telescope was called an instrument of Satan. His "proof" was dismissed summarily. These are not the actions of holy institutions with Truth on their side. It is the reaction of petty officials threatened with embarassment. What would embarass them so?? Simply this, the CHURCH over-reaches by claiming DIVINE TRUTH rather than centuries of accumulated trial-and-error discovery! If GOD DECLARES a Truth would it not remain a Truth beyond any disproof? Wouldn't you welcome challenges as an opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of the Divine mind?
I see it in the light previously mentioned. Just because the faulty human minions get it wrong doesn't invalidate the correctness of the teaching. Even God's divine inspiration can be misunderstood by the imperfect human mind. But the truth remains.
I look at it like this. If I claim to be a Doctor and prescribe a medicine for your problem your confidence in my prescription will be assured. If I am Joe Blow who reads Prevention Magazine and I proscribe a cure by sucking on Walnut shells, your confidence will be different. (I hope). The CHURCH when it claims DIVINE TRUTH is like a Doctor. But, often, the TRUTH is not anything more than Joe Blow's opinion stretched to appear like DIVINE truth.
Churches don't get sued for malpractice. But, the test of Christian Science is to NOT call a doctor. Go figure.
The public needs fair labeling for food and drugs. We can read it on the lable. But, with the Great Religions, where does man's "wisdom" end and God's Divine infallible "Truth" begin? These Instituions always act AS THOUGH it is one and the same.
I can't really consider the JW's because they fall into that Johnny-come-lately category of Christianity, trying to reinvent what went before.
What allowed the opening for Protestantism if not the failure of the Catholic institution to reign in corruption? Were God Almighty running his own house Martin Luther's protestations would be the ravings of a lunatic.
JW's took over where 2nd Adventists failed. It is the FAILURES of the older groups that create opportunity for adventure.
A better example might rest with Catholicism. The Bible calls homosexuality an abomination. This teaching has always been difficult for people to reconcile who have gay friends. Many people have wonderful, loving, caring gay friends. And the treatment of gays, the biases, bigotry, and hatred directed towards them is especially painful to their friends.
Well, the Church now teaches tolerance and sympathy for gays. They are to be loved and treated as all of God's other creatures. Violence and bigotry towards gays is wrong and must stop. Many conservative Catholics feel that the Church is caving in to popular demand. However, the actual teaching of the Church, the divinely inspired part, the infallible part, hasn't changed a bit. Homosexuality is still considered a sin. When practiced. When acted upon. An abstaining gay person is like an unmarried heterosexual who abstains from sex. The desire to act is there but with no follow through no sin is committed.
The fact is there was a death penalty wielded by each of the Three Great Monotheistic religions until fairly modern times. Only now, where there is a separation of Church-State no death penalty by cleric can be used. In Muslic countries, it is as it has always been.
The Romans would not allow Jews to use the death penalty. That is why the religious leaders brought trumped up charges against Jesus to Roman Authority. It was the Romans who used capital punishment against Jesus.
Does the church excuse Judaism for this or has it persecuted them through all of history?
The Catholic Church no longer practices Inquistion, torture or a reward for a basketful of Moselm noses in the same way that Jews were no longer allowed to stone Jesus to death. It was by the replacement of AUTHORITY of state over religious law.
Is this infallible law now or was it back then?
Anyway, I'd bet if a study was conducted by impartial, expert researchers it would be found that the teachings of Judaism and Catholicism, aside from those fallible, personal reflections by their leaders, haven't really changed much, if at all.
I suppose if you completely ignore the "putting you to death if you disagree" part, sure! I doubt it was by choice, however.
Many, even Catholics, incorrectly think when the Pope makes a statement it is is infallible and must be accepted. If the Pope were to state that we need to redistribute the wealth and so we should break into other's homes and take what we want, he would be wrong though speaking from the chair because his opinion would conflict with the core teaching of the Church.
Vatican II caused a few problems!
As society changes the needs of people change socially, educationally, technologically and with their institutions. Any monolithic Authority based core of beliefs has to "breathe" or it suffocates. It seldom does so without severe external pressures to accomodate or dissolve.
A whole new ball of wax. Just wars vs. unjust wars. Many, if not most, wars are unjustified. But when War is an act of self defense?
As a former Conscientious Objector I'll give you my old speech:
Jesus said "love your enemy" and "when struck, turn the other cheek." The craziest thing he ever said!
Or when War serves as a police action to stop actions that amount to a crime? In that last I'm not thinking of recent Middle Eastern events but WWII when we came to the aide of our allies in defending themselves against the Nazis. Should we have stood by and let events proceed to their conclusion?
We cannot know. We are looking back to what happened WITH our participation, not without.
I know this(or think I know) the best and the brightest from every country died. Leaving behind the rascals, cowards and conscientious objectors to reap the harvest.
When to get involved or stay out is always a tough call. We don't seem to do it very well anymore, for quite a long while. I guess that's why WWII is called the last "Just War."
Back in 1967 I sat in front of my Draft Board answering their questions. This was during the Viet Nam war, of course. One man asked me, "What would you do if somebody broke into your house and attacked your family? Would you defend them?"
I answered, "The Viet Cong have not attacked us. We have invaded their homes and are threatening them."
Another man chimed in, "What if all christians refused to go to war like you do?"
I replied, "I guess we would really be a christian nation. There would be no wars in which christians were fighting against other christians."
I now see it this way. Christians have seldom put Jesus words to the test: Love your enemy by turning the other cheek.
That out of the way, if we accept WWII as a just war, then whose side would God have been on, I wonder? Would He have favored the Nazis in their attempts at genocide and world domination or would He have favored those trying to stop the killing, death, and destruction (despite all the killing, death, and destruction involved making that happen)? Or would he have abstained, merely shaking his head at our foolishness?
Had all christians abstained from WWII we might know. The more devout the believer the more eager to become the martyr, however.
This brings us back to the old, established brands of religious beliefs. The ones that have been around the longest with the largest memberships. It has always been possible, and will always remain possible that religious truth will be misunderstood and declared true by those who have got it wrong. How do we know if they're right or wrong? We won't. But there have to be leaders, leaders until they prove themselves unfit to lead.
I don't know why secular Truth would have any less superiority over Divinely Revealed Truth. The test of history has certainly never demonstrated that. We spoke about Jesus saying "LOVE YOUR ENEMY".
That seems divine. Where is it actually practiced? Christians are quick to abandon it when Japan bombs Pearl Harbor or Arab Jihadists fly planes into buildings. Could it be, subconsciously, they KNOW it is crazy?
The Catholic Church, and I suspect Judaism, has a teaching body. This is the interpretive arm of the church. The layperson is not left to simply read the Bible and figure it all our for themselves. It's not possible.
This is a Catch 22. How would anybody EVER know they had "figured it all out by themselves?" The test of orthodoxy is the Official pronouncement of some body of Authority.
The Council under pagan emperor Constantine "figured it all out".
Just because a group or person invokes prayer doesn't mean their "figuring" is True or False. If it is ratified and adopted and ENFORCED it seems real enough for the little guy.
If the Bible could be so easily understood then everyone would have the same interpretation. And we don't. The Bible isn't as clear cut as the instructions for operating your new DVD player. If our spiritual lives are lifetime journeys why shouldn't that journey be available over a longer period time for the governing bodies? What's wrong with new knowledge and understanding altering or adjusting previous beliefs just as happens with individuals? Injustices are committed but over eons the behavior is corrected. This does not invalidate the whole kit and kaboodle.
Innovators, historically, are not welcomed. If your village has been planting crops a certain way every spring and some genius upstart proclaims a "better" way---who would dare risk it? In religious institutions innovators are Apostates who have abandoned the true faith. There is no mechanism to TEST dogma.
"It has always been this way." As mentioned, Jesus was an Apostate rabble-rouser if you were a Pharisee. Galileo was a pawn of the Devil teaching destructive lies against scripture.
And so on. Once you Authoritatively declare your teaching is GOD'S DIVINELY REVEALED TRUTH you have to DEFEND against innovation, contrary ideas and critics because YOU ARE NO LONGER INTELLECTUALLY HONEST. The test of intellectual honesty is "willingness to be proved wrong by evidence."
When the Religious Authority had the power (as clerics in Muslim countries still have) to threatened, torture and put to death critics, misfits and contrarians---it was the DARK AGES. The Renaissance, not co-incidentally arose when the human mind freed itself from dogma and peremptory censure.
I just don't know how we can eat the whole banana without cutting off the bruise. Instituions of Religion will not allow the "bruise" to be cut off or even challenged. As mentioned, the apology of the Church to Galileo came long after his bones rotted into calcium dust.
Not to pick exclusively on Catholics, mind you...The Calvinists burned Michael Servetus at the stake for daring to preach against infant baptism, etc.
Calvin said: Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man's authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory.
Like I said, we humans can misinterpret what lays right in front of us. We're imperfect. And others can deliberately twist the truth to their own purposes. What's new?
Since we can't always be sure we are right, should we burn Michael Servetus at the stake anyway as Calvin certainly believed? Absolute thinking has no appeal when it also carries corporal punishment behind it.
But this brings me to something I've been circling around this whole time. What are you going to believe? What are you going to use as your basis of belief? If you are an Athiest then you just use common sense, what works in reality, what seems fair and just to the greatest number of people, -the side of some belief system.
Belief seems the easy way out. Here are your creeds in black and white. Here are our policies. Here is right and wrong (subject to change historically). It is like rooting for the Cowboys or denouncing the Liberals or refusing to buy any but American made cars. How many errors multiply when Truth is predigested into Dogma? At the end of my e-mails I have the following phrase attached: "What you believe you never think about again." Meaning, the hard work of critical thinking is no longer necessary. Unless we are able to change, free to think, not pressured to conform, allowed to question----we lapse into partisans. Merely ideologues.
I've read authors imagining how humankind, sitting by the campfire, staring into the starry night, came to the conclusion that their was something bigger out there than man. From this came the belief in a Creator, God. Well, where' the proof? If man, staring into the starry night concluded that our Earth had been created by a pink slipper would that be sufficient reason to believe?
I dare say "proof" is seldom the issue.
You've got to admit, God creating us in His Likeness, His Omniscience, which puts Him everywhere all the time, all powerful, capable of anything you can imagine, is all pretty convenient. No matter what question you come up with they've got an answer. Maybe not an answer you accept, but they've got it covered. Doesn't it all seem to be a little too neat? And without offering one shred of tangible evidence. All you have to do is believe.
Anybody who doesn't pause to ask this question isn't an honest thinker. Just as the old saying goes, "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels"....I'd say "Faith is the last refuge of ideologues and zealots."
But these aspects of God are what you'd almost certainly expect from God. He wouldn't seem to be God if he wasn't beyond our full understanding. You mentioned that earlier. Do you really believe it is within your ability to fully understand God? It's best to admit that it's not possible. If we could understand God fully then we'd know all the answers. We see aspects, we understand pieces. Just enough to keep us interested, tantalized, intrigued.
Well, we can't have it both ways, can we? No. Either we cannot KNOW because we are so insignificant...OR....here are the reasons you should be persuaded. Why pretend BOTH are in play? If all the religious institutions admitted to what you just said above--they would be more honest and believable and humble. They don't and they aren't. Like a magician who fools us with what we can't see and don't know----religious Truth dazzles and mystifies us with whispers of Divinely Revealed to us alone......
Therefore, God is like a fairytale creature. We believe because we want to believe. Not because God appears like the head of Zardoz periodically and speaks to us. I bet we'd believe in Santa Claus if our parents didn't step forward and admit that he was they. Santa is what a lot of people want God to be, somebody they ask for stuff and who then magically delivers it.
Remember the Wicker Man with Christopher Lee? "Our religion seems strange? Doesn't your religion worship a supernatural carpenter fathered by a ghost?"
So why do people believe? I can accept that people are born into their belief system. That's one reason. But where did that belief system originate? Regardless of how people got to thinking of God, whether independently based on their own logical conclusions, it is organized religion that has kept the ball rolling. Therefore, it's useful to climb aboard one of the ships to focus your idea of God. Do you want the Jewish God, the Christian God, the Muslim God, the Hindi Gods, or some other God? Take your pick. Choosing a team doesn't stop the musing, the reflections, the questions, or the journey. But it helps stop the aimlessness, the vagueness. And it's always possible to later hop ship.
What we KNOW we use. It works or it fails. Reboot.
What we believe we cannot test. Hope is not a test. Hope is a reason to keep on keeping on.
If what you keep on keeping on doing helps you---you suceed. Hooray!
If what you keep on keeping on doing kills you---you die "faithful". Our martyred hero.
We are born to die alone. How we LIVE is a success or failure according to our deeds--NOT our beliefs. Once we die it is the survivors who pronounce the verdict by their own standards.
Choosing a team is problematic. I did that once. I played by the rules.
Never won a game and lost all my "brothers and sisters" when disfellowshipped. No reboot.
That caused a critical analysis of the very process of HOW WE BELIEVE and WHY.
I've studied a great many books, writers, philosophers and teachers as well as what the finest scholars conclude about the bible itself. All I would declare is that I'm somewhat "informed".
I listen when people who claim to 'know' speak. I'm interested in persuasion, argument, proof, logic and colloquy. But, I'm not actually ABLE TO "choose a team". I would if I could.
I'm what Jonathan Edwards called a "sinner in the hands of an angry God".....or, I'm just a 65 year old father of 7 who loves his kids, lives a celibate life, spends time in charitable volunteer work and who doesn't have anything to prove. Subject to tomorrow's changes...Reboot.
I don't want to sound superior. I'm a faulty human. There's a lot wrong with me and I'm often wrong and make mistakes. But I don't confuse the individuals with the institution, the failure of the human representative as a failure of the organization. But most people do just this sort of thing. They have real trouble making distinctions. Distinctions are fine points. Fine points can be grey areas. People don't like grey areas. They like black & white.
Instead of the Devil being in the details, I find, that is where the actual "truth" is discovered. Anything is true if you state it GENERALLY enough.
This brings me back to why the public cannot be allowed to interpret The Bible on their own. This is also why we need leaders in all facets of life. When we get the right leaders they deal with the fine points. They look at the grey areas. The good ones aren't afraid of these aspects of life. They shepherd the flock.
My problem with the Bible specifically is that there isn't one. That is, the original autograph manuscripts don't exist to compare with anything for authentication. How did that happen???
There are no copies of the original, either. Decades after the death of Jesus the gospel (good story) was circulating by word-of-mouth--not writing. All those editorial flourishes (Jesus meant so and so) are much later. The writers are attributed writers to lend authority. And much after the fact. The first piece of actual manuscript is a postage stamp size piece of St.John, I believe. And that is a copy of a copy of a copy.
The Fundamentalists and Inerrantists only affirm that the Original Autograph manuscripts are uncorrupt---knowing full well there aren't any in existence to examine!!
The first christians had Judaism as a guide. Afer the destruction of the Temple in 66 A.D. the Paganized converts to christianity pretty much drove out the jewish-messianic christians. The actual "religion" of Christianity is a misnomer. It was competing, warring, disagreeable and trucculent sects all disputing one another as to TRUE TEACHING. Three hundred years after Jesus the pagan emperor Constantine, by fiat, orders a Council (Nicea) and allows a colloquy to ESTABLISH orthodoxy.
Christians could not even agree on whether Jesus was divine! After Nicea, first the Arians and then the Trinitarians gained favor with Constantine. How would he know anyway? He was a member of the cult of Sol Invictus. His mom was a christian. She collected relics (fabricated or not). Helena sought the "true cross" which was, of course, miraculously discovered! For a price.
I'm off topic....
I don't think the bible can be anything more than layers and layers of word of mouth guesswork. Certainly not actual conversations with quotation marks!
Yet, for thousands of years we argue over every jot, tiddle and nuance as though it were math equations easily proved by dividing, multiplying and inverting!
The reason no two denominations can agree on what the bible teaches is because IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY TEACH ANYTHING!
We all know there are good and bad leaders. The competent and the incompetent. Realilty tells us that we've got to keep an eye on them, watch for mistakes. But we also have to trust them initially. We can't be cynics who believe every government figure, every authority figure is tainted from the get go. Give them a chance and see what they can do. When they're wrong, stand up, call them out, make them responsible, but don't just sit back and carp about how all of them are no good.
The more authority a leader has (especially a religious leader) the more removed they are from impeachment. Look at the modern Ayatollah.
Political leaders are so ideology driven and the electorate so evenly divided--all they are good for is posturing and deadlocks.
Well, you've given a couple of examples above where someone disagreed with the majority or where the majority was wrong. So, how do we know? There are many matters that don't fall into that category that reveal themselves by working or not working. In China, the government believes it has the right to limit how many children couples may bear. Should that ever be the government's right, even if it threatens to imperil the population? How long before concerns over the ozone layer and pollution allow the government, in the name of what's good for the people, determining when you can drive, or go outdoors? We already have water restrictions. Would the limitation and or removal of basic human rights and freedoms be okay if it were undertaken for the greater good?
There are so many people on earth now organized into blocks of leadership with law and courts---it is almost impossible to think and act with individuality without incurring the charge of "selfish" "oddball" "iconoclast" and "dangerous."
It almost doesn't matter to people what is "right" as long as they are comfortable in their ignorance. Being well-informed seldom means much of anything beyond the local news.
How can we escape "wrong" government? Activism? Occupy this and that? I doubt that! I think only REVOLUTION can bring about Reboot. And that is when the monster's faces are clearly seen as they take charge. (Are you listening Stalin? Castro? Pol Pot?) Yet some of these sanctions actually are or will be wrong. How will we know that?
Without the power to effectively protest and adopt political and local changes---it won't matter what we know or think. Effecting change is problematic under the best of circumstances. Look at a simple retail company like Sears. They are dying on the vine. Can we really believe nobody knows how to stop the bleeding?
I find it hard to believe that this will ever happen in the U.S. because we are so conditioned by the media, movies, and television to see Big Brother all around us. But I wouldn't rule it out entirely as most people are lemmings. All it takes is a change of direction by the media, movies, and television to entirely reverse the trend.
Young people get their information from entertainment sources like John Stewart and the Colbert Report. Not deep thinkers. What person under 30 can honestly tell you how a bill becomes law? Who was a good president and who wasn't or why?
I'm glad you bring up the concept of knowing. My life changed considerably when I accepted the fact that there are many things I don't know, that I will never know. I got very comfortable with the idea of not knowing. I started questioning how I know what I do know. If Missouri, the "show me state," really lived by it's state motto, it would know very little. The motto implies the need for empirical knowledge. Limited to empirical knowledge we'd know next to nothing. How do we know China exists? Have you been there? We rely on the experts, the authorities to "show us" though we're really only taking their word for it.
When I say I'm Agnostic, that's all I mean: there is a lot I can't seem to KNOW in any meaningful sense. I think that is a good honest self-appraisal.
So, in the philosophical sense, we can't trust any information that comes to us outside our own direct senses. From a practical standpoint, however, we have to accept that fact we have not directly proven are actually facts. Therefore, we are already in a "trust" mode most of our lives from early on. There's nothing wrong with trusting as long as we're also questioning.
An open mind is important as long as you have some standard of what you let inside!
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I'll bring up Catholicism again. To a certain extent, it's a perfect example of this. Growing up, parents entrusted the Church with teaching their children about Catholicism. Parents came from the "because that's the way we do it" school of thought. You'd even got a lot of that from the Church itself. It was up to the persistent, the ones who could convince a priest or nun that they really wanted an answer and weren't just being troublesome, to get actual answers. Hence, many Catholics grew up not really understanding the underpinning of their faith. I know I was one and didn't investigate deeper until in my forties. Now, I can act as something of an apologist (hate that term) for misunderstood doctrine.
It is almost impossible to know a different point of view or world view OTHER than what we grow up with. How can we not defend the only thing we know? But you know what, although I blindly followed -- until I broke with the Church -- after investigating I found nothing really any different except that I now had answers, reasons, and a deeper, richer understanding that hadn't existed before, even though I consider myself a fallen Catholic.
I think as long as you take Mass and go to confession they won't mind!
I agree we are capable of rational thought but this brings us right back to your opening statement which I think is closer to the truth. Just as people are born into their religion, they are also frequently born into their overall belief system.
Had I not been part of a religion that predicted 1975 was going to bring Armageddon--and saw it did not---I doubt I'd have ever critically examined the actual basis of my entire world view!
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU!!
Ryan