My Religious Week
I'll be the first to admit that I have issues with religion, especially the dogmatic views that seem to be at the forefront of most of the discussion today - whether it be fundamental Christianity, fundamental Islam, fundamental (very Orthodox) Judaism or any other view of the world that is predicated on rules that subjugate one group of people to another based on some group of writings that is highly open to interpretation.
I think there is a mystery to life, and whether you believe in science or a form of a God or nothing at all, there are certain moral tenets that should apply - doing good vs. bad, love vs. hate, respect vs. degradation, etc., and how we attempt to apply those things to our lives is what makes a difference in the way the world sees us and the way we feel about ourselves.
William Sloan Coffin died this week. He was a leading activist in the anti-war movement from the Vietnam era, as well as a social activist, but even more, he was a priest who understood the power of, as well as, the limitations of religion.
There was an interesting interview with him today on Fresh Air http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5342517
and I like a lot of the points he had to make about how people see God and that regardless of how you view God, we do have free will and actions matter.
All of this is to say that I've had an interesting week. On Monday, I attended a Catholic mass for a friend of mine who had a very serious heart attack recently and nearly died, but who is now home and doing extremely well, and even has returned to work as of yesterday. We had had a mass for him when he first had the heart attack and was still in the hospital and that was more about asking for his recovery. This mass was more about thanksgiving. There have been numerous stories recently about debunking the power of prayer in healing people and I've seen stories about how prayer can be broken down into prayers of asking forgiveness and prayers of thanksgiving and that these are appropriate, but that asking for something specific - asking "God" to take some specific action or intervene in some way in how life is playing out, just isn't the way to use prayer.
I don't pray, but I have to say that I like the approach of thinking about and reflecting on certain things without any particular trappings of religion attached to it. I understand why some people pray though.
Anyway, Wednesday, I attended a Seder with Karen's cousin. And tomorrow, it's back to Catholic Mass to hear my father sing.
All of this has been kind of fascinating - to watch the trappings of organized religion, the rituals, the words and all and reflect on it. And, to reflect on the discovery recently of the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, and recognize, again, that we think we know things, but there is always another side to the story, or another interpretation that might be worth exploring and that taking almost anything literally, can be dangerous and lead to a lot of demagoguery.
The Bible, The Koran, The Greek and Roman myths - all great stories, with a lot of useful information and some moral guidance, but also a lot that might be questionable, and when religions or people using religion as an agenda use them to pull things out of context, then we're all treading in dangerous waters.
Here's an interesting column from today's SF Chronicle that talks about it:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/14/DDGBEI8CTU1.DTL
Life is a mystery and I'll continue to treat it that way and explore all the possibilities that make me human.
I think there is a mystery to life, and whether you believe in science or a form of a God or nothing at all, there are certain moral tenets that should apply - doing good vs. bad, love vs. hate, respect vs. degradation, etc., and how we attempt to apply those things to our lives is what makes a difference in the way the world sees us and the way we feel about ourselves.
William Sloan Coffin died this week. He was a leading activist in the anti-war movement from the Vietnam era, as well as a social activist, but even more, he was a priest who understood the power of, as well as, the limitations of religion.
There was an interesting interview with him today on Fresh Air http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5342517
and I like a lot of the points he had to make about how people see God and that regardless of how you view God, we do have free will and actions matter.
All of this is to say that I've had an interesting week. On Monday, I attended a Catholic mass for a friend of mine who had a very serious heart attack recently and nearly died, but who is now home and doing extremely well, and even has returned to work as of yesterday. We had had a mass for him when he first had the heart attack and was still in the hospital and that was more about asking for his recovery. This mass was more about thanksgiving. There have been numerous stories recently about debunking the power of prayer in healing people and I've seen stories about how prayer can be broken down into prayers of asking forgiveness and prayers of thanksgiving and that these are appropriate, but that asking for something specific - asking "God" to take some specific action or intervene in some way in how life is playing out, just isn't the way to use prayer.
I don't pray, but I have to say that I like the approach of thinking about and reflecting on certain things without any particular trappings of religion attached to it. I understand why some people pray though.
Anyway, Wednesday, I attended a Seder with Karen's cousin. And tomorrow, it's back to Catholic Mass to hear my father sing.
All of this has been kind of fascinating - to watch the trappings of organized religion, the rituals, the words and all and reflect on it. And, to reflect on the discovery recently of the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, and recognize, again, that we think we know things, but there is always another side to the story, or another interpretation that might be worth exploring and that taking almost anything literally, can be dangerous and lead to a lot of demagoguery.
The Bible, The Koran, The Greek and Roman myths - all great stories, with a lot of useful information and some moral guidance, but also a lot that might be questionable, and when religions or people using religion as an agenda use them to pull things out of context, then we're all treading in dangerous waters.
Here's an interesting column from today's SF Chronicle that talks about it:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/14/DDGBEI8CTU1.DTL
Life is a mystery and I'll continue to treat it that way and explore all the possibilities that make me human.
posted by Paul Salinger at 11:42 AM
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