Huey Lewis wrote "I need a new drug" but I think a new religion is in order. I'm not talking about a philosophy or a belief system...I'm talking religion. The ones we have now can't seem to get along. I have boiled several thousand years of religious evolution down to a few thoughts. I'm sure I piss off everyone but here goes anyway.
1. There was the Sun God thing as nomadic tribes settled down at the watering holes in the desert.
2. Being at the wrong end of the slave/master food chain thing, Moses, being an ambitious kinda guy, broke loose and rewrote "How the world began" making himself the Pat Roberts of his day, only with better leadership skills and his own policemen.
3. A bunch of centuries later, the Pharisees got conquered by the Romans, as did everyone else, and were busy being self centered middle managers concentrating way too much on the bottom line. The eye for an eye stuff was causing a lot of problems, and they were crucifying pretty much anybody who pissed them off or stole something.
4. Jesus discovered the basic tenets of Budhism and tried to get everybody to be nice...Got crucified.
5. Mohammed saw what Jesus had done and figured, "Good idea, bad execution" and wrote his own version moving himself to the top of the food chain as god's chosen. After all, if Moses could do it....
6. A couple of thousand years later, the "Play nice" stuff that Jesus had tried to impose on the Old Testament folks has melted away prety much all over the world, although there are lots of people who claim to be christians, pound their fists on the ten commandments, and ignore the fact that Jesus had nothing to do with that part of that bible.
7. There's too many people, with too little land, making too many babies, with too many guns, sitting on too little oil.
8. Who's gonna write the next part?
Peace,
Steve
Of course I was simply sticking to the religious courses that led to America's current involvement, but your suggestions as to alternate future realities are reasonable though #3 is a long shot to impossible...We can hope.
ReplyDeleteThere may already be a perfectly good religion out there we can hijack. It's possible that all it needs is a New Testament adding infectious proselytizing.
Well, you should usually go first on a question like that, but even so, I don't see what relevence it has to my premise that our current ascendant religions are killing us. It appears that you don't believe in at least one god, though. How about any of the others?
ReplyDeleteJust as a sidebar, "YourNextPresident" will have to wait until 2024 to be elected, unless the age requirement for president is reduced from the present 35 years of age. Back to the need of a new religion; when I was a young man attending university, I had the privilege to take a course studying the worlds 10 great religions. It became apparent that all believed on one supreme being, in life after death, had 10 or 12 commandments, had a form of the golden rule, were spearheaded by a great leader, believed that they had the correct answers and were only different in 15% of their details like whether you were sprinkled or dunked or some other drivel! I submit that the 10 great religions are simply 10 facets of the same jewel. If that is true then the real question is, are they all right or are they all wrong. In other words does God by any of his names exist or not? Of course, no really knows and those who say they do, are doing so by faith alone. The war or wars that we currently watching from afar are not about religion but about political adjendas and power. The "holy" part of these wars are simply justificaiton that God,in one of his names, is on their side and therefore they are in the right and will win. Adding a new religion to the mix would simply make the situation more complex and make the opposing side more sanctimonious than they already are. And, according to the old testament the only reason we are fighting in the Middle East today is because the Jews didn't do their job about 3500 years ago! But, then that's another story!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious...Did your study of religions include Shinto, Budhism, and Confucism?
ReplyDeleteNearly all religions are about control from a central authority. I think of it as a non geographically based political entity, concentrating more on controlling a group of followers much more than making them happy. Traditionally, some boogieman form of fear is the driver, though there are exceptions. The reward after death can be damned near anything because there's no possible way to prove or dispute the existance of Hell or forty virgins.
The locals may be fighting in the Middle East because of unfinished business but "We" are there becasue of oil.
I spent much, (too much), of my life messing with real science. It is absolutely true (a proven scientific fact) that nearly all those souls that do 'real' science have no time for religion - in fact they are hard-core athiests.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are a few who seem to coexist with a religion while doing first class science. An analogy might be those that have a wife and family in addition to a mistress and appear to do a good job with both.
My observation has been that those that can handle both science and religion are in fact 99% of the time the same ones with a family and a mistress.
It takes all kinds to make it all work - even in Science.
Charlie Mead