Faith vs...Religion
Bill Maher made a documentary about religion called Religulous (as in religion + ridiculous). The film attacks religion not faith (according to Maher in his press tour...I haven't actually seen the film), but the problem, on both sides of this argument, is that too many people confuse the two.
Do I believe in God...I don't know. That's what Bill Maher says too. The truly logical mind can't rule out the possibility because just as there is no empirical evidence of the existence of God there isn't any evidence to the contrary either. Okay, there are some who would say you don't need to prove the absence of something, that it's assumed a thing doesn't exist until there's proof that it does...like "innocent until proven guilty". I can't endorse that theory. If I have no proof that something doesn't exist than I can't be sure. Aliens, elves, vampires...I don't know...they could be out there somewhere. I don't want to equate God with aliens and vampires, except in that I don't know if either exist. Bill Maher sort of does (equate God with aliens), and I won't argue with it either, I just won't make that analogy myself because I think it's sort of sensationalistic
I make no secret of the fact that I don't believe there is any one true religion. One day, for the sake of argument, I said, maybe it isn't that they (religions) are all wrong, but that they're all, in a way, right. The first time I made this argument, it was something I said sort of off hand and I've come to call it the napkin holder analogy because, at the time, a napkin holder was the first thing I saw. I was sitting at a table with a friend and I couldn't think what to compare it to, but my point was that it's a matter of perception. If I look at that napkin holder and you ask me to describe it maybe I say that it's rectangular and that it holds and dispenses paper napkins, ask another person and they might say that it's red and made of aluminum. It's the same napkin holder but people describe it in different ways. Now take something without any tangible properties that can easily be described and ask a few people to try describe it anyway. You'll probably get an even greater number of different answers. "God" is such an intangible entity. The Judeo-Christian tradition is to anthropomorphize "God", many pagan traditions cast the divine as an animal (or several different animals), the Greeks went the anthropomorphizing way as well but for them it was many gods, another common image is of energy. What if those are all just attempts by people to describe the same thing? It's something that they can't see (or smell, or taste, or touch, or hear), so doesn't it stand to reason that they'd come up with different descriptions? And it also makes sense that they'd all insist that their description is the right one because otherwise they'd have to admit that they don't understand it fully and it's human nature to fear what you don't understand (which would be in direct oposition to faith).
My mother asked me a few months ago if I'd ever considered ministry (as a career choice), and she's not the first person to ask me that. I seem to have a quality that makes people think I have answers to any questions they have. I get asked for directions and for direction a lot.
My adamant refusal to endorse the idea that there's only on right religion means that, even if I had considered it, Christian ministry is not something I could ever do. I did, however, seriously consider going to rabbinical school a couple years ago. I don't know Hebrew, but I could learn it I think. However...I really like bacon and apparently the dietary rules for rabbinical students are even more strict than the regular Kosher rules.
I know several people who've been ordained as ministers of the Universal Life Church. Most of the time people get ordained (which is free and takes about 30 seconds) in order to officiate the wedding of a friend (or family member), but I thought "Universal" might be an indication of agreement with my theory about all religions being right...although "Catholic" also technically means universal and they definitely don't think anyone else is anything close to right so that's not necessarily an accurate indicator. In this case though, it turns out to be fairly accurate. So, I got myself ordained.
I'm no more qualified than I was before to offer advise on matters of faith, but since I am fairly vocal about faith, and since people have always and will always ask me for advice, I figured I might at least get credentialed.
Do I believe in God...I don't know. That's what Bill Maher says too. The truly logical mind can't rule out the possibility because just as there is no empirical evidence of the existence of God there isn't any evidence to the contrary either. Okay, there are some who would say you don't need to prove the absence of something, that it's assumed a thing doesn't exist until there's proof that it does...like "innocent until proven guilty". I can't endorse that theory. If I have no proof that something doesn't exist than I can't be sure. Aliens, elves, vampires...I don't know...they could be out there somewhere. I don't want to equate God with aliens and vampires, except in that I don't know if either exist. Bill Maher sort of does (equate God with aliens), and I won't argue with it either, I just won't make that analogy myself because I think it's sort of sensationalistic
I make no secret of the fact that I don't believe there is any one true religion. One day, for the sake of argument, I said, maybe it isn't that they (religions) are all wrong, but that they're all, in a way, right. The first time I made this argument, it was something I said sort of off hand and I've come to call it the napkin holder analogy because, at the time, a napkin holder was the first thing I saw. I was sitting at a table with a friend and I couldn't think what to compare it to, but my point was that it's a matter of perception. If I look at that napkin holder and you ask me to describe it maybe I say that it's rectangular and that it holds and dispenses paper napkins, ask another person and they might say that it's red and made of aluminum. It's the same napkin holder but people describe it in different ways. Now take something without any tangible properties that can easily be described and ask a few people to try describe it anyway. You'll probably get an even greater number of different answers. "God" is such an intangible entity. The Judeo-Christian tradition is to anthropomorphize "God", many pagan traditions cast the divine as an animal (or several different animals), the Greeks went the anthropomorphizing way as well but for them it was many gods, another common image is of energy. What if those are all just attempts by people to describe the same thing? It's something that they can't see (or smell, or taste, or touch, or hear), so doesn't it stand to reason that they'd come up with different descriptions? And it also makes sense that they'd all insist that their description is the right one because otherwise they'd have to admit that they don't understand it fully and it's human nature to fear what you don't understand (which would be in direct oposition to faith).
My mother asked me a few months ago if I'd ever considered ministry (as a career choice), and she's not the first person to ask me that. I seem to have a quality that makes people think I have answers to any questions they have. I get asked for directions and for direction a lot.
My adamant refusal to endorse the idea that there's only on right religion means that, even if I had considered it, Christian ministry is not something I could ever do. I did, however, seriously consider going to rabbinical school a couple years ago. I don't know Hebrew, but I could learn it I think. However...I really like bacon and apparently the dietary rules for rabbinical students are even more strict than the regular Kosher rules.
I know several people who've been ordained as ministers of the Universal Life Church. Most of the time people get ordained (which is free and takes about 30 seconds) in order to officiate the wedding of a friend (or family member), but I thought "Universal" might be an indication of agreement with my theory about all religions being right...although "Catholic" also technically means universal and they definitely don't think anyone else is anything close to right so that's not necessarily an accurate indicator. In this case though, it turns out to be fairly accurate. So, I got myself ordained.
I'm no more qualified than I was before to offer advise on matters of faith, but since I am fairly vocal about faith, and since people have always and will always ask me for advice, I figured I might at least get credentialed.
posted by Beth at
8:21 PM
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