Why Does Religion Exist?
November 19th 2008 22:14
Why Does Religion Exist?
Without specifically advocating one or the other I hope to explain why people have decided to join a religion or pay head to an afterlife.
If you speak to some (not all) philosophical Buddhists they will construct an argument that Buddhism is in fact an atheist religion. God does not actually exist and the purpose of existence is to eventually a cessation of all existence. Now whilst this may seem like a radically new concept to some it is not the view shared by all Buddhist and so the scope for differing opinions does exist. Expecting everyone to agree on what precepts a perfect religion should have is like expecting everyone to agree upon the perfect flavour of ice-cream. The choice is so tainted by subjectivity and perception that no two people would agree.
Yet in a broader sense we have since the first recordings of history a record of religious devotion and practice. When humanity had been constructing buildings and machines for generation with expressed purpose of make a life on earth why have they looked elsewhere for answers?
In one sense it is the answers that cannot be provided by the invention of a new comfort or measurement of an element of nature that has never satisfied people. Why do we exist?
I heard someone say that from the first time that a person buried another in the ground man has been looking for answers as to what happens next. Does the body just rot away and return to ash and each generation passes even memory of that person vanishes? Do we stand around the grave to click out tongue with regret as another human shaped machine ceases to function? The machine is switched off and another is manufactured in a somewhere else. The circle of existence rolls on endlessly but to what purpose? As we consider a body lying motionless in the grave other thoughts come to mind. Is this all that there is? Did everything about this person die when their body ceased to respond to stimuli or is there something more eternal?
We can decide the answer ourselves and then carve the answer in stone. We can take measurements and declare the findings. We can contemplate our muse then use it to build a philosophy. We can even consult learned people and agree with their wisdom. Yet the answer to what occurs after death cannot be proven one way or the other without actually being dead. Since that appears to be a one way trip we do not have a way of verifying it. The gap of knowledge exists and door is opened to contemplate a new realm. Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.
The other problem that exists for all people and societies is one of co-existence. Some people consider that humans are little more than beasts in a layer of clothing. Such naturalists would have us believe that strength of will and body are all that matter and that fighting for domination is all that we have. Regardless of how this view is dressed up in superlatives it is still a cruel and ruthless world that leaves no place for kindness and mercy. Even the most primitive tribe on the planet construct rules in the form of customs to prevent their society from being torn apart. Anarchy may seem attractive until you are on it receiving end. Unlike the animals of the jungle humans have always created moral structures to ensure its own survival. Morality comes from ethics and ethics comes from the contemplation of what is consistently correct. Philosophy and practical compromise often build the customs and taboos of any society. What is mercy? How do we live to together in peace? Why should we even try? In many philosophical battles one begins to dominate because it attracts more people. In many cases these philosophies are religious. Without popular support all ideologies die even religious ones.
Faith is a funny word that seems to be more abused than used. I have faith that my car will start in the morning. I need to have faith in numbers or my career would cease to exist. People have faith that friends will not betray them or give up on them. Many people have faith in that other unprovable concept called love. People also have faith in schools of thought. One school of thought may oppose another and so forth but to use one disprove another is a very dubious method. If I ask my butcher to explain the quality of mercy he may try to tell me how to weigh it slice and fillet it. Thus by the end of the conversation I am no clearer on the subject because we are using two different measuring sticks. Religions exist because schools of thought exist. Too often when people try to discredit a religion they use their own school of thought as the measuring stick to compare it with. Often all they manage to do in such a process is to prove their own blind faith in a school of thought.
There are big questions that cannot be answered in the bottom of a test tube or in the bubble chamber of an accelerometer. Why are we here? Why do we suffer? Where are we going? Does my life matter? What is love? What is compassion? What is mercy? These are contemplative questions that have troubled humanity from the dawn of time. Yet the one reality that all people face and must deal with is the reality of their own death.
I remember seeing in a Buddhist Temple where monks are trained to walk a short path in front of a human skeleton. All day for about 8 hours the monk would have to walk back and forth to be confronted with death. It was a meditation exercise designed to have the monk contemplate death so that they can understand it in all its reality. To many this may seem like madness but to others these are the people who will be asked to provide answers when someone dies. As such they need to to fully understand the answer. Why did this person die? What happens after death?
Not all religions are the same any more than all atheisms are the same. Yet to pretend that they have been dreamed up at the spur of the moment is intellectually myopic to say the least. Deeper thoughts abound where real answers cannot be found. Religions are not going to disappear because of one book and a few angry intellectuals. Intellect belongs to all people regardless of race, creed or colour.
Unaswerable questions abound
Without specifically advocating one or the other I hope to explain why people have decided to join a religion or pay head to an afterlife.
If you speak to some (not all) philosophical Buddhists they will construct an argument that Buddhism is in fact an atheist religion. God does not actually exist and the purpose of existence is to eventually a cessation of all existence. Now whilst this may seem like a radically new concept to some it is not the view shared by all Buddhist and so the scope for differing opinions does exist. Expecting everyone to agree on what precepts a perfect religion should have is like expecting everyone to agree upon the perfect flavour of ice-cream. The choice is so tainted by subjectivity and perception that no two people would agree.
Yet in a broader sense we have since the first recordings of history a record of religious devotion and practice. When humanity had been constructing buildings and machines for generation with expressed purpose of make a life on earth why have they looked elsewhere for answers?
In one sense it is the answers that cannot be provided by the invention of a new comfort or measurement of an element of nature that has never satisfied people. Why do we exist?
I heard someone say that from the first time that a person buried another in the ground man has been looking for answers as to what happens next. Does the body just rot away and return to ash and each generation passes even memory of that person vanishes? Do we stand around the grave to click out tongue with regret as another human shaped machine ceases to function? The machine is switched off and another is manufactured in a somewhere else. The circle of existence rolls on endlessly but to what purpose? As we consider a body lying motionless in the grave other thoughts come to mind. Is this all that there is? Did everything about this person die when their body ceased to respond to stimuli or is there something more eternal?
We can decide the answer ourselves and then carve the answer in stone. We can take measurements and declare the findings. We can contemplate our muse then use it to build a philosophy. We can even consult learned people and agree with their wisdom. Yet the answer to what occurs after death cannot be proven one way or the other without actually being dead. Since that appears to be a one way trip we do not have a way of verifying it. The gap of knowledge exists and door is opened to contemplate a new realm. Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.
The other problem that exists for all people and societies is one of co-existence. Some people consider that humans are little more than beasts in a layer of clothing. Such naturalists would have us believe that strength of will and body are all that matter and that fighting for domination is all that we have. Regardless of how this view is dressed up in superlatives it is still a cruel and ruthless world that leaves no place for kindness and mercy. Even the most primitive tribe on the planet construct rules in the form of customs to prevent their society from being torn apart. Anarchy may seem attractive until you are on it receiving end. Unlike the animals of the jungle humans have always created moral structures to ensure its own survival. Morality comes from ethics and ethics comes from the contemplation of what is consistently correct. Philosophy and practical compromise often build the customs and taboos of any society. What is mercy? How do we live to together in peace? Why should we even try? In many philosophical battles one begins to dominate because it attracts more people. In many cases these philosophies are religious. Without popular support all ideologies die even religious ones.
Faith is a funny word that seems to be more abused than used. I have faith that my car will start in the morning. I need to have faith in numbers or my career would cease to exist. People have faith that friends will not betray them or give up on them. Many people have faith in that other unprovable concept called love. People also have faith in schools of thought. One school of thought may oppose another and so forth but to use one disprove another is a very dubious method. If I ask my butcher to explain the quality of mercy he may try to tell me how to weigh it slice and fillet it. Thus by the end of the conversation I am no clearer on the subject because we are using two different measuring sticks. Religions exist because schools of thought exist. Too often when people try to discredit a religion they use their own school of thought as the measuring stick to compare it with. Often all they manage to do in such a process is to prove their own blind faith in a school of thought.
There are big questions that cannot be answered in the bottom of a test tube or in the bubble chamber of an accelerometer. Why are we here? Why do we suffer? Where are we going? Does my life matter? What is love? What is compassion? What is mercy? These are contemplative questions that have troubled humanity from the dawn of time. Yet the one reality that all people face and must deal with is the reality of their own death.
I remember seeing in a Buddhist Temple where monks are trained to walk a short path in front of a human skeleton. All day for about 8 hours the monk would have to walk back and forth to be confronted with death. It was a meditation exercise designed to have the monk contemplate death so that they can understand it in all its reality. To many this may seem like madness but to others these are the people who will be asked to provide answers when someone dies. As such they need to to fully understand the answer. Why did this person die? What happens after death?
Great life. Shame that it always ends in death. Or does it?
Not all religions are the same any more than all atheisms are the same. Yet to pretend that they have been dreamed up at the spur of the moment is intellectually myopic to say the least. Deeper thoughts abound where real answers cannot be found. Religions are not going to disappear because of one book and a few angry intellectuals. Intellect belongs to all people regardless of race, creed or colour.
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
That being said, others use "religion" as an excuse to harm others without repercussions. People like Jim Jones, for example, get the opportunity to own their followers and even kill them. Islam is another "religion" that can be hugely abused and misused by deranged people who think that murder is acceptable.
As with many other things in life, religion can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how it is used. My church supports many causes, including an orphanage in another country.
The Bible is a plan for living as well as a history book. I believe it to be true and try to follow it's teachings.
People need something greater than themselves to believe in and keep trying to find it. We spend time studying and learning and growing in our various faiths, hoping for better things to come, in this life or after.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Thanks for your comments
I was just do an analysis on why religions seem to last and what makes them attractive.
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
No worries.
I think Orble is having a theological meltdown lately.
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Like the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz... "We're melting, melting... gurgle, gurgle..." Ha! Ha!
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
If logic was money Orble is on skid row.
Comment by Nevar
ad hominem
the inner sanctum
fire in your eyes - ink in your pen
Writers Challenge ~ 2008
Hopefully, others will get it Damo, love most of the post, that eyeball thing is repugnant.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Thanks for your comments.
Just a quick note.
The eyeball thing is not an eyeball.
It is the results from a bubble chamber.
You see an eye where there is no eye.
What is in that image is more than most can imagine.
I hope people do get it.
Comment by Nevar
ad hominem
the inner sanctum
fire in your eyes - ink in your pen
Writers Challenge ~ 2008
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
It is a computer generated map from the results of a proton smasher.
The way subatomic particles spin indicates their properties and their existence.
Antimatter was discovered using this process.
Comment by Nevar
ad hominem
the inner sanctum
fire in your eyes - ink in your pen
Writers Challenge ~ 2008
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Comment by Lilla
Enviro Warrior
An Extra Ordinary Life
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
As a current student of Buddhism from a Tibetan Monk himself in an (outreach) moastery , I can tell you that this is not true in the context you have portrayed it my friend. It is more that it is beyond our feeble little brains to try and comprehend God, so why try. Itd be like explaining Quantum physics to a sparrow in Latin. So, on this premise it would be wiser and more sensible to stop stressing ourselves with delusions of what we think is right and wrong, in a system that is clearly flawed.
It is perhaps to mastering ourselves by looking at our own selves and how we conduct ourselves through erroneous belief and sytematic programming. By looking at the mind we were given with gratitutde. By looking at the impermanence of life itself (which incidentally, does make arguing about God seem silly since each person will get back there soon enough). Its about finding our individual bliss, self discipline and those things and stepping out of the cyclic nature of endless suffering.
Suffering over our suffering even due to the monkey like 22,000 thoughts we have per hour attaching themselves to the 84,000 delusions the ego will throw up to preotect itself and your continued state of suffering. Suffering over who is right about God and who is wrong, about who God is and who He/She/It is bla bla bla etc etc ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
Its about not wasting our precious lives where each moment is dying to make way for the next moment, for the most part, unnoticed and unexperienced in the frenzy of wondering about God, squandering our God given moments! Its about having faith and trusting that there is a God somewhere who has put us here or we wouldnt percieve outrselves as being *here* in the first place, would we?
Buddhism is not a religion either, but a philosophy of the mind, which we have inhereted through whatever means and way of finding a self evident reason for it we have. In fact it encourages you to analyse and reject things if they do not appear as self evident truth through your own contemplation, reflection, meditation : Usually meditation where we stop the jingoism of the brain to find the sentinal within, the watcher who watches, the allower who allows. It is not quite Rubys Secualar humanism either, but I have to say that anyone who has not learned to meditate and know their own minds cannot possibly puport to tell anybody what Buddhism is, or is not.
Buddhism is not about trying to answer these big questions through the axiom or dogma of someone elses belief, but more through finding a way to answer them through your own perceptions of reality vs emptiness of that reality, of existence of mind itself ... which if you meditate long enough and focus on long enough, falls away in the way you understand it today ... or to put it another way *ceases to exist.*
A very different thing.
Lilla ...
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Thanks for your comments.
I am over simplifying what is a complicated argument. However space being what it is words are sacrificed to fit in. It is not a criticism of Buddhism.
As I said in the introduction this is not the view of all Buddhists. Nor is it a view that I personally think that most Buddhists would share. (Some versions of Theological Modernism has similar conflicts of opinion in Christianity.)
However it was a view presented to me just last week at a conference. The person was after all presenting Buddhism as an Atheist philosophy, the books he was referencing to escapes me. The author of those books did attend the same and I spoke to him briefly. If I am able to get hold of the audio of the conference I am happy to link it here.
That being said I am aware that there are schools of Buddhist thought and philosophy with some disagreeing with each other.
Anyway thanks for expanding on this from your perspective.
Comment by Nevar
ad hominem
the inner sanctum
fire in your eyes - ink in your pen
Writers Challenge ~ 2008
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
I must say that I have spent a lot of time walking around Buddhist Temples and observing them closely. Turn a corner and you see another temple in Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka Buddhism is described as a religion and a philosophy. Some reject the title of religion but others do not mind. You cannot stereotype.
Comment by Nevar
ad hominem
the inner sanctum
fire in your eyes - ink in your pen
Writers Challenge ~ 2008
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
I am told that my body is a temple.
Comment by Nevar
ad hominem
the inner sanctum
fire in your eyes - ink in your pen
Writers Challenge ~ 2008
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Comment by Lilla
Enviro Warrior
An Extra Ordinary Life
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
Again this is not exactly correct and shows some misunderstanding. Buddhism does not say that you have to believe in anything. In fact you will be asked to contemplate its teachings, reflect on them and then if you disagree, chuck them out. You are not asked to believe in any of the things a Regligion asks you beleive in, other than Buddha was an enlightened soul who had found the way out of suffering (samsara) into Nirvana (the non suffering state of the enlightened mind).
Many have achieved that without Buddha altogether, many through religion itself, by believing dogma as the ultimate truth, without questioning. They would probably claim that questioning is suffering itself (and probably have a point too) *chuckle* but ultimately, they would not be able to throw away the teaching even if it disagreed with their inner understanding.
Thats the difference. However I have to agree that it borders on semantics about the word *tenet* itself as was recently made clear to me in the definition of the word itself on an online dictionery :
Christianity: That Jesus was wholly a man is a central tenet of Christianity.
faith: The Roman invasion further refined the tenets of the faith.
realism: This is the negative defining tenet of critical realism.
religion: You want to know what the tenets of the religion of evolution?
philosophy: That everyone should take care of each other's needs is a central tenet of the philosophy.
democracy: Freedom of speech is a central and sacred tenet of any democracy.
Either way its a mess of suffering and confusion, and the big guns just keep cashing in on it ... divind and conquering. It makes you wonder when people will wake up, doesnt it?
Imagine indeed.
Lilla ...
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Despite the fact that I over simplify from time to time it does mean that I have no knowledge of Buddhists.
I have spent months in Sri Lanka which is about 70% Buddhist and have had connections there for about 20 years.
I have been to the very place where Buddhism first came to Sri Lanka about 200-300 BC. I have also seen the Sacred Bo tree that was cultivated from a branch of the original tree under which Lord Buddha was said to have found enlightenment. I have been to the Temple of the Tooth (so called because it keeps the last remaining relic of Lord Buddha's tooth. I know where the largest statues of Buddha currently remain.
I do know that Theravada Buddhism is the most common version in Sri Lanka which is not the same as Tibetan Buddhism.
As far as I know Buddhist do have certain shared principles Like the 4 noble truths and the 8 fold path. Can you be a Buddhist without accepting those principles?
I am impressed with the devotion of ordinary people to Buddhism and do see a world of difference between that and some hippy fad based upon a pop song.
I do see a difference between the current crop of angry secularists and those of Buddhism because at least I know what Buddhism stands for. With Secular Humanism all I get is platitudes, a list of scape goats and no real answers. Imagine is only an answer if the world is imaginary. Unfortunately my bank keeps reminding me that my home loan repayments are not imaginary.
So the thesis of my post is not about pouring scorn upon one faith or another but to ask why they exist in the first place. I am not willing to blindly accept that people are only religious because they were tricked or forced. I believe that there are more compelling reasons than that.
Comment by Nevar
ad hominem
the inner sanctum
fire in your eyes - ink in your pen
Writers Challenge ~ 2008
The same should be true of other belief systems as well. I am saddened that there is so much disdain for such foundational values as there is for faith.
Damo, I understood your post and I stand upon my original declaration: because I choose to find it valuable as do many others do as well, even here in Orbleland.
Comment by Lilla
Enviro Warrior
An Extra Ordinary Life
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
yes. true, however, these truths are so self evident, that no one who puports to having faith could ignore their validity, or not be curious to see if someone had actually worked it all out as Buddha claimed to?
I think that is what I am most angry about, because the two are so very different, yet so well smeared in the west, as to make them indistinquishable in peoples minds. I spose its like Catholics no longer being considered Christians? (A weird thing indeed)...However, because of the practice of these truths themselves, I have learnt to just put it down to ignorance on peoples behalf in not wanting to learn about every religion on the planet to understand life better, through the indefatigable truths that lie at the heart of them all?
To me getting stuck in just one system would be paramount to a prison sentence, I must be free to move with the cosmos ... I am ecclectic and feel that we build upon the thruths as a race, one generation to the next ... I am no expert though, just another student trying to pay the bills (in a crazy system); and yet still trying to enjoy the bliss that I know is there just behind the piece of paper with the Amount Owing on it, because that papaer is man made, not a God given.
Thanks for taking the time to explain damo... I do enjoy your posts too btw. They are always very thought provoking.
Lilla ...
Comment by Lilla
Enviro Warrior
An Extra Ordinary Life
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
I think we have a misunderstanding my friend, although you are correct in the very same way as all virtue lived is lived through its doctrines... the same for the vices I guess.
As I said to Damo above, I have studied many and have a need to be free to do so. Buddhism isnt my first, but it is the first which has allowed me the freedom to go and worship anyone else I choose, because it is not a thing which claims ownership of God, merely a philosophy on why we are here and that we do not need to suffer because we are so.
Supposedly (It is believed) that Buddha worked all this out?
I am very curious as to someone to make this claim and how that can be? I do not for one minute think it undermines basic values of faith at all. In fact it would be very true to say that the main impetus of my questing has been to find faith ... true faith .. the stuff that sits at the core of all religions as the spiritual apprehension of divine truth and yet somehow eludes me.. because I do not want to be caught within the vehicle of Dogma that caries it.
Do I have to accept one theological *authority* to label faiths boundaries for me personally? Is there no other way?
The funniest thing is that the more I go into Buddhist philosophy and meditate, reflect and contemplate its axioms and (self evident) truths (which reveal themselves as personal epiphanies or what Catholics may also call moments of rapture?); the more I discover that Buddhism seconds and supports the Bibles remaining truths. Actually so far it has confirmed everything Jesus was going on about, over and over again ... with a tangible modus operandi and yet as far as I know, Jesus and Buddha didnt know each other in this dimension at all? Curious.
Is that just me using a philosophy (that obviously does work) to confirm something I already believe anyway? Is that what I needed it to prove?
I have read a great many religious books on men and women of faith, from Catholic saints to eastern prophets, spiritualists and great wise Shamans ... and I have meditated on this word for hours and hours. Some days I feel I have it, other days I feel that I dont. It is such a thing with me.
*chuckle* the irony is that, I have the faith to search for the faith that I know is there and so am searching for that which I already have! Buddha (or Jesus) would laugh his head off at that, and probably tell me to chill a bit. Which I think is good advice.
Thanks for the discussion, always a pleasure to be able to discuss openly without all the hype and admonishing that goes on in other places in orble, about this stuff.
Lilla ...
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Thanks for your reply.
BTW. I do not often write about Buddhism because there are some people who cannot go beyond aggressive rebuff s.
I also temper what I write about Sri Lanka because there are people who are ready to pounce.
So I think that there is a space for people to hold different points of view and be civil about it.
Comment by Nevar
ad hominem
the inner sanctum
fire in your eyes - ink in your pen
Writers Challenge ~ 2008
And as you can sense from my last post that I succumb to inner monsters and recently did something I promised to be vigilant against; in spite of my human frailties, I continue forward.