Religion

Yesterday while at church with my mom, I was thinking about the fact that many religious people know little to nothing about other religions. If asked why they have no interest in other religions, they’ll often respond with something that runs like, “This is the right religion for me, I know it, I don’t need to look any further.” This doesn’t make much sense to me. 

Let’s make a comparison between religions and say, language. Let’s start that comparison out with a quote from Goethe:

“Wer keine fremde Sprache spricht, kennt seine Muttersprache nicht.”

My approximate translation of this would be: “He who does not speak a foreign language, does not know his native language.” I think the same could be said of religion. If you’re not familiar with other belief systems, are you sure you really understand yours?

As a further example, I suppose one could compare religions (crudely, I know) with that favorite standby of many: food. Suppose you get someone who has never had steak, spaghetti and meatballs, or pizza. You set a plate down in front of him with a steak; he eats it, and proclaims that it’s the right food for him, his favorite out of the three. But obviously, that can’t be right. How can he possibly say that if he hasn’t even tried the other two foods?

Certainly, I’m not saying that everyone who is religious to any degree should be a scholar on all religions (or even one). But I do think that to really understand one’s own path, one needs to at least have a vague idea about the road map that others are using. It’s hard to say that you’re sure your map has the right directions if you’ve never looked at any others.

Perhaps I’m being naive, though. The real truth as to why people don’t investigate other religions, unless they’re experiencing doubt about their current one, is probably that they think that all other religions are wrong. Their religion is the One True Religion, the only one that holds the (right) answers to all of the mysteries of the world. As Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out:

“If there were a verb meaning ‘to believe falsely,’ it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.”

I ended up meeting with the preacher on Tuesday; we went to a coffee shop, had some good coffee, and talked. It went well enough: he was respectful of me being doubtful (to put it mildly) about the Christian faith, and had no problems with me being honest about my thoughts on the matter.

I did pose some questions which he wasn’t able to answer adequately, at least in my opinion, but I sort of expected that. For example:

1. What happens to good people who live their lives in a “good way”, but do not accept Christ, etc.? (Say, the Dalai Lama, for example.) His response was that the scriptures say that Christ is the only real way to God, but furthermore, God would judge each person by their own unique features, etc. That seemed a bit of a cop out to me, but he at least made an attempt. What that would mean for all of the great Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, etc. in the world, I’m not sure.
2. I brought up that Jesus fit the “hero mold” exceptionally well, which made me doubt the historicity of the figure. He said the scriptures state that Jesus was indeed a historical figure and everything in the Bible really happened.

The second question highlighted what I see as a major problem with trying to talk about such things with Christians: they take the Bible as fact, as a perfect historical source, if you will - which just isn’t the case.

He did not, as some of you expected, try to convert me. (Truth be told, I expected it, too, at least slightly.) I stated a few times that I was not, in any sense of the word, Christian, and he said that was fine, that he understood, etc. While I did get the sense that he hoped he was answering the questions in a way that might help “sway me”, he didn’t, in any fashion, come out right and say, “You should become Christian!”, or any such thing. All in all, while I don’t agree with his beliefs, the discussion was enjoyable. He was respectful, I was respectful, and the coffee was excellent.

I wrote about 8 months ago about some religious discomfort I was experiencing. The discomfort stemmed from me being Buddhist, and my mom being Christian, whom I regularly took (and still take) to church. My last entry on this topic was actually about some of the discomfort being lifted; my mom had shared with the preachers that I was Buddhist, and they had in turn shared that that was fine with them. They said that whether Buddhist, Hindu, or anything else, they’d be okay with me attending.

Yesterday, some pressure was reapplied. After we’d left the service and exited the building, one of the preachers came out and flagged us down. He said he wanted to “get together with me” sometime this week, to just talk with me.

I know where this action came from. I had been talking to my mom about Christianity, asking her questions, one of which I wanted her to pose to this particular preacher. Specifically: If God is all-knowing, and always has been, why did he have to take human form as Jesus to “know what it was like to feel human suffering?” If he knows everything, shouldn’t he have known that long before?

She asked him this question at one of her church classes, which led to him wanting to talk with me, one on one. Which is fine, by the way. Here’s the rub: I don’t want to insult him. While I don’t agree with his set of beliefs, I do respect the guy, and I really don’t want to put him off. I know he’s going to ask me my thoughts on religion, God, etc., and I have some concern that my responses, regardless of how polite I share them, may bother him or make him mad, e.g.:

Him: “What’s your take on Jesus?”

Me: “I think that it’s likely that the Jesus figure is a copy, a reiteration of previous ‘hero’ figures. He shares many similarities with prophet types who supposedly lived before him - bringing salvation, father of a god, death, resurrection after 3 days, etc.”

I have similar thoughts on a lot of things about Christianity, which I won’t get into in this post, because it’s not the point; the point is, I just really, really don’t want to insult the guy. I respect him, and I also know that he likes my mom quite well, and I don’t want to disrupt their relationship. On the other hand, I don’t want to say “No, I don’t want to meet with you”, because that’ll come across as rude, too.

And thus, faithful readers, I pose this question: Any ideas? Keep in mind, he knows I consider myself Buddhist, so perhaps I’m getting worked up for nothing. Perhaps he expects such responses from me.

I posted a few days back about the Buddhist group I’m in, and the ups and downs that group has experienced. This is a bit of a continuation of that post, with some random thoughts and comments thrown in for good measure.

~

Our group met two evenings ago, on Tuesday, at the conference room of a hotel, where one of our members is the general manager. It was the first time we met at this location. In the past, we’ve met in the conference rooms at a local library. The switch from a library conference room to the hotel conference room would be a good one, if we had to stick with it, which we don’t (more on that shortly).

The meeting went quite well. One thing I was quite happy about was that four of us made it - in the past, we’ve generally had either two of us sitting, or perhaps three, if our schedules fell into place correctly, all of the planets were aligned, etc. We sat for 15 minutes, took a short break and discussed a few things, then sat for another 15 minutes.

Before the other two fellows arrived, Jeff (the general manager) and I spoke about the group, where we’d like to see it move, and so on. We were in agreement that we’d like the group to meet more often for sits. In the past, we’ve been limited by the library’s rules, specifically the one which states that you can only use one of their conference rooms once a month. Being a small group and having no funds available for group stuff, we’ve thus been meeting for sits only once a month. For discussions and general get-togethers, we’ve met a bit more often, using a local café.

The hotel conference room was nice, and fine for a meditation session. The only problem with it (if one can even really classify it as a problem) is that it’s not exactly close to any of us. It’s on one of the highways heading out of town, and for the three of us who live in town, it’s about a 20 minute drive. For the other guy, who lives out of town, on the other side of it, it’s more like half an hour. Certainly, we’re not talking huge commutes, but something closer would be nice. Jeff realized this, and was nice enough to offer up his home, in town, for our meetings. Using his house, we’ll be able to meet weekly.

Before I could bring up the topic of our group actively studying Buddhism, Jeff brought it up. He thought that perhaps incorporating a brief reading into our sits would be good, maybe a sutra that we could all meditate on. I thought it sounded like a good idea. We also discussed the issue of feeling like we’re on an ocean with no guide. None of us are very advanced in our practice, which has led to us just kind of floundering about in the water, wondering where to go. Again, Jeff had a solution. Apparently he’ll be frequently going to a larger city near us in the coming months, in which there’s a long-running Buddhist study / meditation group. He’s going to see if one of their more advanced members could come down to our town occasionally, perhaps once every month or two, to have a “class” of sorts. I thought this sounded great.

I suppose I keep thinking about something Drew, my professor, told me. He told me that he read in a newspaper that four people started a small meditation / study group (I can’t recall where it was, sadly). Initially, they met where ever they could - library rooms, parks, whatever.

Fast forward two years: they now have a meditation hall, around 50 regular members, and are a non-profit organization. They have services throughout the week, regular classes, etc.

Small steps, Josh. Small steps.

~

During our break between sitting sessions, we discussed a few things:

• I commented that when I first start a sitting session, I often feel like I’m leaning - a lot. Usually, I feel like I’m leaning to the left, almost to the point of falling over. If I try to correct this posture problem, I find that I’m not leaning at all. No one else had experienced that. After 5 minutes or so, the sensation goes away. How about you folks? Are any of my readers meditators? If you are, do you often feel like you’re the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
• Chris experienced something different, but similar. He said he often feels like he’s rocking back and forth slightly. When he goes to correct it, he finds he’s not actually moving.
• We talked a bit about whether or not we keep our eyes open during meditation. Some of us do, some of us don’t (I don’t). Jeff, who keeps his eyes partially open and focuses on something about 6 feet away from him, remarked that if he isn’t diligent in being aware of what’s going on, he’ll find himself seeing all sorts of things that aren’t there. For example, he said that while looking at the carpet Tuesday night, he started seeing faces, animals, etc. in the carpet pattern. Drew, who was facing the television in the conference room, said he felt like he was watching TV, then realized that it wasn’t even on. I suppose those two experiences show what your mind will do when you try to calm it down. It’s a bit like when you’re trying to get a small child to go to sleep: they’ll do anything they can think of to stay awake. Slap themselves, babble, kick, etc.I personally keep my eyes closed because of similar issues. I don’t necessarily “see” things like that, but I do find that if my eyes are open, my eyes have a tendency to wander, seeking out objects. Before I realize it, my mind’s off in left field (or not even in the stadium anymore), thinking about something that was vaguely related to something I looked at.
• We talked briefly after the second sitting session about how odd our perception of time can be. Both sessions were 15 minutes long. The first session felt like it lasted more like 20-30 minutes; the second session felt like it lasted 5 or 10 minutes, tops. This was something that we all generally noticed. No idea why.

Title: The Subtle Knife [amazon]
Author: Philip Pullman
Publisher: Scholastic (2005)
Pages: 368
Book Number: 19

I finished up The Subtle Knife today, the second book in the His Dark Materials series. After having read and enjoyed The Golden Compass, I was looking forward to see where the plot was taken in The Subtle Knife.

The things I complained about in The Golden Compass - namely, the main plot seeming to move a bit slowly, particularly information regarding Dust - have been “corrected” in the sequel. While I’m still not entirely clear on what Dust is, what’s going on overall is fleshed out a lot in The Subtle Knife. Specifically, a war is getting ready to be waged, between “rebels” - Lord Asriel, rebel angels, Will and others - against the Authority, or God. As one reviewer at amazon.com put it, there’s nothing subtle about this knife. Pullman obviously has an axe to grind in regards to the tyranny of the Church, its lies and deceptions. I’m not sure where Mrs. Coulter and Co. tie in with this war and the Church, but I’m sure that’ll be clarified in the last book of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. I must say - I’m anxious to see how the war against God goes. I think it’s an intriguing plot idea.

I was a bit bummed to find that armored bears weren’t in The Subtle Knife at all - not even Iorek Byrnison. His name popped up a few times, when Lyra and Will were talking, but besides that, he wasn’t in the book at all. Instead of lots of bears, in The Subtle Knife, there were lots of witches, specifically Serafina Pekkala and her group. I have to admit (and perhaps this is how Pullman pictures them) - from his description of the witches, I see them looking a bit like Sarah Sanderson (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) from Hocus Pocus. Sadly, I wasn’t able to find any decent pictures of that character online to share with you.

I’ve not looked into it, but I wonder if churches have raised hell (pun intended) about the His Dark Materials trilogy, similar to how they’ve raised hell over the Harry Potter series. I’ve seen news about a lot of different churches / religious groups banning the Harry Potter series, because it might teach kids “witchcraft” or “devil worshipping” or some other idiotic thing. I wonder what kind of uproar there’s going to be when the movies for Pullman’s books come out, and the main plot line turns out to be a war on God.

That should be interesting.