Dare We Believe - and Dare We Think?
How can so many people apparently need to define a single political party as
totally correct - and complete?
And one religion as totally correct - and complete?It seems as improbable that a single political treatise could constitute one's political philosophy as that a single religious book could be identical with one's entire religious belief system.
Concrete practical political principles are what count.
In the same way it's the divine as a principle that connects us to everything for which science has no answer.
For those who, in one way or another, have recurrent connection to divinity there is no talk of "one faith" but of an entirely vital reality. And thereby a suggestion of the truth.
Scientific truths are both practical and very exciting. But no one would posit science to be the only formof truth to be found(?)
And of course divine occurrences among us do not lose any of their worth at all because scientists do not choose to deal with them.
So therefore:
Dare we believe in the divine?
And dare we rethink what it is we believe?
While working on the book Lift the Lid - And Rethink Life over the past few years I have met many people who have told me "I'm a believer" or "I just don't believe in that sort of thing."
And something seems to suggest that no matter where we set the limits for understanding (or for insight into) the metaphysical world - regardless of whether we are discussing religion or something else we accept and believe in - many of us simply have to declare from the onset what we believe - and don't believe.
The more I have heard this declaration of "belief" - "non-belief," the more con-vinced I am that it plays the role of summary signal, on its own it is a statement entirely meaningless if it is not accompanied by something else and more that serves as an expression of one's own unique thought processes.
Otherwise "belief" runs the risk of becoming just as meaningless as justifying membership in a specific political party by stating "that's what my husband be-longed to when he was alive."
If you are a believer, you have to explore the core of your beliefs because read-ing the Bible and then declaring yourself a Christian, for example, are simply not enough.
Being unconcerned with the background for the Bible is just like seeing a docu-mentary without caring about who directed and produced the film or the reasons for its production at a specific moment in time. Or deciding that it doesn't matter who has joined the film-making process and edited, revised, and censored the ori-ginal version.
There is nothing sacred about the Bible. The Bible is a man-made, much-censored work. And in order for there to be any meaning at all in "believing" in the con-tents of this huge volume, you have to come to terms with how the Bible came into existence and who wrote it. And when. And who selected what would be included in the Bible - and what would not. And why.
Religious instruction that only focuses on the contents of the Bible and not on its history and origins will not help young people learn how to think for them-selves. Instead such instruction dictates what they are to think and hardly quali-fies to be called teaching. It should be called indoctrination and fanaticism that can lead to dangerous, potentially malevolent fundamentalism.
What religious ideas are your children acquiring? And does the fact that these ideas are communicated with the best of intentions provide a valid enough reason for teaching them? Whose intentions prevail in religious instruction about the divine?
The divine is so much greater than the seasonal stars of an evening.
Perhaps it is time to begin teaching young people to think for themselves instead of encouraging them to decide who is right and who is wrong and then to stick with those in the right in order to be on the safe and more profitable side.
Perhaps it is reasonable to begin teaching young people (and some older ones too?) about contact with the spiritual side of life. And with divinity. About miracles.
Of course it is way past time to abandon the taboos surrounding all the unbeliev-able things that most of us experience from time to time but only very few of us ever venture to talk about.
I have written a book about this.
A book you can find out more about here.
In friendship,
And one religion as totally correct - and complete?It seems as improbable that a single political treatise could constitute one's political philosophy as that a single religious book could be identical with one's entire religious belief system.
Concrete practical political principles are what count.
In the same way it's the divine as a principle that connects us to everything for which science has no answer.
For those who, in one way or another, have recurrent connection to divinity there is no talk of "one faith" but of an entirely vital reality. And thereby a suggestion of the truth.
Scientific truths are both practical and very exciting. But no one would posit science to be the only formof truth to be found(?)
And of course divine occurrences among us do not lose any of their worth at all because scientists do not choose to deal with them.
So therefore:
Dare we believe in the divine?
And dare we rethink what it is we believe?
While working on the book Lift the Lid - And Rethink Life over the past few years I have met many people who have told me "I'm a believer" or "I just don't believe in that sort of thing."
And something seems to suggest that no matter where we set the limits for understanding (or for insight into) the metaphysical world - regardless of whether we are discussing religion or something else we accept and believe in - many of us simply have to declare from the onset what we believe - and don't believe.
The more I have heard this declaration of "belief" - "non-belief," the more con-vinced I am that it plays the role of summary signal, on its own it is a statement entirely meaningless if it is not accompanied by something else and more that serves as an expression of one's own unique thought processes.
Otherwise "belief" runs the risk of becoming just as meaningless as justifying membership in a specific political party by stating "that's what my husband be-longed to when he was alive."
If you are a believer, you have to explore the core of your beliefs because read-ing the Bible and then declaring yourself a Christian, for example, are simply not enough.
Being unconcerned with the background for the Bible is just like seeing a docu-mentary without caring about who directed and produced the film or the reasons for its production at a specific moment in time. Or deciding that it doesn't matter who has joined the film-making process and edited, revised, and censored the ori-ginal version.
There is nothing sacred about the Bible. The Bible is a man-made, much-censored work. And in order for there to be any meaning at all in "believing" in the con-tents of this huge volume, you have to come to terms with how the Bible came into existence and who wrote it. And when. And who selected what would be included in the Bible - and what would not. And why.
Religious instruction that only focuses on the contents of the Bible and not on its history and origins will not help young people learn how to think for them-selves. Instead such instruction dictates what they are to think and hardly quali-fies to be called teaching. It should be called indoctrination and fanaticism that can lead to dangerous, potentially malevolent fundamentalism.
What religious ideas are your children acquiring? And does the fact that these ideas are communicated with the best of intentions provide a valid enough reason for teaching them? Whose intentions prevail in religious instruction about the divine?
The divine is so much greater than the seasonal stars of an evening.
Perhaps it is time to begin teaching young people to think for themselves instead of encouraging them to decide who is right and who is wrong and then to stick with those in the right in order to be on the safe and more profitable side.
Perhaps it is reasonable to begin teaching young people (and some older ones too?) about contact with the spiritual side of life. And with divinity. About miracles.
Of course it is way past time to abandon the taboos surrounding all the unbeliev-able things that most of us experience from time to time but only very few of us ever venture to talk about.
I have written a book about this.
A book you can find out more about here.
In friendship,
