Religion Essay continued...
Perhaps it's the need to belong to a group, an innate tribalism, the need to have an external enemy or group to project negative feelings onto, the
need to feel superior to others,. When did "I feel there is something more to this life" become "I hate the followers of such and such a
religion".
These negative traits are not just hallmarks of religion, but nationalism, and political movements.
The central problem is not one mass movement or another, but man's willingness to give his power to external structures, and his stubborn defense of
them even as they lead him to unhappiness and even death.
Religion is not the cause of the crimes man has committed over the past milenia of strife and discord. None of the 40 or so armed conflicts currently
taking place are caused by religion. War is caused by greed, stupidity, and the need to dominate, religion, like democracy, has simply served the
power mongers as a convenient banner to rally and motivate the masses to their own ends.
We cannot "let go" of religion, patting ourselves on the back for having "evolved" beyond it, if we merely transfer the same egotism and
dysfunctional behaviour that we left behind onto the new religions of science, politics, economics.
Any time a large group of people relinquishes control to a small group of elites, corruption, dishonesty competition and often outright brutality are
the tragic and inevitable results.
We have to liberate ourselves from this ridiculous self-imposed psychic tyranny before it is to late. The existence of God has not been satisfactorily
proven one way or the other, but the majesty of nature and the world is apparent to anyone that has witnessed a bull, rose or thunderstorm.
* * *
If God, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, the Space Aliens, Maitreya or a twelve-armed Elephant Goddess exist don't exist, we have to do things on our own. If
they do exist, they are obviously waiting in the background for us to figure out certain things on our own.
It is not to late to break into the compartment of the runaway train and steer it to sanity and sobriety.
We suggest leaving aside the religious debate for now, and agreeing, Christians, Muslims, Atheists alike, that we are living in an awesome, fantastic,
fragmented world that has incredible potential if we are able to cooperate to resurrect it. In a world of physical pain we must turn from the
debating table to the streets, fields, and places of poverty and work step by step to undo the unnecessary suffering of this planet.
[edit on 13f20096pmSat, 21 Mar 2009 12:56:32 -050032 by HiAliens]


