Religions

This is a BIG subject, which I will be addressing over a couple of weeks, with the direct support of Lena Winfrey Seder and perhaps you. Yes, I’m asking for your opinions and insights, you can leave a comment here (if you request I will not publish your comment or your name).

The subject I want to address is religion in general, and the similarities in teachings and structures, as well as the differences.

I do not believe that we all worship the same God. By that, I mean that our reasons for seeking God may be the same, but what we choose to believe defines God can be exceptionally different. What we believe God wants from us, and how we should praise God, are often diametrically opposed to other people who profess a belief in God. Almost everyone agrees that “God is Love”, but love means different things to different people, and is expressed in different ways.

I will start by saying that I was raised Christian, subset Baptist, subset Southern Baptist. I had the great fortune to have a minister who was an intellectual scholar of the Bible, and who inspired the members of his church to thoroughly understand scripture. Not by telling us his interpretation, but by laying out several interpretations, comparing them and expressing his own views and biases, and encouraging us to interpret for ourselves. Thank you Dr. Colton. As a result of Dr. Colton’s teachings, I investigated several other religions in my youth, various branches of Christianity, Eastern religions, and pagan practices. In the end I found that I eschew organized religion, which typically follows a charismatic local individual. I follow the teachings of Christ in an “organic” manner, and to provide a label for those that wish to categorize me, I refer to myself as a Zen Baptist.

This chart reflects the relative sizes of world religions. I was rather surprised by many factors, I suspect that Communism in China has skewed the numbers for Taoism and “Chinese cultural religions”, but these numbers are representative of several sources.

Relative memberships of world religions

You can see that “Christian” is the largest group, and within that group are some exceptionally diverse denominations.

Denominations within category “Christians”

There are many people, including myself, who don’t consider Catholics to be “Christians”. “What?” you ask, “How could the Catholic Church, founded by Christ and led by the apostle Peter not be Christian?”. There are several reasons, I will point out just a few here. Christ said in Peter’s presence, “Call no man Father“, then the Catholic church decided to call it’s priests “father”. Christ taught that the individual’s relationship with God is one on one, yet the Catholic church requires confession to a priest, who has the power to absolve your sins. Christ denied any importance to his mother, yet the Catholic church reveres her as a saint. This does not sound like the doctrine of Christ.

This of course is my opinion, and will no doubt piss off many of my friends and relatives. My point is this, just because something is called “Christian”, doesn’t mean that it fits some universal definition of “Christian”. The members of the Westboro Baptist Church consider themselves Christians, but I’m pretty sure a website titled “GodHatesFags” is an indicator that they know little about Christ. Mormons have written their own version (not translation but different ideas) of the Bible, as have the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Following this line of discussion, just because an individual describes themselves as belonging to a certain denomination does not mean they fit the definition of a member of that church. This goes beyond little things. I met a girl at a dance, and we dated for several weeks before I met her father. He was the minister of a church that saw dancing as a sin. She had not told me this, so when he asked how we met…well that was the end of our relationship. Not to pick on Catholics, but they tend to stand out as the religion least likely to be adhered to. They have very strong doctrine about birth control, and many if not most Catholics ignore it while considering themselves “good Catholics”. I’ve known people who have totally removed themselves from the church and still consider themselves to be Catholic.

I am using Christianity in this article as an example, because at the root of all of this, Christians are just humans with a particular set of beliefs. There is nothing genetically or psychologically different from any other sample of humanity as a group. So when I hear people say “Christians are this” or “Religion is responsible for that” I feel the need to correct them. People do things, there are good people and bad people, and those people may belong to a religion, or they may not. Since thirty three percent of the world is Christian, it would seem natural to expect Christians to be responsible for about a third of the bad things out there. No religion is a monolith.

Religion in general, and any religion specifically, is not responsible for the actions of people who wave the flag of a religion. It has been my experience that those who justify their actions with religion are likely to have little to no understanding of the religion they’re talking about.

With Lena’s assistance I intend to look at the second largest religion, Islam, next week, and I would greatly appreciate the input of anyone who understands their own religion and can contrast the public impression of their religion for future articles.

Understanding our similarities helps us appreciate each other, understanding our differences helps us appreciate ourselves.

Chapter two of this series, “Islam” can be seen here.

Call no man your father

To start with, there is a reason I chose to not write about this last Sunday.

Years ago, Emma and I would attend Catholic Mass together on Sundays. She, along with a large segment of the population, was born and raised Catholic, and had since fallen away from the church. Like many others, she insisted that she was Catholic, yet she followed very few of the church’s teachings. Another “Half-Cath” I had dated once said about converting to another religion “You can’t just pick and choose what you want to believe”. It was okay to choose what you considered to be a sin, but not okay to go to a church where everyone felt the same way. .

I enjoyed Mass. Emma tried a Baptist service with me once and just couldn’t take it. People wanted to talk to you and were friendly, the service ran far too long. She said “I want my religion once a week in a thirty minute dose”. So we would walk over to Saint Nicholas (yes, that was really the name) and do the Catholic dance, and on the way home I would explain what the snippets of scripture actually meant in context.

On father’s day one year I opened the missive to see which scriptures they’d be discussing, and there was Matthew, 23:9. “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven“. A small smile crossed my face. “I wonder what Father John will have to say about this?” I thought. Father John was a charming guy, I genuinely liked him. He had a powerful presence, and a strong voice. If you watched The Sopranos, he was very reminiscent of Uncle Junior. He read the scripture, and then went into an incredibly unrelated sermon. I wasn’t sure exactly how I would approach the discussion on the way home.

Emma helped. Even she had noticed the lack of connection. So I began with “you have to figure that you’re not getting the entire meaning when the scripture begins with the word “and”, don’t you think?”. When we got home, we went over the entire chapter. I’ve reprinted the most relevant part here, but the entire chapter is not very long.

23 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,² Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:³ All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.⁴ For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.⁵ But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,⁶ And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,⁷ And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.⁸ But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.⁹ And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.¹⁰ Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.¹¹ But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.¹² And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.¹³ But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

How amazing is that? It’s all about hypocrisy, and focusing on the hypocrisy within churches. Depending on your beliefs, these are the words of Christ, spoken years before the creation of the Catholic Church, or it is a fiction, created by the Catholic Church. Either way, the Church was aware of these words, and decided to create a hierarchy separating the faithful from God, and to call their teachers “Father”. Perhaps it is this scripture alone that is responsible for the Church keeping the Mass in Latin for so long, and frowning upon individual Bible study. Perhaps. I have another theory that I may or may not discuss on a later date.

I’m sure I’ve said it before and will most certainly say it again in the future. If you can handle a novel you can read the New Testament. At 138,020 words, It is longer than “A tale of Two Cities” and shorter than “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”. It is very close to exactly the average word count of the Great Novels, which is 136,604 words. You don’t need someone else to tell you what it says, read it yourself. Church is like Cliff Notes.

Read the book. That was the writer’s intention.