Yesterday, I talked about religions, and how one of the major religions on the planet did some ‘major marketing’ to promote itself as the number one faith on the planet. But I do have some questions. Why are people so passionate about their faiths that they want to force others to follow what they do? Why do some people believe so much in what they are told by their religious leaders that they will do evil or plain old stupid things because they are told to do so? Why is it that religions teach tolerance, but that doesn’t seem to be anything practiced by their people? Just a few queries that I will take a bit more in depth as you read on.
All religions have had their times when they were the only faith allowed by one government entity or another. When people were found to follow other faiths, they were put to death. We’re not talking ancient times before Christianity became popular. It’s true that all religions had their times. But even as little as 500 years ago, there was something called The Inquisition where Christians tracked down people of other faiths and tortured and killed them. Why would people whose faith is to be kind and benevolent, whose original teacher (Jesus) told how we should turn the other cheek, do the types of things that were done during this time?
Back in the days of Robin Hood (or when Robin Hood was meant to take place), King Richard the Lionhearted lead forces on The Crusades. Why? Because the Moors didn’t follow the Christian religion, so they needed to conquered and converted. I do suspect there were other political and monetary motives involved, but the given reason was one of faith. And the interesting thing here is that all of the soldiers received blessings and forgiveness for anything they might do while on these journeys. Talk about a ‘get into Heaven free’ card. “Here. Go. Kill, maim, rape. You’re already forgiven so you’ll still get into Heaven.”
Of course Christians aren’t the only ones who did this. Mohammed told his followers that if they died in battle for Islam, they would go to their holy place. Hmm, talk about motivation.
So what is it with stupidity? In the movie ‘Men in Black’, Will Smith looks at Tommy Lee Jones and tells him that people are intelligent. His reply is that a person is intelligent. People are dumb, panicky, and afraid.
That must be true. Why else would people let other people be tortured and burned alive because they were different. This world has people that are different. Different cultures. Different mannerisms. Different languages. It’s the fact that there are so many differences that makes this planet interesting.
Each person has their own faith, even if that faith is no faith at all. Many follow organized religions of some sort. Some just believe in spirituality without having the need to be told how to be faithful.
Basically, the majority believe in some deity(s), or holy spirit, some being that could be called the creator, the source of all there is. From there stemmed teachers and religions, and religious leaders from the heads of churches that span countries to local leaders following their religion to tribal shaman. But what is interesting is that religion has changed so much, even in the last 2,000 years. Just looking at Christianity, we have Catholics, Protestants, Methodists, Baptists, and more. They all worship differently, yet supposedly follow the same deity. What changed from the time that the faith in their deity started to today? What caused them to be different? I’ll tell you what did. Man did.
That’s right. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that they should be different. Why? Did God come to each of these groups and tell them that they should worship differently? I have my doubts. So what were the motivations that changed the way people do what they do?
So the faiths and practices that we follow today have been filtered down and diluted from the original by followers that happened to be in a position of leadership. The Aztecs used to sacrifice people to please their Gods. Now, who was it that decided that this something must be done? Most likely there were hard times and the king demanded that the religious leader come up with an answer. To save his own skin, he probably claimed that he had heard from the Gods and had been told what to do. And they would keep doing it until things changed.
I’m sure you’ve seen the old stories where the natives throw the virgin in the volcano to please their Gods. Well, someone must have come up with this plan in hopes that things would change before his king demanded his death. I highly doubt that there is some special DNA combination that when mixed with molten lava will appease the Gods. (There’s the old cartoon that shows two older ladies being carried up this hill in sedan chairs by natives. The one saying to the other, “Well they weren’t too friendly at first, but they seemed overjoyed when we told them we were Virginians.”)
But while one question asks “who is making new rules?”, the other asks “why are people following them?” I mean, its one thing to listen to someone tell you that we need to throw someone into a volcano. It’s another thing to allow it to happen, and another yet to help.
Just because someone in the church said, “hey let’s torture and murder people”, why did everyone fall in line and say “OK”? Ever see the movie “Footloose”? It was about a town that banned music because it was evil. And everyone believed that to be so. Well, the movie was based on a real town that did indeed ban music.
So everything we learn as far as religious teaching goes has been watered down by man. Realistically, the Bible was written by men. What was left out? What was changed?
Some religions teach that believers of other religions are not true people and that they should die. Isn’t that the basis of those in the middle east that want to see us destroyed? Who decided that? What man decided that killing others was right? And why do people follow him? How many people followed Jim Jones into Guyana and then killed themselves because he said to? How much is faith and how much is stupidity?
What started me on this topic was something I read about St Francis of Assisi. At some point, Christians decided that nudity was bad. This caused people to stop bathing because it was bad to be nude. In fact, Francis pushed this to the limit and went unwashed for years. Of course when people stopped bathing, germs spread. Disease spread. This caused huge plagues and death. Duh. I guess it was some time after they wised up that they created the saying “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”.
Then there are the ones that think that their faith is the one and only one, and that everyone should follow it. The people in the middle east believe that. Many Christians believe that to the point that they go out of their way to make some people’s lives a living hell by constantly preaching to them. It seems King Richard felt that way.
So how do we know that what religious leaders are saying to do is right, or just made up? How do we know what to follow and what not to? When are we going to start thinking for ourselves and stop following blindly because someone says we should? When are we going to stop the stupidity?
Just wondering.