Re: Winona is a lesbian

Author: J.Amenta
Date: 1997/09/03
Forums: alt.fan.winona-ryder

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>It seems more likely to me that religions (especially ancient religions,
>but all to some degree) were established to take advantage of man's
>basic spirituality and unfortunate ignorance about celestrial events in
>order to provide an elevated lifestyle for an elite group. As scams go,
>it's brilliant. No religion has ever tried to explain anything that
>conflicts with its own world view and exalted position, and has indeed,
>gone to great lengths to suppress knowledge that threatened its elitism.
>As for motivation, you're right: it's money. In the last analysis, I
>agree with Kierkegaard - far more harm than good has been done in the
>name of religion. And I believe as long as we confuse spirituality with
>religion it'll remain that way. BTW, Pliny the Elder, a reknowned
>tourist of the ancient world, records many instances of temple
>prostitution in lands outside Italy, which he found distateful because
>of Rome's tradition of the Vestal Virgins, but which he admitted
>provided the temples with plentiful incomes.
>--


Sufism had no scriptures, no temples, no mythologies, no exalted
state, or priest system to control the masses. And yet Sufism can be
considered one of the major religions in Persia for thousands of
years. Sufism believes in the symbolic nature of the world, and Sufi
leaders (often poets) taught through symbols and parables.

Although I do share your belief that a great deal of religion that
many people are aware of today, especially in the West, are religions
based on political elitism and ugly and insidious built in control
mechanisms ("God, I am unworthy to receive you, therefore, save me
from this world you so kindly left me in, since I am so unworthy and
valueless!") I disagree with your statement that "no religion has
ever tried to explain anything ... " I cite Sufism as a case in point
(not that I am a practicing Sufi, I am not.)

A great deal of harm has been done in the name of religion, but it was
Nietzsche who wrote: "He who as a why to live can bear with almost any
how."

And I am personally of the opinion, as Victor Frankl once wrote (not
that I am jewish, I am not) that "If there is a purpose in life at
all, there must be a purpose in suffering and dying." Religion
attempts to give an answer to this suffering, to give the WHY so
necessary to keep living. Without religion, I think the human race
would have succumbed to degeneracy a long time ago - and in fact, I
think because of the materialism prevalent in our day and age, we are
seeing some of the degeneracy or lack of a WHY in many lives.
Look at the unscrupulous corporate world, or the unscrupulous mass
media, the increasing poverty everywhere, and the lack of clear meaning
for many of us.

Frankl also writes: "...to live is to suffer, to survive is to find
meaning in the suffering." Religion attempts to find that meaning so
essential to survival.

But religion may also very well have its basis in the unconscious
itself, and the archetypes that are a driving force in all psyches.
From whence does this moral and immortal desire arise within us? And
whence these dreams that teach, portend, and even illuminate the path
of consciousness to self growth and self knowledge?

As Emerson writes in his essay Immortality, "The skeptic affirms that
the universe is a nest of boxes with nothing in the last box." But
then goes on to write:

"Do you think that the eternal chain of cause and effect which
pervades Nature, which threads the globes as beads on a string, leaves
this out of its circuit, - leaves out this desire of God and men as a
waif and a caprice, altogether cheap and common, and falling without
reason or merit?"

John