Read John's sermon delivered to the Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on 2/26/06
The one question I have not been able to find a suitable answer is the question of religion. I was born and raised Catholic. Catholic Church, Catholic School, 4 years as a devoted Altar Boy. Many in my church and in my family pegged me to be a priest back then. My how we change as we grow up.
Now I find that I just don't agree with any of the organized religions. From my viewpoint, they all feel that their way is the only way, and if you don't go to their church and follow their rules you might as well reserve your seat in hell now and get a window seat while you can.
I even spent a few years looking into pagan religions, especially those that could connect me to my Irish ancestry. I had always heard that pagans are "open-minded people that love to discuss all types of religions and respect everyone's right to walk their own path."
Sounds nice in a chat room, looks nice on this monitor doesn't it? But I found some of the same closed-mindedness within the pagan ways as I have outside of it. Not to say that all pagans are, but neither are all Christians either.
I have also read the Tao te Ching and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. You don't here a lot out of Taoists or Buddhists. No Crusades, no Jihad's. Peaceful people sitting on the ground, meditating, waiting for enlightenment. Now while I do like a lot of what I have read, and some of it resonates deep within as it pertains to my desires to live a simple life, here is one of my divergences from Taoism.
According to the Tao te Ching
The Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth While naming is the origin of the myriad things. The way I read this, and other passages similar, is that Tao gave birth to everything below it. The Heavens, Earth, and everything, including the "Named" Gods of other religions.
So my problem? It's not that Taoism believes in a great Unnamed Power. But they have created a level of spirituality above the other religions. A sort of "my God is greater than your God" mentality. However, I do like a lot of what I read, and am continuing to read and study some more and I encourage comments from any and all who read this.
So for those of you what have read this far, what do I believe? I will use the following analogy for descriptive purposes.
We have all put together a puzzle, right? Either with friends, siblings, parents, whoever. We take the 500 pieces out, scatter them around the floor and begin studying them. Each piece is shaped so that it fits with other pieces and forms one obvious picture.
Stay with me here and this will make sense. To me, the world's religions are the puzzle pieces above. At one time, there was one picture made up of all these pieces. But at some point, some one came along and scattered the puzzle pieces to the far corners of the globe. Buddhism pieces fell in Eastern Asia, Hinduism in Southern Asia, Muslim pieces in the Middle East and Christianity in Europe and then carried over to the Americas. Many different flavors of aboriginal religions also fell across Africa, the Americas and the south Pacific.
Each region looked at it's puzzle piece and thought that was the picture itself. They were so blinded by what they had been given, they couldn't see how the edges of their piece were rounded, and might fit with something else. To them, the piece was an only child, as unchangeable as the earth's surface. If only they could have recognized that it was just one piece, they could have sought out others and put the puzzle back together, maybe we wouldn't be dealing with Arabs vs. Christians, Jews vs. Everyone, and other religion based wars that have plagued mankind.
How did I come to these thoughts. If you study enough of the religious texts, and I still have a long way to go. But you will see that many so called "different" religions all follow a similar outline. Most of them originate from a single person, many have similar stories told within their Holy Books of floods, resurrections and the like. They all tend to have one or more Gods that can inflict punishment upon the unfaithful.
So the difference isn't really fundamental. But as each region found their piece, they used their own language to name it. So we get Allah, God, Jesus, Mohammad. But it's the same thing. From UH-OH: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door by Robert Fulghum -
Arguing whether or not a God exists is like fleas arguing whether or not the dog exists. Arguing over the correct name of God is like fleas arguing over the name of the dog. And arguing over whose notion of God is correct is like fleas arguing over who owns the dog."And from the same story -Water is everywhere and in all living things � we cannot be separated from water. No water, no life. Period. Water comes in many forms � liquid, vapor, ice, snow, fog, rain, hail. But no matter the form, it�s still water. Human beings give this stuff many names in many languages, in all its forms. It�s crazy to argue over what its true name is. Call it what you will, there is no difference to the water. It is what it is . . .As it is with water, so it is with God."So that's that. That is my thoughts on religion as I have it today, 2/27/03. It might change at anytime as I continue to read and study more. Feel free to email comments to this email address.
John
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