My Religion Can Beat Up Your Religion!

Religion, in its purest form, is an individual quest for the answers to life’s most elusive questions: How did we get here? What happens when we die? What is the purpose of life? Is there a higher being or greater power than ourselves? To what do we owe our existence? What do we owe each other? Man is a thinking creature, and it is in his nature to seek answers to all that he can know. But for those things that he cannot find conclusive proof, man ascribes the answer to a force bigger than himself, often called God. Over the course of humanity, different groups of people have found different answers to these questions, and through their interpretation of their world, have created their own version of God. The result is a smorgasbord of religious thought and theory, passed down through the millennia, ingrained in the culture and societies of our world. And as the cultures of the world began to engage each other, either through trade or through war or through serendipitous encounters, the constructs of religion were put to the test.

Because religion provides an answer to things that can’t be proven with tangible evidence, and because mankind has an insatiable appetite to understand why things are, once a culture has embraced its religious theories it is hesitant to accept the religious thoughts of other people as valid. And because the gods are assigned with such power and reverence, it is considered unwise to go against the common practices. Still, over time, religious concepts have changed as man himself has changed, and what was once the prevailing religion of the day is now relegated to mythology status or, even lower, superstition.

It is undeniable that religion has played a major role in the development of our cultures, and that it still does today. The desire to ascribe the miracle that is life to a higher power is as much a part of humanity as our need for oxygen or water or food. Our eagerness to please the gods helped shape behavioral actions into what we now know as morality. Religions seek to bestow favors on their gods in reverence for the gift of life and nature that the gods surely provide. Such rituals reinforce religious thought and become part of the standard practices of daily life. But religion is also used as a tool for controlling the people and for creating enemies where none need be. Religion is used to divide people from each other, in spite of their otherwise common ground. On one hand, religion offers peace and purpose. On the other, it invites only misery and disdain. How this dichotomy is even possible would be a mystery were it not for one thing: the ideals of religion are simple; it is man who screws it all up.

The simple fact that there are so many variations of religious thought should lead a rational mind to conclude that either all of them are completely wrong, or all of them are at least partially right. Indeed, a quick review of varying religions’ basic tenets offers a surprisingly common premise, that the purpose of life is to attain happiness and appreciation of the world and all that it has to offer, and that to live a purposeful life one should treat others well and strive to do more good than harm. If, in fact, all religious teaching focused on these basic ideas, there would be much less strife in the world today. If the end result is the same, at least in terms of the way people relate to each other, does it really matter the manner in which these ends are met? The reality should be that the method of belief is secondary to the desired goal, which is peace with oneself, one’s world, and one’s neighbors. Whether you get there by praying to a single god, through offerings to multiple, minor deities, through meditation and introspection, or by secular means should be irrelevant, provided that you cause no harm to others in the practice of your chosen religion.

Of the existing major religions in the world today, you could probably divide them into two major sub-groups: the one’s that believe in an actual God, and the one’s that ascribe supernatural traits to the natural world itself. (Interestingly enough, to an objective mind, even these distinctions are not really that different. Whether you believe in a single “God” or a natural “force,” the omniscience ascribed to it often yields the same consequences. The real difference is in the description.) Those that believe in a single God are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In fact, the “God” of all three is the same god, and all three groups trace their ancestry to a single man, Abraham, and his sons. Judaism is the oldest of the three, going back some 4,000 years. Christianity could be describes as Judaism 2.0 and Islam as Judaism 3.0 (or Christianity 2.0), both chronologically and ideologically. Those religions that take a more naturalistic view towards religion include Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Daoism, and Confucianism. Hinduism, the oldest of these, some 6,000 years old, confers multiple minor deities with various traits and powers that taken together become a kind of natural pantheon of completeness. Buddhism branches from Hinduism. Daoism and Shinto view connection with all things and nature as essential to reaching a state of perfection.

Each religion believes it has found answers to the questions that have no answers, at least none that can be proven. Each religion knows the way to eternal paradise. But just as there are many different doors to an opera house, so too may there be many different ways to human completeness. For some of society, no religion is necessary at all.

The promise of religion to the individual is one of knowledge and peace. Unfortunately, religion is not taught to us with that in mind. Rather, religion is ingrained into us from an early age, and whatever our particular religion may be, we are taught it to the exclusion of all others. And to a point, I suppose that’s fine. But eventually, it becomes important for us to learn a little bit about other people’s religions and ideas, if only to reaffirm our own teachings for ourselves. To learn another’s point of view does not have to jeopardize your own beliefs, nor does it need to lead to prejudice or hate. What difference does it make what I believe, so long as I am not harming you or anyone else? How is my choice of religion any more offensive than the color of my hair or the kind of car I drive? Why should someone’s religion cause them to be my enemy when I’ve never even met them?

Of all the things that can divide mankind, religion should be the last. It is not a limited resource like water or oil or food. It is not an environmental or biological concern, like pollution or disease. It does not concern itself with territory or power or fortune. Religion, at the individual level, seeks none of those things. Even at a local, congregational level the purpose of religion is for a community to share their similar religious beliefs and rejoice in their common bonds. Religion, at its heart, is about peace and purpose. To use it in any other way is to negate any good it has and to spit on the very gods it worships.

Religion fascinates me. As a child of the western world, my practical exposure to religion has been of various Christian denominations with a smattering of Judaism mixed in here and there. All I know of the other main religions (and some minor ones as well) has been learned through reading, or talking with practitioners of other faiths. I have never visited a mosque or shrine, and while I’ve been to many, I do not attend church. I often feel that organized religion tends to indulge the worst facets of humanity while only professing to strive for the best. But whether I follow a specific brand of religion, or none at all, is irrelevant to the bigger topic at hand. What’s more important is to understand why religion has become such a divisive force in our world and what we can do to change that. I hope you stay tuned, because this conversation isn’t over yet.

A Question of Trust

The world in which we live is steadily becoming increasingly cynical, or at least it seems. We’ve come to expect our politicians to be corrupt and dishonest. We’ve come to see our businesses as greedy and unsympathetic to the plights of their workers. We view each other through tinted lenses that paint us as red or blue and we assume all strangers are inherently dangerous. We’ve lost our trust in our leaders and in each other. And as the level of trust breaks down, a self-fulfilling prophecy is born. We expect a politician to be corrupt and when we find one who is it validates our premise, reinforcing our view and perpetuating the impression. Trust further erodes. It is the same with how we view corporations, or teachers, or policemen, or neighbors, or each other. But the stitching that holds together the fabric of our society, of any society really, is an ability to trust each other. Without trust, society becomes nothing more than masses of people in the same spot, each looking out only for themselves.

But what is trust? How did we lose it? And more importantly, how do we rebuild it again? Although their are different levels of trust, the basic concept of trust can be defined as having a sure reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing to do that which they have been tasked to do. Whether one is referring to a trust between a parent and a child to adhere to a rule or provide care or implying the duty of an elected official to place the community needs above their own personal aspirations, trust relies upon individual honesty and integrity. We learn, through actual or vicarious experience, who we can trust. As children, we are brought into this world with an instinctive trusting nature. In order to survive, we must trust our mother to care for us, to nurture us. And unless this trust is breached early in life, we gain a capacity to learn to trust those around us. We also, as we age, gain the capacity to evaluate whether the recipient deserves the trust we give so freely. Those who promise things they can’t deliver soon lose our trust, whether they are our sibling, our employer, or our governmental leaders.

For most people, trust is not an absolute condition. Indeed, it is probably difficult to name more than a few people you might consider completely trustworthy. Human nature, being what it is, almost guarantees that at some point in our lives, we will damage a relationship of trust with someone, either purposely or unconsciously. A friend needs help desperately and we promise that we will lend a hand, but at the hour of need, we are called away to something else. The trust has been damaged. We may not lose the friendship, but we’ll probably not be asked for assistance again. Your friend may still trust you to pay your share of the dinner tab, but it may not go much farther than that. Efforts to rebuild that trust require us to go above expectations and work twice as hard to regain what may have previously been an unquestioned facet of a relationship.

Trust between friends or family is the first layer of trust that builds and stabilizes a society. Without this basic level of interpersonal trust it is impossible to expand the concept of trust into society at large. Societies are held together by a common goal and a trust that each person is working towards that goal with their own contributions. So as we learn to trust on a personal level, and as we acquire those traits that enable others to trust us, each individual becomes responsible for becoming a contributor to the greater society through employment or public service, by paying taxes and adhering to common laws, and by doing that which they are tasked and have agreed to do. But just as we learn to expect integrity from the people around us, we also expect integrity from the social institutions that make our society great. We expect our employers to treat us decently and pay us fairly. We expect strangers to obey the laws and we expect the courts to enforce the laws. We expect corporations to follow the law too, and to offer goods or services that deliver what they promise. We expect our schools to educate our children with the facts of science and mathematics and language. We want to trust that these entities, these non-human organisms, will adopt the trust engendering traits of the humans who operate them, and that these organizations, once in possession of our trust, will not betray it.

When it comes to government and other social leaders, gaining and maintaining trust with the community is an even more complex matter, one that today seems to have been deemed unnecessary at best, non-existent at worst. Political cynicism is at great heights, in large part because of decades of the polarizing and demonizing tactics of the political parties, but also because of the lack of integrity in elected officials, and the corruptible nature of money, power, and access traded between corporate heads and politicians. A half-decade or more of seemingly unending corporate meltdowns coupled with a political class that is increasingly out of touch with its constituents and completely ensconced in its own PC spin machines has left a bitter scar on the trust between the governed and the governors. (These same problems of trust can be applied to the geopolitical world of international politics as well, or to the fissures caused by religious differences around the world.)

And yet there are levels of trust within each of these layers of trust. We can reasonably trust that certain conditions will be met by our employers, but we can’t reasonably trust that those conditions will remain throughout our career. We can have security in our trust that the government will continue to provide a measure of public safety services, but we can’t always be sure that they will be effective or adequately funded. We may trust certain things about each other or from our leaders, but not others. To a degree, that may be a healthy trait, for blind trust requires no effort from the recipient and is easily and often abused. But trust is a two way street. In order to get trust, one must earn trust. And trust is earned with honesty and the ability to follow through on ones promises to the best of ones ability.

It’s pretty hard to trust our politicians these days. Regardless of your political ideology, members of both parties are tainted with the corruption of our electorate system, practically forcing them into the beds of special interest groups and corporate donors in order to feed the cash cow of political success. They hide their real motives behind flowery obfuscations and ineffective programs while positioning themselves or their benefactors to reap the bounty of the nation’s efforts. They espouse semantics as an effective rebuttal to wrongdoing while continuing on the present course of business as usual. Yet as citizens, we are not much better. We ignore elections in droves, apathetically assuming that nothing can change. We dissect every aspect of a candidate’s life whether it has relevance to the desired office or not. We live for the scandal. We drink up the distractions. We feed the flames.

So what is the solution? If the trust between everyday people and the leaders of our country- business, social, and political- has become stretched to the breaking point, what steps can we take to rebuild and eventually maintain the necessary levels of trust for society to flourish? Although we have become a pretty cynical society, there are still many basic levels of trust operating fairly well across the board. And although there are many Common Sense reforms that could strengthen those levels of trust, a simple reckoning between the government or business or social leaders and the general public would be a great start.

People want to trust each other, if for no other reason than that it makes life a whole lot easier. But trust requires honest information, and it is long past time that we begin to demand an unadulterated accounting from our government and our corporate heads with regards to their true intentions, plans, or goals for our society. We must be prepared to replace those sitting in the chairs of power if they refuse to act with honesty, either at the election box or with our wallets. Further, we must hold these people to their word and expect that they will follow through with what the say they will do. No longer should people in power be allowed to claim undeserved credit or ignore the will of their constituents. (A caveat here would be that elected officials would first have to ensure that their constituent’s wishes do not run contrary to the principals of individual freedom or social cohesion.) As citizens, we must shed our cloaks of apathy and return to the political arena. We must support meaningful election reform (to be discussed later) and encourage more candidates to run for office. We must quit buying in to the politics of divisiveness and instead embrace Common Sense.

Maintaining trust and even expanding it will require hard work, vigilance, and enduring cooperation among all the members of society, from the schoolhouse janitor to the President of the United States. It may well mean a complete overhaul of our political class in favor of untainted, public minded individuals without ties to the lobbyists. It may well mean radical campaign and election reform. It may well mean taking a serious look at who we are, where we want to be, and how we want to get there.

Honesty builds trust. Integrity builds trust. Success builds trust. It’s just simple Common Sense.