Religion (2)

A couple of days ago, I have a friend launching a personal thrust on my religion. For example, he questioned the validity of its teachings, and the highly dubious nature of the bible, and contended that religion is something we could all do wihout, since, in his opinion, religion has nothing but conflicts to offer to the world in the past century.

I came aross an article by a self proclaimed atheist, who questioned the need for a religion and the veracity of belief that religion is the undergirding of morality, and wihout the former there will be no latter. He brought up the fact that he has brought up his kids in an atheistic, non religios background and how they have turned out to be respectable, decent adults with a reliable and favourable sense of morality. He then questioned the moralities prescribed by the Bible, deemed them as archaic, unrealistic and maleficient , and finally concludes that it is therefore not neccessary to have a religion in order to be morality, in other words, morality and religions are mutually exclusive. Let us examine this.

The grey area between morality and religion is highly contestable. Let us set the record straight, morality does not equate to religion, vice versa. I do agree that morality does not have to depend on religion, and an aetheist can be just as morally upright as a religious subject. But the subtle difference is that while aetheist believes that the ability to tell the right from wrong is imbued in humanity itself, religious subjects believe that human itself is too incapacitated and blinkered to judge the right from the wrong themselves, and hence only a superlative form of being, such as God, is able to guide us towards such an ideal state.

In my opinion, the bible does not so much as steer me towards knowing what was right from wrong. Before I even muttered my first biblical verse, or conducted my first prayer, I knew murder was opprobrious, rape was deplorable, and grieviously wounding other people is unmitigated malice. However, lying to me is conditionally dependant, homosexuality is commiserative and animal torture highly loathsome. I have previously mentioned that the peripheries of morality are sometimes tangential or even overlapping in some case, in which we can all presume that aetheists and religious subjects ought to denounce such unpropituous act as murder. But when it comes to homosexuality, lying and other highly factious divisive issues, is individual autonomy and discretion truly sufficient, or even capable enough, to offer the answers or judgement?

The human mind is quivery and irresolute. And many people, me included, do not wish to yield to the caprices and whims of our imperfect nature. Deep inside, we all know ourselves how inconsistent and flawed our natures are. And because of this and this alone, we would rather submit ourselves in fawning, resolute obsequiousness to a divinely, omnipotent being,God himself, that transcends all human tentativeness, falterings and flaws. For example, let us consider the case of a homosexual. I will have to concede that logically speaking, pro-gays camp are much more terse and lucid in their reasoning. But let me demonstrate the tentative nature of human being, we judge by the context. In the case of a pro gay individual, what is he is sodomised by a gay in a public toilet? Cases like this of course, are far and few between in Singapore but it does happen. Will this change his opinion? Yes. Because he has been victimised and it is difficult for him to dissociate the sexual identity of the assilant from his nature. Truly in all communities there are black sheeps, and the entire gay community cannot be held accountable for an single act of turpitude and perversity, yet in reality this would happen because the fact that the assailant is gay will lend greater malevolence to the act itself and inevitably the whole community gets tarred by the same brush. So clearly this victim will vacillate from a pro gay position to an anti gay one. Such is the faltering nature of human nature, so strictly speaking many will choose to subscribe to their religion as a absolute guide. If it is truly difficult to judge an issue, it is better to leave it in the hands of God who has the autonomy and the power to decide for us.

There have been religious conflicts in the past century, but one must honestly question whether religion is the malefactor or human intolerance and belligerence. Religion is used by many as a refuge for personal tirade, or even in case of national conflicts, scathing crusades in sectarian warfares (such as Sh'ias and shi'ites). Religion do not dictate the killing or the intenion of such; human themselves propagate such misinformation, inflame religious emotions and invoked the word of God to serve their personal agenda against other religions they detest. And in other case, individuals grow up in environment that is intrinsically hostile and aversive towards other religion, and as a result they grow to internalise such hatred wihout even a slightest knowledge of the origins and reasons of hatred. Many have been awashed in such a vehement, pestiferous smog to such an extent that such unfounded hatred and disdains perpetuates down the generations. In my previous post, I suggested a radical proposition - that religion is merely a cloak, a subterfuge for bigotry and prejudice, whether intentional or not. Religion reduced to its most fundamental essence has never prescribed any form of violence, hatred or killing, yet it has served as a platform for people to stir, to mislead, to confound and to divide because of their personal odium and antagonism towards other racial groups.

And while admittedly Christians have yet to muster the bible and fail to conform and accede to the bible in its entirety (I doubt this would ever be possible), and even if we fall short of the highest standards of Biblical teachings, we are still steadfastly moving towards that direction, instead of any other. The Bible is more than just a book of values, it also provides us a dab of objectivity in a World of inconsistency and sentention. True enough, we might not be obeying the Bible, such as not shaving , yet we know that such disobedience is because of the constraints of our age and time instead of our own defiance and intentional disobedience. And even for those who condemn The Bible's highly improbable moral pedagogy, at least we find comfort in the fact that we don't follow in the footsteps of our own unreliable judgement. Many things in life are a result of poor judgement and erroneous lapse in decision making, so how can we extend such acts of judgements to other areas of our lives?

In conclusion, I find it so shallow and parochial to judge other religons because one has such an inadequate and insufficient understanding of such religion. Islamism bans the consumption of pork, The Jehovah Witness bans Military service of all forms, yet it is not within us to decide whether such acts are valid or not. Because the history and the intricacy of such religion far surpass our existence and too complicated for us to stomach. To hold a religion in contempt is to be disrespectful, because unlike normal food critiques, religion is not something one can ever fully comprehend, and it is as sensitive as, say, one's most intimate details such as sexual life. Criticism of one' sexual prowess is deemed as a demeaning indignation and an insult, and this view should also be allowed for religion too.