The One Thing I Can't Stand About Religions

[L.B.]

Really... I've read the Bhagavad Gita; GREAT fantasy/adventure tales. There have been relatively large-scale (for India, anyway) movies made. I would LOVE to see a big-budget Hollywood production.

but...

I've read a lot of Jewish folk-tales... Hasidic stories, mostly. Some very clever writing AND the occasional powerful moral/ethical lesson to be gleaned.

but...

Jain, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist... so many different perspectives, and yet so many interwoven ideas...

 

...but almost every single one of them just HAD to go and put some kind of exclusivity clause in their writings, their theology, their practical application of the things they teach.

 

You can approach these writings from any tradition; you don't have to convert... but you have to be taught by an "approved" master.

 

There is no "one path for everyone", they say... except it's THESE particular teachers who happen to teach the stuff that sure sounds an awful lot like a "one path".

 

See, stories are great. As a musician/songwriter, poet, street performer and character actor, I make my (modest) living on the power of stories.

 

The morality we share and the inventive, memorable ways in which we translate and transmit that structure to our communities and to the rest of the world are dependent upon stories.

 

It's only once someone starts to try to "corner the market" on the power of those stories (like the meaning in the story only matters if you worship this or that deity), or someone starts to ostracize others for their

"lack of faith" that I start to get very bothered by all this.

 

The thing is, I am all for the idea that there are transcendent, even supernatural forces that are all around us, and that we can aspire to much higher ideals than just eat, drink, sleep, shit, procreate and die. We can (and do) participate in creating beauty for its own sake, in making wonderful things out of words or paints or foods - things that defy both description and a rationale for their existence. They just ARE, and they're good.

 

It's when someone starts talking about how the transcendent and beautiful in life is all the work of one or another of the pantheon of invisible (usually) men in a sky kingdom somewhere - that's when my radar goes off, because Great Big Invisibles (GBIs, for short) usually really LIKE things like tributes and sacrifices, and eventually start to DEMAND and EXPECT those things, on pain of punishment, banishment from society, and some sort of horrible afterlife judgment.

 

The exclusivity clauses in all these religions almost always has to do with that "afterlife", too. I wish that these people could just stick to telling their involved, fantastic, inventive and epic stories without having to attach all the contractual crap at the end.

 

We could learn a LOT from one another - especially from the most ancient cultures on Earth, the ones whose tales and traditions FAR predate Hebrew and (certainly) Christian history.

 

I'd love to be able to appreciate the zeal, lust for life and colorful, meaningful messages and holidays and music and clothing and everything from so many cultures, but along come the people who stand to profit, by money or by power and privilege, and they tell us we can't do this or that, or that it doesn't make sense to believe this or that unless we ALSO believe in their GBI and his/her/its/their magical authority to judge and destroy.

 

Until people just start sharing their stories and cultures like we share food at a covered-dish supper, or like we share handiwork at a craft festival, we'll just have to keep fighting back against those who would narrow and negate what otherwise could (and would, and should) be massively significant, life-affirming and life-empowering stories.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Perhaps the exclusivity started when nations thought that their god/goddess/pantheon would not only give them rain and sunshine, but victory over other nations/marauders. That made the deity THEIR deity, and if favor was granted to them, then they were clearly the chosen ones, and so on. Then again, cults often thrive by having an allegedly exclusive claim to immortality. WE have the ambrosia; WE have the blood of Jesus; WE have the ark of the covenant; WE have the temple of Artemus; WE sacrificed our kids to _____, so you know we really are committed.