Your Religion Leveled Up!

During my research concerning Ethiopia I happened to chance upon a relatively minor reference to a faith called the Baha'i, which had  a fair number of followers there.  Further research revealed that Baha'i is a religion with Islamic roots (in much the same way that Christianity has Jewish roots) that purports to being the most appropriate religion for the modern world (which is an odd way of putting it, but more or less in line with the claims of most other religion).

It's attitude towards other religions is where it gets interesting, however.  Rather than denounce other faiths as false, they believe that each of them was a sort of update, a new covenant between God and the world which was socially and spiritually appropriate to that time and place.  Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, etc, are each viewed as Messengers of God, who each arrived to teach a way of life which was closer to God's truth than the last one (since God is too great for a human to comprehend, all religions are just approximations which become gradually more correct with each successive generation.

Though they believe that their religion is the most correct, the still choose to trace their lineage to every other religion in the world, emphasizing the unity of human religious experience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahá%27í_Faith

Ethiopia

The origin tale of Ethiopia underscores the long-standing continuity of existence which it has enjoyed, both in terms of a nation and a culture.   The early Ethiopians adopted certain Judeo-Christian customs and adapted them to their own lifestyle.  This had the effect of making them more resistant to alteration caused by the influx of missionaries and religious invaders which other African nations had to contend with.

Since they were already following "civilized" religion, there was no excuse to invade "for their own good."  Thus, what they have done can be construed as some sort of spiritual inoculation, taking in something in order to become acclimatized to it and avoid being overwhelmed at a later date.

A Green God

Rabbi Zalman, a proponent of Eco-Kosher

With all of the fuss over the fluctuations in the economy, the political strife into which we have been embroiled abroad, and the passing of the political torch at home it cannot be denied that we are living in a time of changes, both good and bad.

One of the most eye-catching, at least for me, is the stance being taken by a large number of fairly conservative religious leaders on a subject which eventually has an effect on every man, woman, and child on the planet: the environment.

For a long time religious leaders have stayed quite on the subject or have followed their (usually conservative) politics on the subject, meaning that most advocate for environmental preservation were either more or less religious or in some way affiliated with New Age thought (a mode of spiritual expression which finds little traction with the more staunch proponents of religion in our country).  This, combined with their over the top demonstration tactics, had the side effect of relegating most of them to the status of crack-pots in the eyes of many Americans.

Now however, religious leaders from many different faiths are starting to speak up in favor of environmental preservation (or at least awareness) and starting to put their weight behind a lot of environmental reform.  Their rational for this actually makes a lot of sense and basically boils down to:  "God gave us stewardship over the Earth, so we should damn well watch over it."

This is a development which I find to be greatly positive, the bulk of the religious establishment utilizing their influence in a beneficial way that is helpful to all.

http://kosherfood.about.com/od/kosherbasics/a/ecokosher.htm

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/green/environment.html

That Voodoo That You Do

Reading the article on conceptual blending got me thinking about syncretism the blending of religion in general, the evolution that a faith undergoes when it encounters another.  Of particular interest to me is Voodoo, both the Haitian variety and that practiced in Louisiana. 

African slaves, faced with the destruction of their culture and their religion by their new masters found a way to blend their old ways with those of Catholicism and the local Indians, creating a religion which both met their spiritual needs and was able to pass undetected (or at least mostly unmolested) while surrounded on all sides by a hostile and alien faith.

This syncretism is the ultimate test of the strength of a religion.  Nothing in this world can remain static without eventually falling into stagnation and dying out.  Neither is it possible to avoid encounters with alien modes of thought or speech.  Thus, true long term survival demands adaptation and change.

A good metaphor for this phenomenon would be the composition of glass versus steel.  Glass is technically harder than steel, with stiffer molecular bonds.  But this makes it brittle.  When steel is struck with enough force to damage it, it bends and dents, becoming partially deformed but remaining essentially intact.  Glass, on the other hand, shatters at the first blow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Voodoo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodoo_(folk_magic)

Toss it all in the Blender

The idea of conceptual blending is useful because it allows us to draw meaningful comparisons between otherwise unrelated or incompatible religious dialogues.  It also allows us to more easily transmit ideas from one person to another.

One of the most important aspects of religion is that it is self-perpetuating, with each new generation being inculcated in the religious beliefs of their elders.  This is usually the area where problems crop up, however, since as of yet there is no known method to transfer ideas directly from one head to another.  Our words, which serve us so well for real world phenomena, become less useful for discussing events and forces which are by definition outside of our frame of reference, a situation complicated by the differing values which are attached to some words by different people. 

Blending allows teachers to take large, difficult concepts and break them down into a simple format which is more readily comprehensible to their listeners.  This can eliminate much of the confusion associated with religious thought, which often deals with extremely complex ideas, which in term can serve to bring people of different creeds closer together, by showing them the similarities between their modes of thought.

The possible drawback, of course, is the fact that sometimes the message is over-blended, lost in whatever allegory or rhetorical formula is being used.  This is problematic to both the uninitiated, who are driven away by obscure or poorly explained dogma, and to the faithful, who can often draw the wrong message entirely from their sources.

The Power of Christ Compels You

One of the things which was brought to mind for me in reading St. Augustine's work was his obsession with demons and his attribution of all sorts of (admittedly fantastic) phenomena to them.  

When I noticed this I started to think about all of the other ways in which both Christians and other religions attribute their misfortunes to supernatural intervention.   A great many psychological illnesses and syndromes, for example, are thought to be the work of demonic possession.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoA-dBREM5c

In many cultures diseases are thought be caused by demons, the deaths of livestock or crops is thought to be the work of witchs, and there is even a superstition (still fairly common today in some parts of Africa) that a man's penis will can be stolen by a sorcerer and hidden away somewhere.

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2319603620080423?feedType=RS

This got me to wondering why the belief in these agencies of supernatural evil was so widespread and universal.  After awhile I realized that it was part of the same mechanism which brings about belief in gods.  

When we are young children we often have difficulty telling the difference between animate and inanimate objects, especially when they pose obstacles to us.  The chair which falls on us or the door which slams on our fingers is doing so deliberately, we think. 

As we grow older this idea fades away and we realize that these things have no will of their own, but we also internalize the idea that things do not just occur on their own: they must have some kind of motive force.

Thus, we have the tendency to attribute things to an invisible force when we do not know what caused them to occur.  Good things to God (or gods), bad things to demons.  If early man didn't know about disease contagion or weather patterns, these very dangerous events would seem like deliberate attacks upon him, which in  turn would lead to rituals designed to avert these disasters, a well known facet of religious experience.

The largest problem with this occurs when the demon explanation is retained even at the expense of a more logical explanation (such as disease being caused by bacteria) is presented.

Saint Auggy.

Once you get past St. Augustine's apparent obsession with demons, he seems to be advocating a sort of pack-rat mentality towards learning, wherein every single fact could be used to get a clearer view of the scriptures and is thus worthy of learning.

This idea of learning as an approach to God is something which has very deep roots in Christian tradition, despite an equally strong tendency for reactionism and closed mindedness.  Some of the groundbreaking scientists in the western world where strongly christian (Newton, Copernicus, etc) and we pretty much owe the survival of our written language to a few monasteries in Ireland.