The only progress of religion is in terms of replacing one set of beliefsMETAPHYSICS : OF REALITY
4.3 THE RISE AND FALL OF MONOTHEISM
& Religion in General
" This Life's dim
Windows of the Soul
Distorts the Heavens from Pole to Pole
And leads you to Believe a Lie
When you see with, not thro' the Eye."
.....William Blake
"
PRIEST : May the Lord have mercy on your soul.
This article is a critical analysis of the role of organised
religions in the downfall of societies and cultures.
Science is also viewed here as an organised religion in
which individual experience is nullified and degraded in
favor of "objects" that can be experimented with in the
temple of science : the laboratory.
The word
"religion" is used throughout this work mostly as referring
to the organised form of religion, that is, a set of beliefs and concepts
that a society or culture believes to be ultimately true as a matter of
"faith" without questioning of its validity in time or place,
and without
examining or acknowledging the fundamental assumptions behind
those beliefs and concepts.
"Aside from general
human inadequacy, a good deal of the blame for this
rests with education, which promulgates the old generalizations and says
nothing about the secrets of private experience. Thus, every effort is made
to teach idealistic beliefs or conduct which people know in their hearts they
can never live up to and such ideals are preached by officials who know that
they themselves have never lived up to these high standards and never will.
What is more, nobody ever questions the value of this kind of teaching."..Jung
In a tribal, shamanic society
( see also article : social structures and
constructs ) religion is purely a personal affair, and has no specific
doctrines. It is purely a personal quest, and any interpretation or
presentation of the results of this quest are not considered as
definitive, as is the case with organised religion.
"A religion true
to its natures must also be concerned about man's
social conditions. Religion deals with both earth and heaven, both
time and eternity. Religion operates not only on the vertical plane
but also on the horizontal. It seeks not only to integrate men
with God but to integrate men with men and each man with
himself."......... Martin Luther King, Jr.
The only progress of religion is in terms of replacing one set of beliefs
and rituals with another set of beliefs and rituals. Religions have never
and can never promote
unique individuals, only decadent institutions.
" Religion is the soul of soulless conditions, the heart of a heartless world,
the opium of the
people." .........Karl Marx
"Imagine there's no religion......"
John Lennon's lyrics in the song "Imagine".
4.3.1 PRIMITIVE AND SHAMANIC RELIGIONS
"We also have a
religion which was given to our forefathers, and has been
handed down to us their children. It teaches us to be thankful, to be united,
and to love one another! We never quarrel about religion."
.......Red Jacket (Seneca) replying to Missionary Cram in the 1800's
Early man lived in close
proximity with nature, interacting and co-dependent with what
was naturally available for survival, development or creativity and the essential
difference
(that is known) between man and animals is in the neocortex
structure of the brain,
particularly the frontal lobes that generate new thinking, experiences etc. How this
huge
gap between man and the next lower intelligence creature came to be is a mystery
that
is not satisfactorily answered by the theory of evolution, which states that the
organs or
parts evolve according to their usage, whereas in context to the human brain the reverse
is the case. That is, how come that a structure evolved, whose usage
potential is only now
beginning to be utilised.
Anyhow, early
man was for most of the time engaged in the activities of survival, but
compared to the man of today was still comparatively free to reflect or meditate on the
mysteries of life and existence. The more important factor was the isolation factor, that
is, man's thinking and experiencing apparatus was not constrained
much by social and
cultural beliefs and agreements. Thus the construct or
structure of the mind of early
man was simple and unconstrained, which means that
the potential experiencing
capacity of man was vastly more than modern man. Some people, once free from
their
daily chores, or in any case living in isolation, knew from their resultant
experiences in
isolation, that the world was not simply
determined by what was recorded and
observed through their senses.
Only the faculty of translating these experiences
into a coherent
system of form and thought was undeveloped.
It is well
known that early man was intuitive and instinctive,
and the rational faculty,
although indispensable for survival was
undeveloped and unsophisticated. So many
of the natural phenomenon were not well understood in terms
of their cause-effect
relationships, but understood more so in terms of causative
entities that were hidden
and not observable by the physical senses but by intuition, instinct or sheer experience.
From as far back as
the known history of mankind, it had been believed in all
cultures
of the world that there are entities / elements other
than the sensory based and
observed physical world of the elements of matter, only most of the times there was
no
formal distinction between the two. Primitive people all over the world lived in
harmony
with nature and they understood that all living creatures were not only physical
entities
but also had a quality that although
could not be perceived by normal consciousness,
that nevertheless was a vital element of all living creatures. But
since the primitive man
was not formal and institutional, but rather
instinctive and intuitive, they also realised
that since this vitality of living creatures was not perceived by
everybody, and further
that whatever was perceived was interpreted differently by
different people, it was
not only not necessary to agree amongst themselves about its
meanings,
interpretations and significance, but also that this was a highly personal matter.
And so, an informal
metaphysics was the characteristic of early
cultures :
Reality and its manifest, Nature,
was understood as a manifestation of two
distinctive elements : The Animate
or Spirit ( present only in the living ) and its
counterpart The Inanimate or Matter ( or the
non-living). Since there was no formal
metaphysics as such, this understanding was never institutionalised by the
seers and
shamans and it is doubtful if it is appropriate at all to do so unless the
context in which
this is to be used is clear.
So it was a
widely held belief that the world was not only physical ( as perceived
by
the sensory systems ) but also more importantly had an
hidden element that could
be perceived only in altered states of
consciousness, or through special states of
sensory deprivation or certain experiences like a near
death experience. Further,
that the "essence" of this hidden
element (termed mostly as an equivalent of the
word Soul), since it was truly hidden, manifest itself as a
Force or Power or Spirit in
all living creatures, big or small. A living being's consciousness
was understood to be
primarily a property of this hidden element, a consciousness that
existed prior to the
physical birth, and also that which continued
after death. ( This is not the same thing
as saying that the "same person" is reborn in an cycle of life and death, that
is, this is not
the same thing as "reincarnation" in which the entire "persona" is
reborn ) Most cultures
had a small minority of people that can be termed as Shamans (
again a controversial
term ) who either naturally, or taught or self-developed, had the ability for
perceiving
elements of non-physical realms or aspects of the world of Spirits ( or the
parallel world
of non-physical entities or forces). The term Shaman is not a formal one
and no one was
titled as such, but is a distinct term from say, a priest. There was
no formal institution
such as shamanism: for the non-physical realms were and are by their very
nature, dream
like, whereby giving definitive form to any such experiences itself
distorts its nature
and mostly also its significance.
Shamans were
therefore, a one man religious institution, subservient to no authority,
did not seek agreement for their actions although they had a vital social role to perform
:
that of metaphysician, healer, guide or even leader. But Shamans
tended to or had a
predilection to remain in the fringes of society so that the social
forces themselves do
not devour the individuality of the Shaman.
So, some shamans even disguised themselves as ordinary people so
that they do not
become known and accessible to all and sundry and any interaction took
place at their
own initiative. Most people in tribal societies also feared,
shunned or kept out of the way
of a known Shaman. Again, this is not necessarily a characteristic of a
'Shaman', for many
of them had a very social inclination. It is then appropriate to say that the
Shaman had
no fixed religious belief system as such and the term Shamanism
does not refer to a
religion.
Here one can also use different terms like brujo or sorcerer or tantrik but all these
terms
have a somewhat different context, appropriate according to the cultural
context. But the
important point is that the Shaman was the informal spiritual leader of a small
society or
tribe, a leadership that took responsibility of the tribe as well as
contribute positively to its
social needs without being corrupted by the
trappings of the power that the Shaman
wielded, since the power of the Shaman was derived from the Spirit. And this
was always
appropriately demonstrated by the Shaman. The second point is that another person of the
tribe or society rarely challenged the leader Shaman, since
there was no need to do so.
Almost no one in these simple social setups craved for social leadership and
responsibility.
Social leadership and
responsibility was thrust upon the Shaman by virtue of his proximity
to the Spirit. A Shaman that was not intuitively recognised as such or
deliberately hid
his/her nature remained in the fringes and usually in isolation.
4.3.2 MYTHICAL BELIEF SYSTEMS
" If we go to the
beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created the
gods ; that fancy, enthusiasm or deceit adorned or disfigured them
; that
weakness worships them ; that credulity preserves them ; and
that custom
respects and tyranny supports them in order to make the blindness of
men to serve its own interests." ..........Holbach
The transition of a tribal
society led and maintained by its shamans to a town or city
society is a transition from living with nature to
a human synthesised living based
upon developing rationality, its manifest technologies, planning
and consolidation
of security with the development of organised armies
for defense and expansion.
This movement from simple, natural, but
high risk living to complex and secure
living is no doubt a manifestation of human nature, but how it
develops, and what
are its precipitating factors and how it kills an essential vitality of our
nature that
alienates man from nature, are not well understood and not much study has
gone
into it. Simply because everything is brushed aside as "evolution".
But that this so
termed process of evolution also destroys
something in its wake is never
acknowledged by the "evolution dominating" cultures .
With the
growth of societies from tribal to town or
city civilisations, almost
all societies became post shamanic, that is, their Shamans became
lesser and lesser
and finally almost extinct. The Shamans of tribal societies were
gradually replaced
by the priests who did what the shamans almost never did: the institutionalisation of
elements of non-physical reality in the form of myth based
religion and worship of
deities. The mythology of the Greeks and the
Hindus is a clear example of this
transition. In this transition, mythical beliefs, rituals and worship
become dominant
features of the priests who follow a definite pattern of practice and believing. In other
words the unknown and hidden elements (non-physical) of nature are given definitive
characterisation, and mythical
stories are developed according to these agreed upon
( by the priests) characteristics. Thus the Spirit is characterised
by Gods and Deities,
personified in various ways, and the predatory or
trapping elements of the
non-physical realms are characterised as Demons, Devils etc. These
mythical belief
systems are the first forms of religion of various societies and
cultures. Experience
and power give way to beliefs, rituals and
practices that yield definitive social and
cultural values that become deeply embedded in the
psyche of the societies.
The individual gives way to a
social being, whose behavior is dictated
by the developed
and developing norms of Society.
A deviant is eventually considered a misfit and even
insane. The Shaman is now
considered as a potential threat - a destabiliser, sometimes the very
embodiment
of evil itself - to be quickly put to death,
preferably by being burnt alive.
Philosophies are
then invented to provide meaning and support
to an already
developed or developing social - cultural structure.
The faults, wrong doings and
defects of the social system are shoved under the carpet
by sophisticated philosophies
that serve only to justify the status quo. Sometimes
a strong willed or powerful
individual throws a spanner in the works by questioning the very
foundations of the
society, and sometimes the message hits some people
and a change occurs - even
splitting society into the old and new systems. But
basically all societies looked for
stability and security - the driving forces
behind social structures. This quest for
stability and permanence led in two opposite directions -
the consolidation of all
non-physical elements behind the concept of one God ( or
mono entity) and on the
other extreme, the consolidation of the objectivisation of physical elements behind
Science. But first the concept of one God had to exhaust its effectiveness in the
quest
for permanence, although people like Gautama the
Buddha taught that change is the
only permanence
of existence, and that everything in this world is
transitory and that
all fabrications (conceptions) are bound to decay.
But mankind looked for eternal solutions - the absolute - the
always true - valid for
all times. This was conceptualised in various ways : as "The Truth" or
"Ultimate Truth"
or "Ultimate Reality" or the "Absolute" or "The One", and
certain cultures even dubbed
the whole world as a huge illusion that had to be transcended in order to be released
from this state into a state of union with this "One". Certain philosophies,
metaphysics
and religions were the offshoots of this - mostly in the eastern cultures, but none of
these provided any positive solutions to the rapidly degenerating societies of the East.
When the primitive world
disintegrated into spirit ( non-physical ) and
nature ( physical ), the West rescued nature ( physical ) for itself. It was
prone to a belief in physical nature and only became more entangled
in it with every painful effort to make itself spiritual. The East, on the
contrary, took mind for its own, and by explaining away matter as mere
illusion ( Maya ) , continued to dream in Asiatic filth and misery.".....Jung
In the West, after a short
upsurge in philosophy in the Greek civilization in which
Socrates questioned the very fundamentals of society, religion and politics through
the process of rational inquiry beginning with an examining of one's own self, the
focus shifted towards the material world in the works of Aristotle, for whom
"The
Truth" was to be ultimately found by the intense study of the physical.
The quest for "The
Truth" continued. The Physical Sciences seemed to fulfill this
quite admirably, but only when the dominant culture had exhausted its interest
and utility in the concept of one God , which process had anyway destroyed the
cultural diversity of Europe under the banner of Christianity
"Under the influence
of scientific materialism, everything that could not be seen
with the eyes or touched with the hands was held in doubt ; such things were
even laughed at because of their supposed affinity with metaphysics. Nothing
was considered "scientific" or admitted to be true unless it could be perceived
by the senses or traced back to physical causes. Belief in the substantiality of
the Spirit yielded more and more to the obtrusive conviction that material things
alone have substance, till at last, after nearly four hundred years, the leading
European thinkers and investigators came to regard the mind as wholly
dependent upon matter and material causation."....Jung
The other extreme
of religion, the pattern of behavior is not too different, because
religion too has after all had become more of an institution, with its holy books,
its wise preachers and priests, the various prescriptions of rituals and
practices.
And most important of all, a system of fixed beliefs ( whether
consciously realised
or not). Even those religions that claim that they have no fixed belief systems are
perhaps the most dogmatic in terms of the socially manifest beliefs, making their
claims laughable to say the least.
Almost all religions
are based upon myths about non-physical elements of Reality. These
eventually develop into hard and fast beliefs that are beyond questioning
and doubt.
All other beliefs are considered as false and misleading. It is no
surprise that all religions
instead of harmonising society eventually only get bogged down in conflicts that are
as
trivial as terminology. For most religions, terminology itself becomes synonymous with
truth. Terms and symbols are endlessly worshiped.
If the hotchpotch of the
various Gods and Goddesses or Deities was confusing, then
Monotheism, the belief of one God was definitely an improvement because it did
for at
least sometime made societies more cohesive and
non-divisive. In any case, the central
idea propagated by all monisms was essentially a good one: that the
source of all that
exists, physical or non-physical is singular and one, and that everything in this universe
has been created from or by this source. But this did not provide lasting and
satisfactory,
for the assumption inherent in all belief systems founded on monism is that this source
must therefore be the controller, the willer, the doer etc of all that happens in the
universe - a fatal assumption of most monotheisms in terms of its social impact.
It follows from the article
"The nature of Duality .." that a unitary anything must manifest
itself as a multiplicity of dualities in the existential domain in space and
time, since the
space - time domain is a differentiated state, and not a unitary state. It may
be argued that
the space-time domain is an illusory concept, having no ultimate reality, but firstly, we
do
not live in ultimate reality ( the ultimate reality or infinity is atmost only
experienced),
and secondly, it follows then from this type of thinking that all
conceptions are illusory.
If all conceptions are to be avoided ( being illusory) then there
is no need for language,
reason, discourse, even symbolism, that is, all
aspects of human activity is then illusory and
should not have existed ( by this logic ) in the first
place.
Incidentally, certain religions do blame the creator for having created
a mess in the first
place and that the goal of life in these religions is to break the
cycle of life and death.
Life is then conceived by these religions to be a state of negative, illusory existence
whose
cycle of birth-death-rebirth has to be broken so that rebirth does not take place.
They form cults in which a certain skill or technique like meditation is applied to their
(paying) clients or subjects so as to achieve a state of bliss in which all problems of
life
disappear or become irrelevant. Many of such 'spiritual' cults become big business
houses having large financial assets and properties 'donated' by their wealthy clients.
These cults can quite appropriately be called 'The Merchants of Junk Faith'.
"Junk is the ultimate
merchandise. The junk merchant does not sell his product
to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve and
simplify his merchandise, he degrades and simplifies the client.".
.......William S Burroughs
4.3.3 The Rise and Fall of Monotheism.
( & The Fall of Religions in General )
" There's a Bible on
that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire—poison and
antidote." .....Bertrand Russell
Monotheistic religions
have the central belief that the purpose of life is a unification with
God, or at the very least, a realisation of God through the worship of God in a
method or
way prescribed by the founder of the respective religion. Even the polytheistic
religions
follow the same pattern except that they have a variety of Gods or Deities to choose
from,
suitable according to the occasion, vocation, requirement etc etc.
All monotheisms claim that their way is the correct and only way to know and interpret
the "will of God" and the others are degenerate paths that need
to be brought under their
fold. Some do it with aggression and others do so with a sugar
coated pill. But the real
purpose of all religious systems is to bring all of mankind
under their interpretation of
the "will of God". And herein lies the blunder of all religions ( with the
possible exception
of Buddhism - being an open ended religion ) : that they seek to
subserve the individuality
of human beings to their idea of the will of God, at the same time vehemently denying that
they are doing anything of the sort - only following the command of God. Now many of the
founders of these religions would be turning in their graves at the plight of the people
who
blindly follow in their steps but then most of these great souls will have only themselves
to
blame for not warning that merely following a set of beliefs or practices
only leads to
decadence and degeneracy, because it doesn't allow for the dynamism
of individuals
to express itself and stifles any new thinking, conceptions or creativity, all of
which are
crucial aspects of human nature.
"While man still lives
as a herd-being he has no "things of the spirit " of his own ;
nor does he need any, save the usual belief in the immortality of the soul.
But as soon as he has outgrown whatever local form of religion he was born
to - as soon as this religion can no longer embrace all his life in all its fullness
- then the psyche becomes something in its own right which cannot be dealt
with by the measures of the church alone"..........C G Jung
The bottomline of all
religious belief systems is that the subjects or the followers of the
religion or cult do so in a similar fashion as a give and take deal in society.
The individual
gets a sense of security and cooperation in return for his compliance or
conformity with
the norms of that religion or society. Religion - a system of fixed
beliefs serves for most
people as a cushion for their minds- something to depend upon to resolve the
troubles of
their minds. Historically, all societies have had at least some sort
of mythical beliefs to
support their social structures, and it is only in modern times that
we now have societies
that have beliefs that are grounded mostly or even totally in
science or what may also
be termed as materialism. This however too will prove to be as flawed as
monotheism
- the atom as God is hardly an appropriiate substitute, the worship of which carries the
free gift of complete destruction.
The basic flaw of most
religions, and monotheism in particular is that these belief systems
have no room for or do not account for the power and uniqueness
of individual beings
and therefore fail to bring about a sense of responsibility in their
subjects. Most of these
religions suppers individuality, and any critical analysis by anyone is immediately
counter-
attacked. Their only collective purpose is subservience of all of humanity to their
perceived
ideals based upon their interpretation of the will of God/s This interpretation is further
based upon the sayings or scriptures of their founding
leaders, whether composed by
themselves or their followers. Most of the diehard followers become captive
morons
subservient to the masters or to just a fixed doctrine that is taken to be sacred
and eternal.
"Religion prevents our
children from having a rational education; religion
prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents
us from teaching the ethic of scientific cooperation in place of the old fierce
doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the
threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the
dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion." ......Russel
The fall of monotheism in
particular and religion in general took place due to the
following perceived causes :
( it should be noted here that some of the critical analysis below does not
apply
to Buddhism, Zen and Daoism )
1). Denial of
Duality: Monotheism denies and condemns any kind of duality or dualism
whereas the truth is that the existence of life and human consciousness/perception in a
time-space axis is a manifestation of a duality of counterparts. The very
conception of
one-ness or unity that monism insists upon itself implies or yields a counter concept of
not-oneness or multiplicity or duality. The twin concepts of space and time in the exist-
ential domain is an example of this fundamental duality, but both these, while acknow-
ledged, are denied as illusory concepts. ( if these were not a true pair of dual concepts,
then it would be possible to have a single concept that fully includes both, which is
inconceivable ). The very concept of illusion as the counterconcept of reality itself is
proof of a duality in thought that is even denied ! ( Which means that all thoughts must
be illusions ! ) Anyway, life itself is considered to be a state of illusory existence
that
must be done away with so that a peaceful union with god is resulted, which directly
contradicts their very assertion that its all a unity. If everything is a unity, then we
all
are already in union with this unity, or god or whatever and so there can be no illusion,
there can be no separation in this unity. The concept of illusion is thus itself an
illusion.
If we accept that there is no duality of any kind then everything is reality itself, and
no
illusion can take place because if there is illusion, then we have a duality of reality
and
illusion. This argument is side stepped by monists by saying that duality is itself the
illusion ! It is impossible for them to understand that the very concept of illusion ( or
what is illusory ), as a counter-concept of the concept of reality ( or what is real ) is
a
supposedly meaningful duality of concepts that they are using in their thought process.
The first flaw
of monoism therefore is that its subjects tend to deny a
fundamental truth
of any existence of life and thereby are usually not attuned to current ongoing
reality.
(This however does not hold true for all believers of monisms, for some exceptional
individuals even in a monism belief system are well attuned and responsive to their
current reality. Ultimately, an individuals ability to deal
responsibly with the current
reality rests more upon one's own personal moral power (one's spirit) than upon the
belief system one is operating from. )
The point however is that a monism belief system does not acknowledge personal
power or power as the attribute of an individual but only as an attribute of
God. An
even more significant point is that by denying the self, such people
although effective
and efficient in their own lives, since they are not self-analytical, do not realise that
they are indoctrinating their circle of associates and
followers to copy their own
system of beliefs, irrespective of whether this is valid for others or not.
2). No religion
promotes self-analysis, rather the self is considered to be
illusory
by most,and therefore no question of self - analysis arises according to them.
Therefore
the followers of a religion are rarely self- critical and it follows from this that they
never
are able to realise the limiting conditions of their fixed beliefs. The construct of
their
values becomes a closed system that refuses to even
acknowledge that they could be
providing a justifying shell for certain wrong doings that they may not even be aware of.
3). Denial of the
Source of Being, Experience and Action from within, rather
it is insisted as sourced from God, Deities, etc All religions teach
that both
reality as well as illusion are outside oneself. Some say it explicitly and some
implicitly.
If this is not taught, the religion cannot acquire subjects and so cannot become a
distinct
cult or society that worships a doctrine which has entities or deities to be worshiped or
certain rituals and methods to be adopted. Religions and monisms deflect from
reliance
upon inner resources of individuals, rather a mono entity is attributed as the source of
all
resources. The individual is made to believe that he/she has no resource or power of
their own, its all vested in one source on which the individual is totally dependent.
Rather there is not supposed to be an individual at all, only the illusion of
individualness
has to be overcome, or better still, obliterated altogether.
"The disastrous idea
that everything comes to the human psyche from outside
and that it is born a "tabula rasa" is responsible for the erroneous belief that
under normal circumstances the individual is in perfect order...C. G. Jung
4). Ignorance that
they are themselves operating from and projecting a
belief system. By not recoginising that they themselves are operating from
a belief
system having underlying unquestioned assumptions, they invariably also propagate
people to be non-critical and non-analytical about their own selves, since in a monism
the self is not recoginised as a distinct entity but only as another manifestation of an
undifferentiated continuum. ( at least that is
the operating and highly valued central
belief, but this truth is not recoginised by them). This then becomes an
easy escape
or justification for the subjects of that religion of all
their wrong doings. It therefore
becomes the norm for every believer of any religion to simply never question
the
rightness or wrongness of their own actions so long as they pay the regular
visit to
the temple or church to which they are aligned. Just a nod, bow or a ritual
performed is presumed to be a substitute for all sins and wrong actions.
Which then leads to the next point.
5). Emphasis
and higher value for worship, not for experience, effort &
Right action All religions follow a fixed doctrine
consisting of beliefs, rituals,
procedures and also a code of morals. No religion is fully open ended and self
-analytical. The validity off its beliefs are not to be questioned and must be
assumed to be absolute and a matter of "faith". No wonder then that
all religions
only promote value for worship or so called "faith", which, as each of
their systems
claim, is the only correct way. The subjects of these religions are
never encouraged
to experience and to experiment on their own, only to act in subservience to the
doctrine of that religion, which they believe to be the only Right
way. All religions
talk about morals but that is all that they do - just talk about morals. Do this
thing
this way or that way. They have it all figured out for you - all you have to do is
just follow the direction they have already charted out for you. Now if you deviate
even a wee bit from what they have already so painstakingly programmed for
you, well, you are a rebel or worse - a degenerate, a psychopath.
6). Emphasis on
conformity not individual uniqueness : Most religions
thriveby making their subjects
conform to certain doctrines or set of beliefs that
are never to be doubted or questioned, rather only to be
propagated further.
They do not admit to any individuality and uniqueness of any individual,
and
divide the world into believers and non-believers (
another duality that they are
not even aware of ! ). They fail to realise that
positive dynamic inputs are
provided by exceptional individuals without
which any institution stagnates
and degenerates.
7).
Institutionalisation of the Spirit : The failure of most
religions to realise
that the Spirit cannot be institutionalised or confined within a system of
beliefs
and practices. Yet most of them try to do exactly that without realising or admitting
that they are doing anything of the sort and so the institution that they create
cannot adapt itself with change, because by the very process of institutionalising
devours the Spirit.
8). Suppression of
natural instincts and spontaneity : Again, most religions
consider natural instincts to be animal like behavior and they discourage
spontaneous, insightful and instinctive behavior as unbecoming of humans. Animal
life is considered to be lower, and humans, especially the believers, are considered
to be divine, the non-believers presumed to be lost souls, degenerates etc.
9). Kills creativity
and takes man away from nature No religion encourages
the creative potential of humans. No religion deals with or creatively channelises the
destructive potential of human beings, but tries to suppress it, thereby suppressing
creativity also, failing to understand that there is a thin dividing line between the
two and that any human institution must first be oriented towards addressing this
basic aspect of human nature. Religions fail to go deep into human nature and the
human mind and therefore lose touch with nature altogether in search of an elusive
and empty purity. No religion encourages the use of intelligence to resolve personal
and social problems. No religion promotes an effort towards understanding nature.
No religion encourages fresh intellectual ideas.
10). Fails to
provide creative social inputs : Since most religions only end up
supporting social status quo, they fail to bring about conditions of creative dynamism
in society, without which any socio-political system is bound to decay and degenerate.
10). Failure
to go into the roots of cultural shortcomings by not analysing
cultural and social values and their current validity. Religions tend to promote only
traditional values of the culture in which they are established and so can throw no
light on the faultlines and shortcoming of these values and their relevance
to current reality.
12) Failure to learn
from other cultures by the correlation of cross-cultural values
between different cultures, since almost no religion encourages learning from cultures
that are divergent or even in conflict, to their held values.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good
people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for
good people to do evil things, that takes religion." .....Steven Weinberg
4 The Rise and Doom of Scientific Materialism :
The Atom or Quantum Worshippers
" Modern neurosis began with the discoveries of Copernicus. Science made man
feel small by showing him
that the earth was not the center of the universe. "
.......... Mary McCarthy
Poetry is opposed to science, and prose to metre."..
................Samuel Taylor Coleridge
There remains a
vast field, traditionally included in philosophy, where scientific
methods are inadequate. This field includes ultimate questions of value ;
science alone, for example, cannot prove that it is bad to enjoy theinfliction
of cruelty........Bertrand Russel
After the developments in the physical
sciences, being based upon physical observed
cause - effect related phenomenon than can be obejectified, defined and verified by
anybody, and the resultant properties of such objects been identified, it has become
almost a permanent belief and presumed to be true that the physical reality is
complete and is the whole of Reality and thus there are no
non-physical elements to
it. For all scientific purposes, i.e., the study of the objectified physical
universe this
assumption does not pose any problems, however, when we try to
understand Reality
in its whole or we look for meaning, either for one's own existence or generally that of
life, the scientific-materialistic assumptions and the consequent results
leads to a dead
end, since all they can really comprehend are
lifeless objects to be studied without any
personal interference, opinions, desires etc. Of course there
is study of biology, society
etc. that tends to go beyond the strictly physical, but still even there the
underlying
assumption remains the same, the effects are same, and only
those results that are in
accordance with established procedures, methods etc are acceptable. These too are
determined by a class of people who dominate the establishments and institutions
related to the various specialised fields. The field of Physical Sciences
is a closed
system in which only those are admitted who have already been
programmed and
trained without even realising it, that the underlying assumption
is that reality is
purely physical, or in other words, that which cannot be detected by
scientific
instruments and thereby quantified or measured does not exist but is
merely a
byproduct of the mind and its tricks, or dismissed as supernatural
nonsense.
It is in this aspect that science itself resembles a religion, that is, it never
questions
its most fundamental operating assumption.
" Naturally, the new
nominalism ( scientific ) promptly claimed universal validity
for itself in spite of the fact that it too is based on a definite and limited
thesis
coloured by temperament. This thesis runs as follows : we accept
as valid
anything that comes from outside and can be verified. The ideal instance is
verification by experiment. The anti-thesis : we accept as valid anything that
comes from inside and cannot be verified." .... C. G. Jung
This situation
came about after remarkable breakthroughs in Science that
established
clear cause-effect relationship of many phenomenon that were earlier based
upon myths,
leading to the belief that all myths were false and that scientific materialism could
explain
the whole of Reality in terms of definite cause-effect
relationships that could be put into
precise mathematical formulas. This was believed by even as eminent persons as
Einstein,
who even refused to believe that there was an inherent uncertainty
in the behavior of
sub-atomic particles by making the famous statement that
"God does not play dice with the
Universe".
Einstein was on the lookout for an equation that could
establish a relationship between
all energy, matter and forces in the universe- a unified field theory.
Despite quantum theory
and Schrodinger's equations proving that the behavior
of matter at the sub atomic level
was probablistic and not determinate, scientists continue to believe
that all of nature and
reality can be described by the laws of Science yet to be
discovered. And even if everything
cannot be explained by science, well so what ?
Technology provides for the solution to
every problem, or so they believe without doubt, almost as a religious faith.
We see here that two
fundamental axioms of science are : 1) every thing in the universe
can be reduced to a cause-effect relationship in a mathematical form and that
2) any thing
that cannot be empirically observed by trained scientists and thereby objectified, does
not
exist. These are the axioms that are taken to be true beyond question and examination.
In this sense science itself is another religion, although scientists do not acknowledge
even
this. The fact that the "laws of science" are taught or rather programmed
into everybody, all
over the world without regard to their validity, limitations and
unquestioned assumptions
makes it the most dangerous kind of religion that is being propagated,
whose disastrous
consequences scientists are not even aware of.
The deadly mix of
purely linear, rational, logical thought without an artistic
element in it,
and the survival domination tendencies, produces a gigantic build up of a science based
social
automation, wherein everybody is programmed to think in only one way -and
that is : that
there is no reality beyond the linear cause-effect truths of reality determined
and established
by the scientific method. Any ideas contrary to this presumption
and method is considered
the work of an insane mind. Science is then the ultimate religion of the
mechanistic culture
that dominates all other cultures, forcing them to become subservient to it.
" Science has
destroyed even the refuge of the inner life. What was once a sheltering
haven has become a place of terror. " .......C G. Jung
This is
one religion that does not and will not accept that its methods applied
to society
leads towards a destructive path. But then which religion can see the folly of its errors,
omissions, rigid, unexamined, ways ?
"An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it"......Orlando A. Battista
"Prayer begins where human capacity ends."..................Marian Anderson
NEXT ARTICLE : 4.4 Paradigms of Culture
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Section Base Page :
4.1 Metaphysics, What is it for ?