food for thought...
"Religion is like language or dress.
We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised.
In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same thing.
That life has meaning.
That we are grateful for the power that created us.....
Faith is universal.
Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary.
Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca,
some of us study subatomic particles.
In the end we are all just searching for truth,
that which is greater than ourselves....
Science tells me God must exist.
My mind tells me I will never understand God.
And my heart tells me I am not meant to."
-Vittoria Vetra in Dan Brown's adventure novel,Angels and Demons
Are we all the same?
Can we understand God?
your thoughts, please....
posted by Aurora @ 6:39 AM
4 Comments:
I think Ajahn Amaro said it best:
"From my experience, I see three levels of truth that can be found in all spiritual traditions. The first is the level of history or "what actually happened." The second is the level of myth. The third is how the first two layers map on to our own psyche and experience. These three are interwoven in all religions.
Using the example of the Christian or Hebrew Bible, one can see that for the past 150 years, academics have been going through the text questioning its authenticity and validity. This is a bit like a little kid dissecting a slug to see how it works and then becoming upset that the slug can no longer move around or eat lettuce. The dissection of religion takes away its true meaning."
So how do we strike a happy medium? How do we understand a text without interpreting it, thus projecting our own values upon it? How do we translate text without changing its original meaning, thus how will we ever know the original meaning of a translated text?
I had a first hand experience with this 'language barrier' issue just last night. The word "fébrile", roughly translated into English means 'feverish'. But the word 'feverish' does not hold the same meaning in English as it does in French. There is no way of translating 'fébrile' in a single word. The only way that my conductor was able to explain the meaning of 'feverish' in the way he wanted us to understand 'fébrile', were through the inflections of his voice and through his body language. The role of the Storyteller is more important than we realize. But as soon as stories are written down, an essential element of meaning is instantaneously lost. The story, once full of nutritious meaning, is thrown to the dogs and ripped apart for the sake of righteousness according to an arbitrary moral.
In my opinion, we all place to much emphasis on TEXT and not enough on the act of DOING. In my current opinion, I think the Buddhists have it right when they say that 'desire' is the human quality we must overcome to fully understand God and to be one with the universe. The DESIRE to do ‘good’ is nothing compared to the ACT of DOING good.
In the end, however, does that even really matter? Sure it does. Because it makes us think! But, I think, that the sooner we ACCEPT eachother, that as human beings we are all essentially GOOD and EQUAL, instead of mearly TOLERATING our meager differences, the closer we will be to God.
Thus, my conclusions, so far, to your specific questions...Yes, we are all the same, No, we probably can't understand God...but we can experience Him......Her......IT.......HAHA!
Wow...I think i'll post that ^^^^ hehe
Hmm… interesting. I think that this is true for the most part. We are all the same. We love and laugh and feel and hurt and cry and bleed – the same. The vast majority of religions proclaim experiences through various versions of “God-talk” call it prayer, meditation or sitting in a field in awe of the creation that surrounds us. I also think that if in our arrogance, we claim to “know” God, then we have limited her to what we can understand. We have put him in a box that we are comfortable in our understanding. And since when was religion about being comfortable? I choose to believe with the language of Christians – I choose to fall in love with the life of Christ, with the stories of the God of the Hebrews and take them into my being – I am different because of these stories, and I think it is in that difference, that similarity exists.
Wow, Laura and Kristen! Good points, both of you. Maybe this is how I should post more often! I'm liking the feedback!
I too, am more of a DO person rather than a TALK person, or at least am learning how to be more of a DO person....it's a scriptural concept, too...the whole "faith without deeds" thing. You can find some good stuff on it in James 2:15-20 if you're interested! Much love, cuzzes squared!
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