The Trouble with Religion (part 2)

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The Trouble with Religion (part 2)

Ibrahim ansariBismillah rRahman nir Rahim

The story of this world has often seen religion employed as a weapon.

Much of the history of civilization exploited religion as an engine for barreling forward. The driver is usually the clerics, royalty, military or warlords. Religion became a tool for advancing those with power to gain more power.

For example, looking back towards ancient Egypt the clerics, with their knowledge of reading and writing, gained access to the treasury of information- the narrative of the past and present, as well as accounts and taxes. In Chinese history the enlightened Lao Tzu’s Tao or ‘Way’ was replaced by the Analects of Confucius which extolled everyone to be content wherever they were and doing whatever they were born into. This certainly made it easier for the Emperors to govern with a strict and implacable hand. India certainly bought into the caste system as a means of control for several millennia, quoting the sacred texts for their reasoning.

The same goes for the decline of the Roman empire, the Ottoman empire, the Japanese warlords, Spain’s Conquistadores and the European Crusades. Religion served the conquerors, allowing them a moral excuse to pillage and colonise.

It is no great leap to look at religion today and wonder at the baggage it is carrying.

Here we are at a time when some of those with alleged spiritual authority are being accused and convicted of abuse of various genres. As a result, many of us have thrown out the idea of a God or deity. After all, we are scientific. We scoff at primitive belief systems. Of course if it is based on the primitive ideas of magical intercession and miraculous cures then maybe that’s not a bad idea. But the idea of unity?

What if our desire for understanding things spiritually relates the very human habit to comprehend patterns? We are made to be curious. As we grow we gather knowledge about how things work and how they don't work. This constant accumulation of data and organizing it into comprehendible shapes drives us to understand how things work from the tiny microcosms of quarks and atoms to the Great Big Universe of Fun.

Even from a scientific perspective we are all connected in so many ways. Through the cycle of energy (food, breathing) we are all using the same materials, shifting from energy to matter and back again. We are connected socially and physically through our need for each other. Oh? You are an individual? Great! Let me see you assemble a car, fabricate shoes, spin cotton, construct a dam, weave a rug, create a cell phone. Or to even mine ore to extract copper for a simple wire… All by yourself… We are not ‘individuals’. We are connected in every possible way, and we depend on each other to survive and thrive. We are one.

Regarding spirit, meaning breath: our inhalation is passed to us from billions of plants, insects, animals, our great, great grandmother… and our exhalation will continue on to billions more. So on a simple, scientific perspective we are all connected, we all come from the same source, we follow the same principles all life must accept. The same con

Salaam Alaykum, murids, seekers, curious and interested listeners,

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