tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1367161100956691682.post5054177976385934825..comments2024-01-28T09:52:30.550-08:00Comments on Arash's World: Ode to Life Or How Religion is Opposed to LivingArash Farzanehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000344680925876563noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1367161100956691682.post-14576167136418869352015-07-10T12:03:32.218-07:002015-07-10T12:03:32.218-07:00You can clog up my column anytime with your insigh...<br />You can clog up my column anytime with your insightful and well-written comments, dear Vincent! And for the most part I do agree with you, but there are some clarifications I would like to make as well.<br /><br />To begin with, if I had not added the passage of religion being the antithesis of life, then I would have thought my post to be rather tame or "lame." See I need to stir up some (but not too much) controversy or at least to have a slight edge or twist to my writing.<br /><br />I am aware that I am lumping terms when I speak of mainstream religion. But the thing is anything that is mainstream is pretty much conforming to similar ideals and sets of beliefs and therefore, this is not a misnomer. There are, I accept, exceptions to the rule, of course.<br /><br />Now you claim that I am judging from the outside, but I am not sure you can make that claim. In fact, this may be an insider's look and criticism; I may be a believer who is simply stating that the stronger focus of death and suffering should be softened with harmony and love, which I believe are the true and unfiltered messages of almost all religions out there.<br /><br />Yes, there is abuse, and yes there is hope, the latter of which may or may not be false. But the moment where these things interfere with the general enjoyment of life, there is a problem. My own experience of religion is that there are more thou shalts and shalt nots than actual acceptance of life. The concept of sin is the real killjoy of religion.<br /><br />Again I do not have anything against religion. What I am talking about is the "venal and toxic" aspects of it. When religion tries to become scientific, that is when it is doomed. For example, at a science exhibit my son overheard a woman tell her daughter that dinosaurs are a figment of the imagination. So is global warming, whereas marriage ought to be only between a man and a woman. This is where I believe that we have the right or rather the duty to disagree with those voices. <br /><br />My final concern is that God and religion are not one and the same. But that is an upcoming post so I will not give away too much at this point...<br />Arash Farzanehhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12000344680925876563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1367161100956691682.post-82495273233029370472015-07-07T12:41:01.380-07:002015-07-07T12:41:01.380-07:00Please forgive me, Arash, for clogging your commen...Please forgive me, Arash, for clogging your comments column with thoughts on this matter which may not directly relate to your (stimulating as ever) post, but I would like to add a brief postscript.<br /><br />I see religion as a clothes horse for hanging people’s hopes, prayers, fears, aspirations & magical encounters for which the prosaic and atheistic world may have no explanation. All too often, I think, the ones who dismiss religion are propped up by worldly advantage, whether earned or inherited, and have little empathy with the downtrodden, for whom hope, even when you and I may agree it is false hope, provides sustenance and strength.<br /><br />So that is one side of the symbiosis on which religions depend. The other side may be venal and toxic: exploitation of those hopes etc for evil deeds at worst, and for manipulation and control at a lesser but still potentially harmful level.<br /><br />That religions become corrupted, again and again, is historical fact. But it’s just as true, surely, that religion has inspired great deeds and great lives.<br /><br />One has to take a long view. One can see a killjoy element in religious history too, but then one has to study the context too.Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1367161100956691682.post-53960780585919420522015-07-07T08:03:53.409-07:002015-07-07T08:03:53.409-07:00I admire your first part, both the point of view a... I admire your first part, both the point of view and the clarity with which you express it; and I agree with what you say too. In fact what you write is a summary of something which it took several years of my blog to explore and report upon.<br /><br />But then you start a paragraph “Where does religion end up?” which from the evidence of your title is linked with your first part as the antithesis of “life”, in the images and feelings you have invoked. <br /><br />I imagine you would not be surprised by some sort of rebuttal, if only from supporters of “mainstream religion”. I shan’t do that, but note in passing that your phrase is clearly a term from an outsider looking in, a kind of exonym. Those who identify themselves as being religious Christians, Buddhists, Jews etc will have a <i>subjective</i> sense of what this means in their life individually, and may think of it as the most precious thing in life, that gives it meaning and colour as you did in your first part. And they might practise it in such a way as to enhance their sensual experience, without being inhibited by a bunch of “thou shalt nots”.<br /><br />I find it always necessary to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. It is more difficult in my case, as I live in a district of town almost next door to a place of worship where the faithful come to prayer several times a day and on Fridays there are several hours when streams of worshippers attend in their Friday best, often overflowing to adjacent spaces outdoors . And it’s been their fasting season for several weeks now, a rule which seems to be applied rigorously, and conceived as a virtuous deed to compensate for other sins (for all I know). And there are many aspects to that religion that I don’t understand. But I cannot say what their experience is, or to what extent it is anti-life. Why do they pray so often? Does it truly come from the heart? Does it give them some kind of ecstatic union? And so on. Of course I can observe from the outside, and I do, and draw my own conclusions. To speak publicly about those conclusions, I suspect, would be against the law of these islands, which proscribes any expression which might foster hate, etc.: quite rightly so, in the circumstances. But one effect of my living here and being thus forced to a close observation of what goes on, like a stranger in a foreign land, is to look upon all the other religions more benignly, as well as the British way of life, from which some of my neighbours exclude themselves.<br /><br />Having said all this, I find your main point entirely valid, while insisting that by lumping “mainstream” religion into a singular category, we will miss important details and distinctions.<br /><br />What you have not touched upon, I think is “Why?” and I cannot blame you for that. Ultimately we cannot blame religions themselves because they are human constructs, usually not invented in our generation but attaching themselves to individuals or cultural groups like bacteria, not all of which are necessarily toxic; but perhaps participating in some symbiotic exchange.<br />Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com