S02E15: A Piece of My Not-so-normal Mind…

It’s been a long time since I wrote something serious in here (if ever… :p), so this time let’s change the mood and pace a little bit… hehe…  In this occasion I want to share my view in something about a very important aspect in human life called Religions… Maybe some people will say “Now dude, you’re just playing with fire here…” But hey, as long as we’re careful, in this context by being objective and not clouded by our religious fanaticism and also with good intent, I think we’ll be alright. hehe…  But I have to warn you to avoid any misunderstanding please read it till the end, otherwise don’t read it at all… hehe… So let’s skip on the happygoluckyitrytomakeyoulaugh stuff and proceed with grace

In the past years, I kinda developed a liking to Theological and Comparative Religion Books, yeah maybe some of you think it’s boring and no fun at all, but believe me… They really open up your mind or even blow it to smithereens… So maybe I’ll start with a quotation from Sam Harris’ book, The End of Faith: (I read the Indonesian version, so to avoid any mistranslations I’ll write it in Bahasa)

Seorang pria dengan pakaian panjang serba putih dan bersorban menaiki sebuah bus. Tak lama kemudian bus itu dipenuhi penumpang lain. Ia duduk di samping pasangan suami istri setengah baya yang sedang berdebat mengenai model lemari es yang akan dibelinya. Tak lama kemudian pria iu tersenyum dan menekan tombol yang mengaktifkan sebuah bom yang tersembunyi di balik pakaiannya, menewaskan semua orang yang ada di dalam bus itu dan yang ada di sekelilingnya…. Apakah agama sang pria itu?

I’m not a psychic, but I’m very sure that the first religion that pops in most of your head started with an ‘I’… So what’s my point? Relax, I’m getting there… hehe…

Well by that case, assuming that my hypothesis is correct, we can catch a glimpse on how religion can stereotyped one person to another. Yeah I’m sure you’ll deny it by saying that you perceive all religion is equal or the same, but both you and me also know that it’s a total bollocks… That is not what happening in the world today… Many conflicts, wars, massacres, or any horrible stuff happen because of religion conflicts. Just look at the past events like the Palestinians and Israelis, the Poso incident, the Jewish Genocide, and many many more… So I came to a point where I question myself… Do we even need a religion? (Note that religion and God are two different entities)

At this point I want to clarify that I firmly belief in God’s existence and very far of being an Atheist (beside Atheist is so 90’s… :p), unless mankind can proof without any reasonable doubts the contrary…  So back to the religion stuff, well maybe nowadays we think religion as Islam, Christian, Jew, etc. But what’s exactly a religion is anyway? Well I’ve read a lot of books, including dictionaries, to find a proper definition for it… But I think the definition by Hegel is the one which makes my brain tingle and said “This is it…”

Religion is a self-subsisting transcendent idea that unfolds itself in dynamic expression in the course of ever-changing history … something real in itself, a great entity with which man has to reckon, a something that precedes all its historical manifestation…

So to put it simple, what old man Hegel trying to say is religion itself is like a living things that evolve  (or maybe even died…) in the course of time. For example: Maybe now we can look at the poor ‘ol prehistoric people that worship volcanoes, man-made deities, fires, etc. and comment “Damn what are those people thinking?”, backed by the fact on how “advance” our religions are now. But let’s put it in other perspective… How will people from 2000 or maybe 3000 years from now see our religion? Will they laugh on how “primitive” our religion were, like we did on our predecessors? Well, I think we can’t answer this question with absolute truth, but I have to agree on Karen Armstrong in her book A History of God that said: (Again, I read it in Indonesian)

Ketika sebuah konsepsi tentang ajaran Tuhan tidak lagi mempunyai makna atau relevansi, ia akan diam-diam ditinggalkan dan ditinggalkan oleh sebuah teologi baru. Seorang fundamentalis akan membantah ini. Namun, jika kita memperhatikan agama besar kita, menjadi jelaslah bahwa tidak ada pandangan yang absolut tentang “Tuhan”: setiap generasi harus menciptakan citra ajaran Tuhan yang sesuai baginya…

So based on the Hegel’s definition and that quotation that has been proved by the mankind history itself, let’s ask ourselves “Does our religion still fits our needs in this modern world? Is it still relevant?” I believe you all have your answer and I’m not gonna try to change it or anything. In my own personal opinion as a man who think in logic and is not a big fan of the phrase “Well, it have reasons that we don’t know yet…”, I say it’s kinda… well, “rusty”… I have my own examples of it, but I dont want to go into details because it might offended some people…

With those arguments, In my humble opinion I’d say that religious conflicts that have become more and more frequent these days are happening because some of our religion teaching (if you swallow it whole) is not relevant to use in this modern time. Teaching like Jihad or Crusade maybe make sense in the war-full era where they were invoked but today those idea need some refinement and is proven to be dangerous if misinterpreted.  So in the end I’ll have to say that we still need a religion but mainly as a way to gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness (Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase)  to live our daily life is a different case, I think we have to stick to our most basic logic first, that is “Doing good things to ourselves and others are right and doing bad things to ourselves and others are bad” (And I think that we’ve evolved enough to tell what is good and bad or what is right and wrong). I’m not saying that we should abandon our religion teachings, God no…  But I really think that it’s necessary to use our head a little in order to tell whether it’s still relevant or not…

Yup, that’s my two cents about religions in general… I’m sorry if,  God forbid,  any of you are somewhat offended by it, I really didn’t mean to… hehe… Just expressing my thoughts in, last time I checked, a free country… . Hope that all the religious conflicts will end and people come to their senses… AS ALWAYS: YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE….