Amiram Hayardeny's My China Experience

Faith and Practicing - Belief and Worshipping - Thoughts about Religions

My oldest daughter Keren (17) and I had a long conversation this week.  It started somewhat confrontational - she asked about the way I would celebrate the Holidays, and then continued to ask why I celebrate at all, given that I don't really believe.  At this point I was all wired for a good argument, but stopped for a second to think: this girl is opinionated, well educated and read, she states her opinions clearly and she backs them up with evidence.  My kind of girl.  I was really proud.  In fact, if she was on a debating team, I would very much hate to be on the opposite side...  That said, we could continue our discussion...

I grew up in a religious household.  I haven't been practicing religion for many years, yet the topic is always on my mind.  I read about it, talk about it, and think about it on occasion.  Don't get me wrong, I am not in a soul searching mode, and I'm not looking for "answers".  I was always fascinated, intrigued by and sometimes even jealous of people who believe.  Emphasis on belief, not practice.  After thinking about it for so long, I am confident that the belief has almost nothing to do with the practicing of religion.  The belief helps those who practice, but it isn't a prerequisite.  Some believe but don't practice, and some practice, but don't believe.

I come from Israel, the birth bed of some of the world's major religions.  Naturally I was always exposed to practicing and believing Jews.  I realized that many are doing what they perceive as "the word of God", without ever thinking if there's a basis to doing it, or not.  Think about it.  Some follow very strict rules, dress code, dietary, dating and mating restrictions and many others, and many don't even stop and ask whether there's any proof that the source of all those is actually divine.  Over the years, a couple of thousand in the case of Christianity, and a couple of thousand more in the case of Judaism, a very large variety of stories, myths, scriptures and writings were developed and accepted as "the word of God".  Some, when submitted to scientific scrutiny are marked as mythology, others are inconclusive.  Yet people still believe in them as if they were the word of God himself.

There's a big discussion (and a book) about proving that the story of the Exodus - the flight of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt, roaming through the Sinai desert for forty years, receiving the Ten Commandments and eventually coming to the Holy Land is true or myth.  One of the "proofs" suggests that it would be impossible to stage such mass deception, and the fact that it was passed from father to son for thousands of years, assuming that parents don't lie to their children, proves that it actually happened.  Otherwise, how would it survive for so many years?  Not a bad argument at all.  I thought about it for years.  How is it possible to convince a large community that their ancestors took part in something so big without having the evidence to support the story?

Then I read "The Last Templar" and I realized that indeed, it was possible.  The first and foremost requirement is the story you are trying to pass as truth is retrospective.  It had already happened, preferably years before.  It would be extremely difficult to convince people that the Flood had happened yesterday.  Much easier to convince them that it happened many years before. 

The recipe would be, find a mystery, which happened sometime in the past, for which witnesses exist (not necessarily reliable witnesses), and combine it with some spiritual benefit - like resolution, forgiveness, heaven, and you got yourself a religion.  Easy enough.  You may say: "but that means that it should have happened many times?".  And the truth of the matter is - it did.  But not all are successful.  And also, the environment, circumstances, charisma, and some luck help tremendously.

If you, for example, wanted to unite a bunch of tribes living in a state of war for decades, how would you go about in doing it?  How about creating a common history?  Add some glorifying moments of marching out of slavery, lead by an omnipotent God, a fearless leader with a magic wand, and suddenly you got yourself a new People.  If, for example, you lived under occupation, and you wanted to win a rebellion, what would be better than to unite behind a very charismatic person who had the vision and the leadership to go with it?

In both cases, there's not much supporting evidence.  In the case of the Jewish people, it's been so long, that there's a very serious disconnect between the time of establishing the religion, to today's observers of the faith.  Stories which did not support the underlying message, disappeared.  It is a well known fact, that books that were not "in the right spirit" were simply not included in the official edition of the Bible.  They are called "External Books".  Some of them are still with us, others disappeared.  (Mind you that a few thousand years ago, to eliminate a book or a scripture would not have been such a colossal job.  Usually there were very few hand-written copies.  One small fire, and the not-so-supportive evidence is poof... CNN or Google were absent from the scene as well).  The faith was always very careful with uncomfortable evidence.  The church did, and still doing the same.  There's nothing between the shape of the earth and the existence of God.  Yet, when Galileo stated that the earth is round, and is not the center of the universe, the uncomfortable church tried hard to make that story disappear.  It was not successful that time, but how many times was it very successful in eliminating evidence?

Anyway, this isn't the point.  The point is that if you believe, nothing can change that.  You don't really care if the virgin was indeed, and if Noah actually built an ark and saved the animals.  You don't know if Jesus was resurrected, but you believe He was, and the truth is - it doesn't matter.  The reason is that many accept religion as a way of life, and not necessarily as a set of beliefs.  Religion is, at least in my mind, very comfortable.  You have a community, a set of rules that you have to follow, and a lot of benefit.  You get comfort at times of need, assistance when you're in trouble, guidance when you lose your way.  You can pray when you think that all other alternatives have been consumed.  Religion and community are excellent safety nets.

where's the jealousy coming from?  I am not a person who likes to congregate.  I have friends, but no community.  I don't believe in God, and so I don't have Him on my side at times of trouble.  I am curious, and independent, and therefore, the set of rules I live by is completely self defined.  The jealousy?  simple, it's a lot easier to practice.  I pray to God I was a believer.  Contradiction?  Indeed, and so is the Mezuzah on each of the doors in our house...

Posted at 09:56AM Sep 15, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]