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I'd like to interject here, if I may, to clarify something...and, sorry, but it's that stinking entymology again. It might strike some people as splitting hairs, but since language is what we are using to communicate our ideas about relationships and connections, I think it's OK to be a bit particular and specific about these things.
The 'aim' of religion (and its not an 'aim' in any common or useful sense of that word...many, if not most, spiritual practices fairly rapidly initiate the enquiring student into the most difficult of spiritual tasks : acting without expectation of reward. Doing not doing, with no anticipation of result...hence not aim, but 'work'...spiritual work) is not really so abstract as a couple of folks here have suggested...the clue is in the question. So, entymologically, there are a few possibilities in the origin of the word...although different, they all mean, generally, the same thing.
So, it's not 'God or Gods', nor, specifically (though here we get a little bogged down in more definition) is it necessarily 'enquiry into mysticism and the divine', which to me asks more questions than it answers.
Religion, most likely, derives from religare, which means 'To return and bind fast', or 'To rejoin and not again separate' if you like. Funny, 'yoga', also, means 'Union'.
So : Rejoin what? Separate from what? Union with what?
When Mad Al says 'our' methods are science but 'our' aim is religion (and I still want to know who this 'we' is) he is referring to the scientific method as a means of rejoining and binding fast. Mad Al was, if nothing else, a very particular and calculated wordsmith. Much like the literary invention / historical personage of Isho / Yahshua.
How many 'things' are there from which we could possibly be separate? What union? What, as the very famous religious declaration goes, the fuck?
AL, EL, Alaha, Elohim, Allah. That. (Point in front of you. Behind you. Anywhere you please. That.) One.
This is not Spinozistic. It's much older.
You may find the very best that modern science has to offer here is actually in total unequivocal agreement with the authorial committe invention / historical figure called Isho / Yahshua / Ieoseus / Jesus here. And Mohammed. And Lao Tze. And Lieh Tzu. And Chuang Tzu. And the Upanishads. And African tradition. And Hermes Trismegistus, or the committee that invented him as well. And Amazonian shamanism. And..so on.
One. Yeah, just like U2. One. Ness. Oneness. All is One. One is All. Muskerhounds are always ready.
To whomever asked 'what good has ever come from religion', you are asking 'what good has ever come from the knowledge and experience - not intellectual, not mentation, I mean knowledge and experience - that all is One.' That is your question.
Perhaps you could answer that for yourself? Because you are, or seem to be, using the word in a different sense, and so arguing a Straw Man. It obviously thrills you to do so, but it will not achieve a single thing. Your arguments have been raging since the dawn of communication, and have not changed a single thing. In fact, your arguments are what lead to the crucifiction of the literary invention by the authorial committe that conspired to wreak havoc on the World by penning the Gospels.
It's a cliche, but it works and thats why its a cliche : sacred teachings are nothing more than an advertisement for Spiritual Work. It's incredibly difficult. It hurts. It forces confrontation with the most terrifying enemy and subtle liar in the Universe : You. They are, and here's the cliche, a finger pointing at the moon. The idea being you follow the point of the finger, and behold the moon. Not the finger - the Moon.
The problem comes when people start worshipping and arguing about the finger. Instead of bathing in the glory of the vision of the moon, they start grabbing at the finger...does it have a ring on? Are its knuckles large or small? Is it a black finger or a white finger or a yellow finger or a purple finger with six fingers and a pipe? Which way is it pointing? Yadda Yadda FishPaste.
All of this highlights the Spiritual Work : Ego or Soul? How to recognise which is which and which one to trust in which situation. Ego or Soul. |
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