Embracing the Confusion of Life or Living with Dogma
Something that is clearly self-evident, by now, I am certain, is that I am a deep thinker. To be completely honest, this is a quality that I embrace, and genuinely like about myself, as it keeps me on my toes, and allows my mind to be open to questions and answers. Hence, I see myself as someone who is constantly learning and growing.
As mentioned, I am a person of faith, and as a Jew feel a continuing responsibility to the State of Israel and its existence. What is important to me is to be an honest person, and someone who practices good deeds for others. I make every effort not to judge nor condemn, and let people life their lives as they see fit, embracing their faith, or lack thereof, as they see fit, and living with the consequences as they may exist. I also like to live by setting a good example for my children and those around me.
What bothers me a great deal, and something that I cannot understand in others, are inherant contradictions. For example, those individuals who claim to be pious, and religious (in every faith), embracing the commandments and prohibitions of G-d, on the one hand, but are people who lie, cheat, commit adultery, abuse their husbands, wives and/or children and are unkind to others. As a friend of mine, in his infinite wisdom commented to me the other the other day in an email, what is better, to embrace the confusion of life or life with its dogma?
Here is the question of the day: How do you explain people who say that they are very religious, adhering to the commandments and prohibitions of G-d, on the one hand, but engaging in immoral and inappropriate behavior on the other? Is there a contradiction in what they believe and how they act? Is the dogma of the rules to extreme a burden to bear, resulting in more confusion and misbehaver in life? Are they doing the best they can? Or is the burden of such dogma too much to bear?
This is a deep, perhaps complex question, but it is something I have been thinking about lately, as I see our politicians claim to be people of deep faith, interested in preserving life, yet going to war and killing, or making decisions maintaining a decent quality of life for those who are alive. It is also a question that has emerged from my observations of the very religious who claim to be pious, on the one hand, but engage in self-destructive and immoral behavior on the other.
Thank you for your minds.
As mentioned, I am a person of faith, and as a Jew feel a continuing responsibility to the State of Israel and its existence. What is important to me is to be an honest person, and someone who practices good deeds for others. I make every effort not to judge nor condemn, and let people life their lives as they see fit, embracing their faith, or lack thereof, as they see fit, and living with the consequences as they may exist. I also like to live by setting a good example for my children and those around me.
What bothers me a great deal, and something that I cannot understand in others, are inherant contradictions. For example, those individuals who claim to be pious, and religious (in every faith), embracing the commandments and prohibitions of G-d, on the one hand, but are people who lie, cheat, commit adultery, abuse their husbands, wives and/or children and are unkind to others. As a friend of mine, in his infinite wisdom commented to me the other the other day in an email, what is better, to embrace the confusion of life or life with its dogma?
Here is the question of the day: How do you explain people who say that they are very religious, adhering to the commandments and prohibitions of G-d, on the one hand, but engaging in immoral and inappropriate behavior on the other? Is there a contradiction in what they believe and how they act? Is the dogma of the rules to extreme a burden to bear, resulting in more confusion and misbehaver in life? Are they doing the best they can? Or is the burden of such dogma too much to bear?
This is a deep, perhaps complex question, but it is something I have been thinking about lately, as I see our politicians claim to be people of deep faith, interested in preserving life, yet going to war and killing, or making decisions maintaining a decent quality of life for those who are alive. It is also a question that has emerged from my observations of the very religious who claim to be pious, on the one hand, but engage in self-destructive and immoral behavior on the other.
Thank you for your minds.
11 Comments:
This is the 60 million dollar question. Always very thought provoking and without any definitive answer.
The hypocricy which is easily observed in some of God's followers is one of the primary things which drove me away from religion in the first place. However, I think it is important to remember that for every pious jerk there are many decent, moral people who not only talk the talk but also walk the walk.
I think that perhaps the people who don't demonstrate their faith through their actions can be divided into two basic groups.
The first group would be those who know and understand their religious beliefs but lack the self restraint to live according to the morals of that faith. These would be the adulterous types, the partiers...You know, basic hedonism. I don't think these people are inherently bad, they just don't know when to say when.
The second group of people are the ones who scare me. These are people who basically live life for their own advancement with little or no regard to effect they have on others. Now, these people aren't always religious, but when they do embrace religion they do it in a completely evil way. They understand that religion can be used to motivate people, to manipulate people, to profit from people and to build a base for their own advancement of power.
But here is the kicker, I think that the majority of the time the people who fall into the second group don't actually realize what they are doing. Perhaps the lust for power and control comes upon them so gradually and becomes so entwined with their religious beliefs that it is impossible to distinguish where one begins and the other ends. Rather than serving as a guide for their behavior, the religous beliefs become a tool to use as an excuse or motivator for their desired action. The religous beliefs are "fixed" around the policy. ;)
This can happen on a small scale, when a mother uses religion to control her children or on a massive level when religion is used as an excuse to further political goals.
An oversimplification of course, just my two cents worth.
I'm very laid back in life but I believe that people need to practice what they preach. I've grown tired of others who feel it's their duty to save me. I'll focus on myself thank you very much!
The "born again" mentality is really not that complicated to understand.
They put up the holy front in order to fool people AND to cover their tracks here on Earth. They believe that they will be forgiven no matter what they do, because they have accepted Jesus. So, it is perfectly OK for them to talk about a "culture of life" on one hand and then advocate war on the other. To them, there is not any hiprocracy.
Also, politicians who talk about faith the most are probably the ones who believe in it the least. All they want are VOTES, and they think that by putting up the front of a super christian people will vote for them. The sad part is that it works. More and more churches have been taken over by super-holy rolling born again evangelicals. Once the rollers get in the door, they see to it that a preacher THEY LIKE is put in, then all the sermons sound like something you hear on CBN. These preachers urge people to vote for politicians who put up the holy front, and like so many good sheep they do.
The born-again movement is more of a political movement than anything religous. They just USE religion to get people to fall in line with them. And it works. To them, the ends (ending abortion and no more fags getting married) justify the means - so it does not matter what they do to get there. Nothing matters, short of turning the USA into a christian theocracy. Then you can have all the freedom of religion you want, so long as it conforms to what they believe.
And Godlessmom - the people I am talking about - your second group - DO know what they are doing. The ones at the top anyway. And I think that many of the sheep also know what they are doing, but they go along with it because they agree with it.
The christians in the FIRST group need to get angry, get organized, and take their religion BACK from the holy rollers.
I apologize for the lengthy comment. I usually try to keep them short, but since you asked me to post, I gave you the full monty. I could keep going, but I'm running out the door.
I believe that I have spent more time on this one issue both growing up in an Orthodox Jewish world and when I was a youth group leader then on all the other issues that came up.
I very much disagree with Atreau. Though it is never nice to hear someone preaching at you, it can be done in a pleasent way. If you care about something very much, and see someone else violating it how can you sit there and not say anything? One of the questions I have heard that they ask people who opt out of the army because they are peace loving (I believe the term is concientious objector) is "If someone was attacking your family, would you sit there and not do anything that could harm the attackers?" If the answer is no, then how can you opt out of the army which is there to protect your people, your nation and your family.
How people can claim to be religious, yet do nonreligious activities. There are a number of human levels involved here, but the most important one is, "who gave out the categorization?" As I answered a comment in my blog today, "if I say I am a Reform Jew, does that mean that you know a reform jew who follows the religion according to the orthodox tradition?" The first answer is maybe I miscategorized myself.
The second answer is that when I associate myself with a group, I am associating with their ideals and goals. I am not saying that I am perfect and already in tune with those goals. Solomon said in Koheles (Ecclisiastics) that man has never existed that did no wrong and never sinned. If I speed on the highway, does that make me less of an American? What if I do it consistently and purposefully?
That is a minor law, but I am in essence taking the law of the country and saying, I don't really care about it.
Everyone has their own red lines and their own things they have to work on. Life is process, taking what you are given and constantly growing, trying to become the best person that you are. There are always pitfalls and traps, otherwise there would be no point. As an example, a good person may have a problem with his or her marriage. They may be very frustrated and they may meet someone with whom they can relieve the stress. They may become very close with this person and it can lead to sexual activity. This person, who in essence would like to follow the rules has been trapped in a situation and things just happened. The first time they feel very guilty, but as time goes on it becomes normal. Does that make this person into a bad person? Or into a person who went astray, while still trying to be a good person.
A good moral guy has a lot of medical bills because his wife had cancer. A friend of his shows him how he can basically double bill his company and nobody will notice. If he does it, is he a bad person? In his situation, I would hope that I would be able to say, "God will help me find a moral way to pay off my debts" but the pressure can be almost too much to bear.
Once behavior trends begin, it is very hard to stop them. You may do something immoral once, and say never again, but once the behavior starts it will come back again and again.
If you identify with a group that has lofty goals, then you have a chance to reach them. Even if you currently are not there.
If you don't identify with a group that has lofty goals, then you have no chance ever.
Some excellent answers here, and some common ground reached, from what I can see.
By the way, the name is Barbara, not Barb, a nickname I have never really liked, and thank you for making note of it.
It seems that what everyone is saying, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that actually, trying your best, by affixing yourself to a particular system of beliefs and conduct is what is most important. If we fall short, then, this means we are only human, and we keep trying to be better. Is this a correct understanding?
Being a Jew, and not accepting Jesus as the son of God or a saviour, I cannot embrace the principle that so long as you sin, but accept Christ as your saviour, it is alright. Actually, this philosophy does not make any sense to me either, because what it says is that the type of life we life on this earth is not as important as as our belief systems (accepting Christ.) To me, good acts and good deeds make a great difference.
But to tell you the truth, I really like rockofgalilee's perspective. Within his explanation is the understanding that although we may life by fixed rules of dogma, if we keep doing something over and over again, and it becomes a faulty pattern of our behavior (not just our belief), this will catch up with us in the end too, and will chisel away at our integrity as people, no matter what we do or believe.
I was just discussing this topic with my daughter and here is what she had to say.
"According to Jewish law, in theory, if you fallow all the paths, commandments and prohibitions, you are supposed to meet your ideal soul mate. Sounds like a pretty good trade-off to me, don't you think."
At this point, I will not even ask her any questions about this statement, because the conclusions reached seem to be of my highest ideals.
Craig,
What my daughter actually said was that if we follow the Jewish path, which may be different from what you are talking about, then it will lead us to our soul mate.
Poor religious role models/leaders: Examples abound. Jimmy Swaggart, the Bakers, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
This is what has always made me nervous about getting too involved with any church group. Hypocrisy runs rampant in houses of worship. There are three answers for it:
1. People aren't perfect, so why would you expect the spiritual people to be different? My answer: because they're spiritual...duh...
2. People with psychological problems (neurotic, etc) are always looking to self-medicate. This is another way to do it.
3. People are always looking for ways to control others. Religion is a great tool.
I think there are always some well-meaning people who are truly trying to do the right thing (according to whatever their religion demands) but there's a great deal of dysfunction in the world, and it's the dysfunctional people who need organized religions the most.
I'm not a great fan of Karl Marx, but he said it best when he said "Religion is the opiate of the masses."
Note: I did not say spirituality.
Good question, as usual. Most of us could spend hours on the subject. SO I'll just say that I think people always think that THEY are right. Anything THEY do is okay. Mostly they don't mean to be hypocritical, but all of us are.
it's kind of funny this is your question of the day, since i've been giving this some thought lately.
i think some people realize what their actions are contradictory to what they are saying (maybe they're just caught up with all the others). others i don't think really have the conscience like others do and so it doesn't phase them. i glanced at a book recently (can't remember the name) but it was a theory that 25% of the population are sociopaths ... not to a severe extent, but just where they don't feel bad about lying, cheating, etc. observing people lately, i think it could be true.
in any case, i'd like to believe i can be a bit more evolved than these people and stay honest to my integrity ... i try hard not to get caught up in the others confusion or when they twist things around. it does bother me that people use religion as the front, but it doesn't seem where their issues are coming from if you are to just look a little deeper.
Craig, I did answer the question.
The question was why the hiprocracy. And I gave an answer.
Those out there blowing the most hot air out of their pie hole do not think that anything they say contradicts anything.
Those of us who listen, and can pick out the contradictions, are dismissed as people confused by the devil OR as anti-christian. I have been written off by many evangelicals simply because I did not buy into their narrow view of the world.
I do not know what God is. I do not know if any religion is "the truth". I think that if there is a God, whatever that God is it is WAY BEYOND human understanding.
So, all we can do as humans is try to live as best we can without doing harm to others. If you can do charitable acts, good for you - but if you can not at least try to not make things worse for others.
But of course, according to the people blowing all the hot air, I will not get into heaven - simply because I do not believe what they do. It does not matter that I actually put a lot of effort into being a good person. I do not take advantage of others. I do not rob, cheat, or steal.
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