Religion and Human Life

[Baashi]

Religion and Human Life

 

 

What we call the 'religious attitude' is the natural outcome of man's intellectual and biological constitution. Man is unable to explain to himself the mystery of life, the mystery of birth and death, the mystery of infinity and eternity. His reasoning stops before impregnable walls. He can, therefore, do two things.

 

One is, to give up all attempts at understanding life as a totality. In this case, man will rely upon the evidence of external experiences alone and will limit his conclusions to their sphere. Thus he will be able to understand single fragments of life, which may increase in number and clarity as rapidly or as slowly as human knowledge of nature increases, but will, nonetheless, always remain only fragments - the grasp of the totality itself remaining beyond the methodical equipment of human reason. This is the way the natural sciences go.

 

The other possibility - which may well exist side by side with the scientific one - is the way of religion. It leads man, by means of an inner, mostly intuitive, experience, to the acceptance of a unitary explanation of life, generally on the assumption that there exists a supreme Creative Power which governs the Universe according to some pre-conceived plan above and beyond human understanding.

 

This conception does not necessarily preclude humankind from an investigation of such facts and fragments of life as offer themselves for external observation; there is no inherent antagonism between the external (scientific) and internal (religious) perception. But the latter is, in fact, the logical speculative possibility to conceive all life as a unity of essence and motive power; in short, as a well-balanced, harmonious totality.

 

The term 'harmonious', though so terribly misused, is very important in this connection, because it implies a corresponding attitude in man himself. The religious human knows that whatever happens to him and within him can never be the result of a blind play of forces without consciousness and purpose; he believes it to be the outcome of God's conscious will alone, and, therefore, organically integrated with a universal plan. In this way man is enabled to solve the bitter antagonism between the human Self and the objective world of facts and appearances which is called Nature.

 

The human being, with all the intricate mechanism of his soul, with all his desires and fears, his feelings and his speculative uncertainties, sees himself faced by a Nature in which bounty and cruelty, danger and security are mixed in a wondrous, inexplicable way and apparently work on lines entirely different from the methods and the structure of the human mind. Never has purely intellectual philosophy or experimental science been able to solve this conflict. This exactly is the point where religion steps in.

 

In the light of religious perception and experience, the human, self-conscious Self and the mute, seemingly irresponsible Nature are brought into a relation of spiritual harmony; because both, the individual consciousness of man and the Nature that surrounds him and is within him, are nothing but co-ordinate, if different, manifestations of one and the same Creative Will.

 

The immense benefit which religion thus confers upon man is the realization that he is, and never can cease to be, a well-planned unit in the eternal movement of Creation: a definite part in the infinite organism of universal destiny. The psychological consequence of this conception is a deep feeling of spiritual security - that balance between hopes and fears which distinguishes the positively religious man, whatever his religion, from the irreligious.

 

(Adapted from Spirit of Islam by Muhammad Asad)

[Muhammad]

thanks Baashi!

 

"True religion invites us to become better people. False religion tells us that this has already occurred."

Abdal-Hakim Murad

[Positive]

Your analyses are very good. Haddii aan ku yara galgasho waayo waxaan soo wadaa waa taase, I'm tempted to say the following.

 

By Baashi

What we call the 'religious attitude' is the natural outcome of man's intellectual and biological constitution.

As you indicated this option is for those who doubt or don't belief the existence of God and His Divine plane. But If I may take the points you raised further from my perspective the mystics of all different religious orientations agree that the intellect is an outpost for more inside lying components of the person.And that the biological constitution of man is meant to be th house which these inward forces, including the intellect, live in. The intellect is not independent but rather expresses what it is given from the more inside lying components of the Self. It can though act upon its memory bank and make analyses based on its previous expreiences by thus becoming Self actuating.

 

The scientific community, by not knowing better,is selective of what they find from the inside; it is also save to say that they use their intellect per se to come up with what looks many times like new ideas; that explains their shortcomings.

 

The religious mystics on the contrary advocate that the means to come to a new and original understanding of anything, regardless of whether it is of religious nature or otherwise, is to bypass the outpost ( intellect ) and make contact with the more inward lying sheets of the Self.

 

If one employs the intellect as the sole means to understand, as you rightly said, one will " rely upon the evidence of external experiences alone[ for his judgments] and will limit his conclusions to their sphere. Whatever anyone on the gripes of his intellect understands through this means is intellectual in nature and it is based on and concluded from (seemingly elusive) external facts.

 

In the religous context, belief is the first step to the unknown: that which exists beyond the phenomenal world of the physical reality. Experience, direct experience, of this underlying reality is encouraged though by the mystics. When for the lucky ones the portals beyond the intellect are opened for him the universe becomes known to him. One witnesses then a reality which is not accessible to the intellect.

 

Consequently the person becomes knower 'His role in Life becomes clear to him and as a result he loses appetite for evil tendences and becomes a positive contributor to Life in here and now.

 

Religion in our Life is as necessary as the urge for food or to procreate. The Self enquiry we experience, which has many times religious content, is nothing less than the Higher Self Who wants to remember and find Its Self in Its human dimension. The person is in handicap without deep Spiritual awareness.

 

Any how in the present stage of the human evolution we need both the religious and scientific instutitions and paradigms. We hope that they will converge in the future.

 

But I prefer the way of the mystics.

 

Thanks

 

The awakener

[Cara.]

Hello Baashi,

 

I like the idealized picture you drew of religion in the life of man. The reality is quite different, however.

 

You write that religion,

 

leads man, by means of an inner, mostly intuitive, experience, to the acceptance of a unitary explanation of life, generally on the assumption that there exists a supreme Creative Power which governs the Universe according to some pre-conceived plan above and beyond human understanding.

My main problem with this passage is that it is inaccurate on two counts. First, religious experience is more external that internal for most people. A revelation descends from on high, a prophet tells people what the "supreme Creative Power" is and what It wants, a set of rules are enforced by the society, rules that do not seem intuitively right to most. In other words, Religion is not arrived at by looking within oneself. Rather, religion is introduced by either ones parents, or if one is present at the inception of a religion, a shaman/priest/prophet who has exclusive access to knowledge not available to others tells them what to think. In religion, life is a circus; there's a captive audience, and a "ringleader", who tells them to ignore their common sense and personal experiences, so as to swallow whatever the ringleader assures them is the truth.

 

My second objection to your statement is that you imply that religious folk arrive at a cohesive Truth by looking within (or without, as the case may be). This is in contradiction of all of human history, isn't it? Each mystic finds a truth which more often than not is in violent conflict with the "truths" discovered by other mystics. How many religions are there? Is it even possible to count? How many people believe sincerely that they (and only they) have discovered "The Truth" and that everyone else is not only mistaken but evil to boot? To take that circus metaphor again: outside the tent in which you sit in awe, there's another tent, within which are more people watching another circus, and the ringleader there is assuring them that only what they see there is the real deal. Outside the tents are a few of us, uncertain what the truth is, but not particularly interested in watching human contortionists and acrobatics.

 

But surely religion at least provides a moral framework within which man can find value in himself and in other humans right? Wrong. Consider this: What crime do all religions require their adherents to desist from? What evil will mankind get up to without religions to keep him in check? Think hard on that one.

[Caano Geel]

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[Pi]

Let us save the senseless prattle for another time, guys. Bishan Ramadaan waa bil wacdi gelin.