Marxism

Marx's ideas about about society make sense to me. However I think his idea of religion is over simplified. I simply do not believe that all religion is a tool for serving the elite at the detriment of the masses, and I do not believe that all religion is bad. How does Theravada Buddhism support the power structure of the elite? It does teach people to be moral, I guess you could see that as "enslavement to the system" if you really wanted to. Then there is Daoism, how does Daoism subjugate people to the power-elite. The most popular Daoist text says that the less government there is the better the people are. It is not too difficult to imagine anarchistic forms of Christianity because either, because in the Gospels Jesus tells people they should leave their jobs, families, and everything to follow him. However I don't know that any such form of Christianity still exits. Forms of Shivism encourage people to withdraw from the world.

A Brave New World?

I was really pleased with our last class session. A variety of ideas were kicked around by a number of people. I've never before given much thought to the role of technology in the future of spirituality, but it does raise some fascinating possibilities. Perhaps direct electronic manipulation of the brain, in conjunction with a religious setting, could make us all into mystics and spiritual geniuses. Perhaps a weekly dosage of such experience would reshape our reality for the better, and we would all live better lives. I am skeptical about this though. I suspect that any spiritual experience will be fleeting if it is not grounded in spiritual living. You can only rape the angels so many times.

In the south American cultures where drug use in conjunction with religion is the rule instead of the exception, the drug is always taken in a religious setting and the experience is supervised by a religious specialist. As I understand it many of the participants in the cultural revolution of the 1960s advocated the casual use of psychotropes and marijuana. It seems their results were mixed. At least their legacy is mixed. However, with new mind altering technologies it might be possible that a positive reciprocal cycle could be established. A technology could catalyze an experience that in turn might cause the individual to live a better life, which would in turn make such positive experiences more likely in the future. It is an interesting idea for sure.

Defending Religion

Last time in class we were suppose to defend religion against Freud's attacks. What surprised me was that no student purposed the possibility that a religion might be true, that there might be a transcendent reality. Surely there is at least one student in the class who believes in a transcendent reality. By the way I'm not sure that term "transcendent reality" has been defined well enough but I will use it for lack of a better term. Probably no one purposed this because they were afraid of attack or ridicule. Discussing what is scientific and discussing what might be are two different discussions. However, I believe it is possible to approach spirituality in a scientific way, though not in a way that is likely to satisfy most skeptics.

Should you worship God?

Today the question came as to whether Freud was right in thinking that worshipping God is an unhealthy thing done by an immature mind. I mentioned that I think worshipping an external deity causes one to remain a spiritual child. Continuing that train of thought, I do not think it is good for our species to be subordinate to any other class of being. The class of being does not matter: if aliens came to our world I would think that we should not be subordinate to them even if they were very much superior to us. The same applies to any non-corporeal being or beings that might exist. I think such subservience would limit our human potential, I think such subservience does limit our potential.

When a person worships deities that are external to them, deities that are out there somewhere in space, then inevitably that person is put in a position inferior to the deities. Such a position limits human potential because then some things are deemed to be within the domain of the Gods and not within the domain of humanity. If one's spiritual path includes deities then it is best if they are ideals, or role models. We should aspire to be the Gods that our ancestors were content to merely worship.

That being said, I admit that not everyone is ready for such a bold religious path. Different people are suited for different religions(or vise versa?). Even though different people are suited to different religions, I am not claiming that all religious ideas are equal. God worship might be a phase in one's spiritual development without being the end point of that development. Though many are not yet ready for a spirituality where God and Human are conjoined, I don't see any way forward other than promoting such ideas.

Defining Religion

Reading Deitrick's article about religion and how it means different things to different people and how it is sort of an amorphous concept has caused me to doubt that a definition of religion is very useful. However, since I am a religious studies major and I'm graduating this spring it seems like I should have some definition of religion handy. If some one asks me what I got my degree in and I tell them religious studies, and they ask me "How would you define religion?", it would seem pretty silly if I could not answer. I guess I could go the route where I say that I don't think there is any one definition of religion and that it is a loose cluster of concepts, but I will still need to describe what I think religion is before I'm done. It is probably best if I come up with some quick definition of religion that is satisfactory to me, if for not other reason than to be prepared to spit it out if I'm ever asked. So I guess I need to come up with one before this semester is over.