Provocations

By pbobby

All humankind is subject to disease, injuries, disasters and death. Life's oft-overwhelming challenges and insecurities have made us know that we are extremely vulnerable. If it's not mass shootings at schools, it's mass murder by suicidal terrorists. If it's not tornadoes, it's inundating flash floods that literally wash away whole towns. If it's not hurricanes, it's volcanic eruptions followed by flowing, fiery walls of cremating lava.

We cannot control nature's seemingly random behavior. We cannot control what other people may decide to do in most instances. It may just be that one of our greatest human rapacious goals is the attainment of power and control over as much as we possibly can. This is at the very core of religious fanaticism.

In the early history of the development of mankind, the primary task of everyday was to find food and shelter with no tools or clothes. Failure to do so at least every few days resulted in a growing weakness and an invasion of hopelessness. We talk about how stressful our lives are today, but this seems to be a daily life-or-death existence, and we cannot even comprehend what daunting feelings must have been theirs.

They worked alone at times, but must have found their togetherness to be the basis for hope and survival. Without healthcare or anyone to teach them how to live, they hung in there for us to live as we do today. The fact that we enjoy the life we have today, that we even exist at all, is a phenomenon extraordinaire.

I cannot help but believe that God, our Creator guided and inspired them to develop tools, make shelters, grow and hunt for foods for sustenance. I believe that mankind's survival until this day was the work of our Creator by the gifts of survival that were genetically replicated within our forbears and increasing skills decade by decade to this very day.

At some point we humans had to be filled with wonderment and awe about the beauty we saw and experienced daily. As a language developed, we asked questions and shared stories with each other. Bonds began to grow as our spirits found a new plane of life. We had so many questions and so few clues as to what life was about. But in our quest for fellowship, we have found it good for our souls to gather with others of a nearly like mind.

Some writers purport that the earliest primitive religious consciousness comes from the Polynesians, Black Africans and the Early American Indians. The core belief was that there is really no difference between spirituality and nature. They are ONE.

It is pbobby's conviction that at some point a yearning for something more than a physical existence emerged. Souls were now growing and the human spirit was flowering.

pbobby believes that this was a most ponderous event for the betterment of mankind, a spiritual birthing if you will. However, we cannot believe that it happened simultaneously throughout the world. Differing cultures moved into a spiritual mindset here, there, and not as yet, in some places. The process led to an appreciation of others, especially in the cultures that met to dwell on things of the heart. Probably the first gathering occurred in each culture when the grim harbinger of death visited their clan.

Something had to be done with the dead body. I feel that each loved one felt the pain and loss with no help but what each could do for the other. Being there at this helpless time was what made them realize the need for outside help. So this burning need, their feelings of inadequacy, planted the seed of empathy with many. As time passed, mankind developed various rites for the death event.

Then as time went on, other special happenings such as birth, commitments to another, and the different seasons became cause for a gathering not just for sorrow, but also for joyous events.

It was from these meager events that many religions had their un-heralded beginnings. Now, we are aware of the power these religions wield to promote spirituality in humankind. Also we so sadly know that religions can be lethal weapons for the zealous persecution of those comprising other religions.

Religions evolve as does all nature. Religions seem to have stages in their growth from a simple goal, to a larger group seeking the same redemptive and healing fruit of that simple initial goal. They over time reach a stage of celebration of life's joy and goodness. They learn to value the fellowship of love that gives them power and even greater delight.

This is the most benevolent stage of all, the apex of a religion!

We just don't seem to leave well enough alone and feast on what we have. Some one or some cliques form and feel the need to orally codify this joyous fellowship into rules, doctrines, and push for their acceptance by those still happy to be just as accepting of others as they are of God's goodness to them. Not too long after general rules are stated, some one thinks it's a good idea to write them down. Over the years the rules increase in number, and are given a twist, bent in the direction of the writer's personal bias with each revision. Usually, centuries later, those in authority declare this (revisions and all) to be their Holy Book. A few religions do not have a Holy Book.

We could spend a lifetime examining all the established religions today and still not be halfway through our study. One thing we can be sure of is that many religions declare that their religion is the only way to fellowship with God; that you are just out of luck if you do not believe as they do.

So how do we decide what to believe? Which Holy Book? Which Religion? Which authorities do we trust? After the Books, come the elevation of past leaders in a religion, something akin to sainthood, or prophets, Holy Men of the tradition. Their writings and/or sayings can easily be added to the Book.

Then an organized group decides to identify what the faith must be for one to qualify for membership, and the rules that each joiner must follow. This, pbobby thinks, comes from that nefarious penchant of human temptation to strive for power and control. Fellowship of like-minded people is not enough. An authoritative structure, controlled by commandments and those who make them, is constructed, so that all those who choose to follow the rules and rulers are granted membership. This is the birth of institutionalism. So a separate entity now comes into being in most religions.

This separate institution then has a life of its own. And there will always be those who want the institution to grow in power and persuasion. So what once was a fellowship of like-minded people is watered down between, the Book, the prophets, maintenance of this institution, and its original bedrock movement - a fellowship of human spirits in love with Nature and each other, and full of thanksgiving.

Keeping the proper balance amongst all these entities, while retaining the joy of walking with God, just isn't possible. Thus different members dedicate their lives to one or two of the functional entities.

Would you be filled with righteousness indignation, if I said, I don't think it really matters? I simply cannot believe that our Creator would send all to Hell if they fail to espouse any religion other than 'The One True Religion' chosen by one group. I am at peace with the search for truth that guides me today.

Most us have an accepted guide for our behavior that has become our heart's desire to get in touch with that power that created and sustained us to a degree of comfort; and that has given us time to search our minds and hearts for some way to honor our mysterious maker and the Creator and Sustainer of ourselves and our magnificent universe.

The Creator of "all that is and is to come" can see us through our death and whatever life has in store for us in the World of the Spirit. Since we cannot know everything for certain, I choose to leave my present and future fate in the hands of The Creator.