On Religion

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No one knows for sure when religious practices began, but by about 25,000 years ago, Homo sapiens were burying their dead with decoration and grave goods, perhaps for use in the afterlife.  By the time cities emerged and written records were kept, religious practices were in full flower, with temples, priests, altars, sacrifices and incantations.  Why did this happen?  Other animals and early hominids do not have religious practices.  What is it about the human condition that causes this sort of behavior to evolve?

Note:  A heavy influence on my thinking in this topic comes from two books that examine religious practices in general, and two others that examine the Christian tradition from a historical perspective:

1. The Golden Bough: A study in magic and religion - by Sir James George Frazer, published 1890

2. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A study in human nature –delivered as lectures by William James at the University of Edinburgh during the 1901-1902 term

3. An Explorer’s Life of Jesus - by Wendell Phillips, published 1975

4. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish life and the emergence of Christianity - by Paula Fredriksen, published 1999

 Let’s start with some context and definitions.  I consider philosophy to be superior to religion and science.  By superior, I mean logically prior to the other two modes of thinking.  Even before Paleolithic humans began conjuring up spirit protectors, they had a proto-philosophy in mind, a simple set of conclusions or beliefs about reality, the world around them and their society.  That much follows logically from their use of language. 

Religion, when it finally evolved, was an expansion of that proto-philosophy, namely belief in, and attempted communication with, a spiritual realm of existence.  Belief systems which deny any such higher form of reality, such as atheism or Scientology, should not be described as religions, I submit.  By the same token, Satan worship must be recognized as a true religion, no matter how distasteful it might be.

My objective conclusions about religion in general cannot be entirely separated from my own religious beliefs.  So I’ll try to address the former in the midst of describing the latter in sparse detail.  By objective, I mean based on what I’ve concluded independently, while consciously skeptical of the conventional wisdom propounded by religious authorities.  Nevertheless, most of my conclusions are pure conjecture.  That is the nature of religious thought.  Scientific thought, by comparison, strives for conclusions based on empirical data, as much as possible. 

My own philosophical understanding, corroborated by science and theology, recognizes there is more to this universe than meets the eye.  Astrophysicists have produced convincing evidence that space and time are not uniform, contrary to our native perception.  Current “M-theory” in physics postulates up to nine extra dimensions beyond the four we perceive directly. 

After several million years of hominid evolution, early humans developed big brains, reasoning powers and relatively sophisticated cultures.  So armed, I believe they became aware of a spiritual dimension of existence, an unseen yet ever-present dimension populated by spirit beings.  Their universal belief in, and interactions with this spiritual dimension, was the beginning of continuous religious practice on earth down to the present day.  Neolithic societies typically include various healers, shamans, witch doctors, etc. with the ability to obtain information, and perhaps assistance, from these spirit beings. 

At various times in human history, including the modern era, materialism as a belief system has flourished.  Many people alive today, especially in developed societies, are convinced that what we perceive with our senses, the material world around us, is all there is.  Any reference to spirits, ghosts, etc. is nonsense to them.  They understand religious belief and practice to be mere superstition and they are partially right.  Consider the typical tele-evangelist.  Modern materialism unconsciously follows a well-established school of philosophy, namely Logical Positivism.  Its first principle is: any proposition, whose affirmation or negation makes no difference in the material world, is nonsense.

Nevertheless, there are people like me who are inclined to think deeply and often find themselves on the fence between these two conflicting belief systems.  They were raised with some religious education, from their parents or local institutions, but immersed in a society that assumes a materialist perspective for normal behavior.  For example, anyone who claims to commune with ghosts is instantly lumped together with fortunetellers and shamans, and therefore either crazy or dishonest. 

Some of these deep-thinking people, caught in between their religious tradition and the all-pervasive world of materialism, have more than enough faith to sustain their religious belief.  Others have little faith, but want so much to conform; they go through the motions of religious practice, but without any strong convictions for it.  Then there are still others in this situation who openly reject all religious belief as superstition.  They may tolerate religion, but do not subscribe to it.

My own religious journey in adulthood started in the middle group above, thoroughly conditioned to materialism, but still hanging on to a residual belief that there must be something to the Christian system I was taught as a child.  All that changed as I began to witness miracles and read eyewitness accounts of phenomena involving angels, demons and ghosts.  I’m a sucker for a plausible story anyway, and it didn’t take long to start connecting the dots and construct a model of the spiritual dimension that explains these supernatural phenomena.  I’ve now moved into the third category of true believers.  But with a difference, my faith is founded on my rational explanation of spiritual phenomena I have either witnessed, or learned about from credible sources.

I believe a sentient being created the universe and the first life forms therein.  From the beginning, the universe included a spiritual dimension.  The Creator populated this spiritual dimension with a relatively small number of angels, ruled by love.   Long ago, a few of these angels rebelled against the Creator and were allowed to set up their own existence in a separate corner of the spiritual dimension, completely cutoff from the love of the Creator, in a place we call Hell.

Sometime later, Homo sapiens on Earth, and perhaps other creatures on other worlds, reached the stage of their evolution where they became aware of this spiritual dimension.  Through shamans they began to communicate with the spirits.  Because these early humans were primitive by nature, bloodthirsty barbarians, the spirits they encountered were mostly demons from Hell.  And so it has been with witch doctors, magicians, astrologers and soothsayers ever since.  To the extent they actually communicate with spirits, those spirit beings are typically either lost souls, i.e., people who died but whose souls are somehow stuck in a particular place, or outright demons from Hell spreading trouble on earth. 

About 4,000 years ago, the legendary Abram of Ur in Mesopotamia, began a communication with the Creator of the universe that led to the formation of three of today’s prominent religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  All three worship the same Creator.  It’s possible other people, outside of these three traditions, have also communicated with the Creator. 

For reasons we don’t completely understand, it pleases the Creator to limit the activities of angels and demons to our minds most of the time, particularly the faculty we call the conscience.  Most outright physical manifestations such as poltergeists seem to be possible only through the participation of a human mind.  Meanwhile, all living creatures have a built-in resistance to spirits invading their minds.  This resistance is so strong, the spiritual influence only works when a person consciously seeks out or permits the connection.  Notwithstanding occasional uninvited encounters with spirits, such as that experienced by Paul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, most of the time, it is incumbent on humans to trigger the event with their intentions.

What proof do we have that this spiritual realm and its inhabitants exists.  No modern instruments have yet detected spiritual phenomena, even though countless people have personally experienced them.  Drawing on those eyewitness accounts, and my own first-hand, unequivocal experience with a healing miracle, I came to the inescapable conclusion the spiritual dimension is as real as the material world we are so familiar with. 

By all accounts, unexpected encounters with demons are often triggered by experimentation with occult practices such as Ouija boards and Transcendental Meditation.  When you open your mind to any spirit that happens to be listening, you are inviting demons to get into your head and start influencing your thoughts and behavior.  There is an extensive literature of documented cases of Catholic priests encountering and driving out demons from possessed individuals.  Some poor unfortunate person gets involved in occult practices, with an open mind and eager intentions, and ends up tormented by a demon inside her/his head.  Mass murderers frequently get started in this manner.

Encounters with angels, on the other hand, are distinctly different.  People pray to the Creator and the angels, especially Jesus Christ and his mother Mary, Queen of the Angels, giving thanks and asking for all sorts of things.  In this manner Creator constantly intervenes in personal lives.  We refer to these as acts of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete promised by Jesus.  Healing seems to be the primary benefit granted.  Asking for a new Cadillac won’t get you very far, apparently.

The Creator also occasionally intervenes in human affairs on a larger scale, to steer the course of history.  Heaven only knows how much and why, but one striking and well documented example is that of Jeanne La Pucelle (The Maid) aka Joan of Arc.  An illiterate peasant girl of 16 when she began her mission, Joan was very religious, praying to the angels every day.  One day in 1428, Joan experienced a vision of Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine.  These saints reportedly were martyred as young girls, for refusing to renounce their Christian faith. 

These angels spoke at length to Joan, repeatedly over the next three years, until her execution by the English at Rouen, France on May 30, 1431.  Her story and the eyewitness accounts of the miracles she performed in battle and elsewhere are compelling.  The transcript of her trial is direct evidence (provided you believe her) that the Creator occasionally intervenes in human affairs on a grand scale.  Praise the Lord, Hallelujah, God is great.

So what is philosophy of religion and what is my position therein, admittedly as a parvenu.  According to Wikipedia:  “(it) is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious vocabulary and texts, and the relationship of religion and science.”  My remarks above briefly explain my position as to the existence and nature of God the creator and ruler of the universe.  I’ll leave the analysis of lingua sacra (written and spoken) to others, or at least until another day.  However, the nature of religious experience and its relationship to science is a hot topic with me these days.

Let’s begin with the central philosophical problem associated with religion.  Namely, that from the average non-believer’s perspective, religious belief is indistinguishable from superstition.  An account of an appearance of the Queen of the Angels is ranked alongside a Bigfoot sighting or your daily horoscope, by the average person in the street.  All true religions are founded on the idea of a spiritual realm of existence, inhabited by spirit beings.  For that reason, some scholars question whether Buddhism is really a religion, rather than a code of conduct like Confucianism.

Admittedly, this non-material realm cannot be readily detected by current instruments.  Believers and non-believers agree on that point.  It’s just that non-believers will say the spirit realm exists only in our minds.  It is true these spiritual phenomena are most often manifested in our heads; however, they sometimes involve direct action by the Holy Ghost on a material thing, typically a living thing.

Before we give superstition a bad name, I need to point out that much of what we consider voodoo, demon worship and occult practices are in fact communication and familiarity with actual spirit beings of the wrong kind.  In fact, the strongest corroborating evidence for the existence of God and his angels is the phenomena associated with demonology, e.g., possessions, poltergeists, etc.

How can the religious person explain to the materialist why she/he believes in spirits?  As stated above, religious belief looks just like superstition to the casual observer.  For all the materialist can tell, the whole thing is a figment of the believer’s imagination.  The answer is found in the actual religious phenomena the believer experiences.  Sometimes the non-believer has had similar experiences and thereby begins to understand, but normally religious experiences are strictly personal.  Nevertheless, a personal religious experience such as a vision or a miraculous healing is often substantial and compelling enough to require explanation. 

Because of their paranormal nature, these experiences tend to corroborate the belief in a spiritual realm.  That’s why religious belief and practices have been so widespread since Paleolithic times.  From my perspective, the religious phenomena I have personally experienced, combined with what I have learned about other people’s encounters with the paranormal, can only be rationally explained by the existence of a spiritual dimension.  I consider myself blessed in this regard.  The Creator has endowed me with an open mind and generally protected me from harm.  I can only assume it’s because the Creator loves me.  Beyond that, the whys and wherefores are a mystery, a key characteristic of all religious thought.

The Christian path to enlightenment in religious matters starts by praying to Jesus, asking for help with something important you need, large or small.  The secret for connecting with the spiritual realm is your intention.  For starters you have to honestly accept His rule to love your fellow humans and repent for current or past practices to the contrary.  Your mind is like a radio beacon, normally closed to the spirits, as a defensive posture (who’s afraid of a ghost?)  But once you honestly accept the Golden Rule, then you can safely open your mind and make clear to yourself that you intend to communicate with Christ the Redeemer.  Act with faith and speak (inside your mind) to Jesus with your request, as a friend.  It could be something as simple as:  What can I do to free myself once and for all from gluttony?  Or, it could be something serious like a plea to heal a sick child.  Two people praying together are even more effective.  Either way, through prayer, and with patience, you will begin to perceive miracles, large and small. 

The skeptical materialist would say these are random events that you choose to interpret as meaningful.  But for the thinking person who is wondering about religious belief, these unusual phenomena start to add up, beyond what the odds would predict.  Plus, some of the events are downright paranormal, e.g., dramatic healings.  At some point, any rational person, who carefully examines the miraculous events they have experienced, large and small, will likely be ready to accept that Jesus is alive, he loves us and he intervenes in our world as it pleases him. 

No doubt religious Muslims and Jews have similar paths to enlightenment.  The same for Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, et al.  Some or all of them may be in communication with the one and only being we call God the Creator, I have no way of knowing.  My belief system is centered on the Christian tradition, and it’s constructed on rational explanation of religious phenomena, the best explanation I can imagine, drawing credible accounts by others of the whole range of spiritual phenomena. 

Fortunately, the Christian tradition is loaded with eyewitness accounts of what Jesus and his apostles said and did.  Since then many paranormal events with religious or demonic overtones have been documented.  Making these rational connections, between my own experiences and credible accounts by others, I have reached certainty in my mind about the nature of religious experience and its true relationship to the material existence all humans are familiar with.