A TRUTH ABOUT RELIGION

Dear Reader,
I don't get many comments about my research and representations, but a very dear friend of mine has sincerely commented and his comments have humbled me to the point where I am moved to not only respond to his comments but also share his and my discourse with you. But, because he has not given me permission to do so, I will not write his name. However, the wisdom of his message is far more important than his identity. I trust that he will not mind my sharing his wisdom with you. Just to maintain his anonymity, I will address him in this blog as John Doe.

John said:

Perman,

That was some research. When I was a little boy growing up I used to go to church very often, and I remember the part with Abraham and his one son that he was about to sacrifice. Those men at that time were so holy that they would do anything to please God.

I said:

Thanks for responding, John.

Even more than holy, they were ignorant. Not only did they not know how to please God, they also didn't know who or what God is. The problem with ignorance is that you can't solve real problems with it. You can solve real problems with what you know--not what you think you know that just isn't so. Accurate thinking solves problems. Inaccurate thinking not only doesn't solve problems but can also make matters worse.

John said:

Perman,

I totally agree with you, because when I was a young boy growing up. I would believe everything I was told when I would go to church and hear the pastor preaching, but as I got older I was able to analyze for myself.

John,

I must admit that I too grew up in the church believing exactly what I was told until I reached an age that I began to question some things that just didn't make any sense to me as I reflected on my real life experiences--even though I was only about 12 or 13 years old.
I asked questions like: If Adam and Eve were the only two people on earth, had two sons (no daughters were mentioned), Cain (the oldest son) killed his younger brother, Abel, and God sent him away to a land away from his parents, how could he and his wife have a son? In Genesis, Chapter 4: Verses 16 & 17, it says, "And Cain went away from the LORD'S presence and lived in a land called 'Wandering,' which is east of Eden. Cain and his wife had a son and named him Enoch...." After reading that, I asked myself: “What wife?” Even if Adam and Eve had more children, and somehow Cain got one of them to be his wife, wouldn't that be incest? Why would God let that happen? Why wouldn't God just make him a wife like He made Adam and Eve?

The honest truth of the matter is that, according to archeologists, it took thousands of years after the known existence of humans before people began to write. Therefore, if anyone really knew how people came into existence, they could only tell others about it orally--that is, they couldn't write it. Thus, any so-called proof of the validity of the Creation Story is at best hear-say, which is not admissible in a court of law.

In other words, anybody with any common sense (which has never been common) could reason that oral traditions are not legitimate history. Anyone can say anything, and usually, many people do. It doesn't take much intelligence to realize that unless actions and events are recorded by responsible historians, oral traditions, which is nothing more than hear-say, is unreliable. So many folktales, fairytales, myths, and legends have been made up (and believed) in the past--only to be thought ridiculous by later generations--that it defies logic and common sense to believe some ludicrous fantasies generation after generation as has been done.

What awe's me about typical religions (and I regard myself as a religious person) is that people (including me) have allowed there minds to be enslaved by what some people wrote in the past--people who were not nearly as knowledgeable as we are today.

However, I think I understand why. Let me try to both understand it as well as explain it. It seems to me that life is so difficult (even though it is remarkable how so many people have simplified their lives) that many people try desperately to make it easier to live. Because people find themselves neither able to control their own minds nor the minds of others, they delude themselves and dogmatize others into believing things (like religions) that will help them to both control themselves as well as others; as proof, kings as well as emperors have realized that whoever controls the religion of a people also controls the people who believe in that religion. And, besides being able to control the people with religion, I'm sure that many of them also realized that with religion they could also control themselves.

So, to sum up, most religious people aren't stupid; we just want to live the best life that we can; and, religion helps us to do just that. There is a difference between knowing and doing, and ones religion helps one to both know and do. For example, I know that for optimum health I should indeed exercise daily about twenty to thirty minutes, but I haven't done so in eight months; if my religion required me to exercise for twenty to thirty minutes a day, I would most likely do it. The unspoken truth is that religion both controls a person as well as helps a person to control him or her self.