Religious Philosophy

RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY FINAL ESSAY

Rev. Vicki A Bennett D.D.

This course gave me huge amounts of information to contemplate about how we came to create religions and the theories were quite illuminating, but the question still remains, ‘Why do we need to create gods?’ And better yet, why create them and then spend time erecting huge buildings to them so that we can then ‘worship’ our creation? 

I have been pondering this question for years, I mean, who was the first human who said, ‘I have seen/felt something that I can't describe and so there must be someone/something out there greater than us. Let us call this being ‘God’.

Who was this first human who came up with the word, ‘God’? And how did that word come to be synonymous with a being who created the universe and all the beings in it? And is the theory of the three great problems of life, conflicts against nature, against others and against ourselves really giving us an answer?

In college, I studied anthropology (cultural and physical) and was struck by a number of what I considered dichotomies in the theory of evolution. When we look at a particular culture, we analyze their way of life by certain critical criteria. First we assess their language skills and then writing (literature or history) and finally architecture or building skills.

If evolution is the way we all came to be here then why didn’t we evolve together? Why the great disparity in our abilities and skills? How can great civilizations evolve without spreading throughout the planet? What happened to the ‘hundredth monkey’ theory while all this was taking place?

We have the Greeks, Romans and Chinese building great civilizations with modern architecture, sewer systems, aqueducts and roads and the Egyptians and Mayans building huge pyramids and temples. Math, astronomy, philosophy and literature are commonplace as is the worship of gods, lots of gods.

We also have the tribal cultures at the same time and place; living in mud huts, teepees, etc. worshiping the god of thunder, of harvest, grandfather sun and grandmother moon. In the tribal cultures we see language skills, but oral tradition only and no architecture other than the basic needs for shelter.

Why the great disparity between the cultures? What drives one culture to become philosophers, engineers, architects and world conquerors and another to live in harmony with nature? Could it somehow be related to the search within? Could the perception of the spiritual experience somehow shape an entire civilization?

We would have to conclude that for the majority of the planet’s religions interaction with others is the major point love one another as you love yourself’ and the golden rule. So the search for truth is superseded by society’s need for morality and law. And yet sin (disobedience) is the norm and so the church has to institute a ‘sacrament’ for forgiveness as a way to keep its members coming back into the fold.

The more traditional (native) faiths are based on the premise that all life is sacred (the natural problem) and that everyone has something important to contribute to the tribe. Every member is supposed to follow their spiritual path because as one becomes a spiritual warrior he/she acts for the betterment of the entire tribe. The Lakota say, ‘Mitakuye Oyasin’ meaning ‘we are all one’(it translates to ‘all my relations’) but when they greet you, they mean that everything is connected to the One, The Great Spirit. And that connectedness includes every animal, rock and tree.

So what is the common thread that unites us in our need to create gods? Is it the three great problems of life as Russell and Smith so elegantly describe them? Is it merely a question of how to get people to behave morally and ethically? Or is it something deeper and much harder to explain?

I think that it is something much deeper and impossible to classify, something broader than the three great problems. From my personal experience, there is something unreachable, something ‘built-in that if we try to ignore, comes back again and again until we follow it. And then again I could just have an enormous amount of reuptake receptors in my brain’ I was raised Catholic, found them to be hypocritical when it came to their treatment of women or anyone who questioned the dogma that we were just asked to swallow blindly. I asked to be excommunicated when I was a junior in high school. (Long story, don’t ask...)

I tumbled through college, marriage, divorce, more college, another marriage, grad school, another divorce’ when suddenly something unexpected came tugging at me. ‘Who am I and why am I here? ’ok’ well, I am an artist and a college professor and I don’t know.

I missed that ‘feeling’ for lack of a better term that I had felt in childhood, that sense of spirit that had been so easy.

But the memory of the church was one of bitterness and frustration, so where do I go? The Catholic Church did not allow us to read the bible on our own, as we would after all, not be able to understand what god was really saying and go on to misinterpret the entire thing and then be swayed by Satan.

So I joined a bible study group that met at the university and I experienced a resurgence of the spirituality that I had had as a child. But then the darkness came again. The group was a Christian fellowship and started pressuring me to join and be one of them. They were even more anti-woman than the Catholics and had several of the women there come and speak with me’meaning, tell me how I was expected to act as a member of their church.

And to them, as I had been divorced twice, I was expected not to date at all. I was forbidden to date any of the men in the fellowship as I was a ‘fallen woman’and I was forbidden to date outside of the fellowship as those men where not ‘saved’and would lead me to Satan (again).

The whole idea of aligning myself with another group of people who were sincere in their attempt to control me ruined the new spiritual experience and I broke away from them, put my bible away and felt completely lost.

I decided to attempt therapy to see if the answers were somewhere within me and I just couldn’t reach them. One day my therapist said to me, ‘You need to remember that you are a spiritual being having a physical experience.'

That one sentence changed my life. I realized that what I was searching for couldn’t be answered by psychology or religion; I needed to be able to get in touch with my own spirituality. Suddenly I found millions of people who were searching just as I was. Spirituality was a single path, one that you walked alone. The search was deep within and once the path was started, it led you along to the final road.

I suddenly saw my life as a swiftly flowing stream and decided that I had one of two choices, I could swim against the flow and fight like hell to reach what I believed to be a safe shore, or I could just lie back and allow it to take me to my final destination. The moment I stopped fighting the flow and allowed my life to just be, I was led to one person after another who challenged my way of thinking and pushed me to the next level where I met another person or experience that led me forward.

There was no longer a need to belong to a group who thought like I did; no need to bask in the safety of an organized religion, just peace within. I taught myself to meditate for hours, to release my spirit from my body and soar above the earth and beyond.

Every person who came into my life taught me something new, some new way to ‘see’ the path I was on. The simple act of opening to any and all experiences with the eyes of a child, unbiased, non-judgmental, just allowing everything to be, gave me back the sense of who I was and what I was here for.

I spent 8 years with the Lakota sharing sweat lodges and dancing with them and I finally took my refuge vows (Buddhist) last summer at the Dharma Center. So after 24 years walking my spiritual path, I practice a mix of Buddhist/Native American beliefs, but I do not belong to any group. For me the studies with the Lakota and Buddhist teachers were just a part of my path and not the entirety. I know that my path lies within me and that no other person or set of beliefs other than my own will make me whole.

What I have found in my personal search is that Enlightenment is the only true path and all obstacles must be overcome along the way. I believe that if everyone simply followed their own path, we would have no need for organized religions and we could all become ONE. And in becoming aware of our unity, we would finally realize that we are God.

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