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So let's take it one issue at a time.
"Seeing someone who let's their life choices be guided by religious faith, especially organised religion, can sometimes make me think: what a waste of human talent."
There is absolutely no way in which a life of faith should in any manner inhibit the pursuit or expression of one's God-given talents. Indeed, Jesus preached against hiding your lamp under a basket. It is a denial of faith in God as creator to deny one's own gifts and to fail to make good use of them; this is a big part of the broader meaning of "sloth." So I see no way whatsoever that faith in God causes talent to be wasted. I would love a concrete example, as it seems here that you are simply identifying something as endemic to a life of faith because you feel like saying it. Precisely what talents are humans obliged not to use once they adopt a religion?
"Rather than making their own decisions, they're leaving it up to someone else - typically the long-dead writer of a book."
People of faith make all of their own decisions. It is not possible for someone else to make a decision for you except under some sort of extreme duress, e.g., threat of severe physical harm to yourself or a loved one. And even under these circumstances, one may still make a moral decision for oneself; an excellent illustration of this would be the huge number of Christian martyrs who allowed themselves to be tortured to death in the most appalling ways imaginable rather than commit what they believed was an immoral act. Faith in God guides the decision making process. Go back to the basics, and look at the ten commandments. I think there are very few if any circumstances under which one could legitimately argue that it's a good "decision" to act in a manner contrary to those commandments. You may say, "But I really WANT to kill this guy I hate, and if I follow the commandment not to do so just because it's in a book by a dead writer, that limits my ability to make my own decisions." Well, the only thing it's doing at that point is preventing you from making a horrible decision.
At the heart of your argument lies an assumption that I believe is inherently false, namely, that the morality prescribed by a life of faith is in stark contrast to the way that people really want to live. It has not been my experience in life that this is so. Humankind shares a common moral code to a degree, and in every society, people who insist upon violating that code are seen as detached from society at the very least, or at worst criminal and deserving of punishment. Do we really admire a theif, a murderer or and adulterer because of the independence of their decision-making? If so, then the people we most revile in history, from Caligula to the Spanish Inquisitors to Hitler to Charles Manson, should indeed be the ones we admire most, for these are the people who showed the greatest courage and conviction in defying the moral precepts contained in books by dead authors.
"And they also become vulnerable to people who claim to be a conduit for 'Truth' or 'Salvation', but are really out to make a quick buck."
Some humans are weak and vulnerable, easily manipulated, and constantly on the lookout for someone to tell them what to do. This quality makes them easy prey for all sorts of criminals, of whom pseudo-religious shysters are but a small subset. Such people are just as easily victimized by crooks running real estate or insurance scams, "New World Order" whack jobs trying to save them from the black helicopters, or even abusive spouses who always say that they're sorry after the fact and promise to never do it again. What you are indicting here is not religion. In fact, you are not even indicting ersatz religion as a cover for larceny. You are indicting weak people for allowing themselves to be victimized by evil people. I don't pretend to know the solution to this problem, but I feel strongly that it's not eliminating religion. You might as well say, "We should really disallow all health insurance, because gullible seniors are often robbed of their life savings in bogus insurance scams."
"I'd rather the person was independent, and contributing new thoughts to society (because I enjoy a vibrant society)."
You mean, people like St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi, Michelangelo, Martin Luther, Fra Angelico, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, the Dalai Lama, Raphael, Johann Sebastian Bach, St. Maximillian Kolbe, Thomas Merton, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, C.S. Lewis, Francesco Goya, Soren Kierkegaard, the settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony (and later, Roger Williams), Benjamin Britten, Fulton Sheen, Mahvishnu John McLaughlin, Nikos Kazantzakis, Freidrich Handel, and all the tens of thousands of others who have created some of society's most enduring art, music, literature, architecture and philosophy all for the greater glory of God? Independent people like these? Or are you talking about a different kind of societal vibrancy?
"Perhaps you have the same feeling about astrology - which seems to me to be fundamentally incompatible with any Christian faith. I simply can't understand why anyone would think that patterns of stars and planets would have the slightest bearing on the personality or experiences of humans. If they don't change their behaviour as a result, and just regard it as a bit of fun, it doesn't really matter; but when you get someone who actually decides not to date someone because their star sign is incompatible, it's infuriating."
We're in the apples and oranges zone here on at least two levels. First of all, astrology says nothing about the origin of humankind, it deals not at all with issues of the soul, it is utterly divorced from any notions of morality, it is concerned with neither good nor bad. Astrology is simply the belief that the positioning of inanimate objects in space directs the course of human history. Religion, by definition, involves not only the acknowledgement of but the worship of some deity. While astrology is dependent upon the acceptance of a "power" greater than oneself, that power is not rightly considered a deity, it has no personhood, it is simply believed to be. I believe that by accepted definitions (not implying any sort of a value judgement here, so no flames please), astrology would more properly be classified as a superstition than a religion or faith. I don't know of anyone who believes in astrology who prays to the planets (although this is not to suggest that such people do not exist).
On another level, you are again describing decision making, and how astrology might affect this process in one who believes in the power of the alignment of heavenly bodies. I, too, find this frustrating, because I see so little evidence that what is contained in astrological texts really bears out in real life. I have read my horoscope in the paper for years. It is correct so seldom, that I have to call those occasions mere coincidence. Were I to make actual decisions in my life based on astrology, the likelihood that those decisions would result in a positive outcome would be entirely arbitrary, based on my experience.
However, I see enormous evidence in history and in my own experience that decisions made based on true faith have positive outcomes. So when I try to do as Jesus instructs, to treat others as I would like to be treated, to take care of those less fortunate than myself, to be open and loving to all people (especially those who dislike me), to act based on how my actions will affect others more than how they will benefit me, to comfort those who are greiving, to feed those who are hungry, to remain humble and thankful for the many gifts that God has given me, and to strive always to act out of selflessness and love, I see good things happen, I get the positive outcomes that I desire. When I act out of greed, or selfishness, or lust, or pride, I see negative outcomes. When my neo-con nutcase coworker drops a twenty dollar bill on the floor in his cubicle and I notice it in passing, I could easily pocket it and tell myself, "Serves him right, he's an asshole." But then how does that reflect upon me? How am I furthering the just and loving world that I would like to live in? How will I feel spending that twenty dollars? What is the long-term damage that I do to my own spirit by acting out of greed and spite? But if I pick up the twenty, go find my coworker in the cafeteria and say, "Here, you dropped this," the impact is utterly different. My conscience is unburdened, I have extended a kindness which I may hope might be extended to me one day (althoug this is certainly not the motive for doing the right thing, it can be a wonderful side benefit), and I have done something to further the cause of creating a just and loving world.
My point here is, don't conflate the rejection of a potential lover due to their star sign with making decisions based on deep and thoughtful moral conviction. People who consult their star chart before making a decision are demonstrating the same kind of weakness as those who fall for TV preachers and send in all of their savings; they are simply looking for someone to tell them what to do, so that they can wash their hands of any responsibility for their own lives. A life of faith demands that every decision be examined critically from the standpoint of moral judgement. Ultimately, if one is living faith truly and responsibly, these decisions must be made entirely within oneself, but with profound sensitivity to the greater good of all mankind.
"Similarly, I can get on easily with someone who regards faith as a philosophical quest, while making their own decisions about day-to-day life should be lived; but when their religious faith makes them decide something like 'homosexuality is bad, purely because it says so in this book, and my priest told me several times', that's infuriating too."
I believe you are accurately contrasting in this paragraph persons of faith with persons who are merely "religious," in the sense that they have glommed onto an organized religious body, acquiesced to that body's authority, and as I suggest above, have thereby relinquished responsibility for their own actions. You're right, that's infuriating.
Most religions have their texts and their leaders. These can be good and bad things. Since you're talking about the bible, let's work with that, but I think what I will say here applies broadly. The bible is a mess. It is not a historiography, as the literallists insist. There's allegory, there's poetry, there's erotica, there's animal husbandry, there are recipies and dietary instructions, there's even the results of a census. Much of what's there makes little sense when taken strictly at face value. Framing it within a historical context can be helpful for some passages, and useless for others. At the end of the day, it's open to a lot of interpretation. Here's where the leaders come in. As I said in my original post, leaders are human beings and therefore subject to every human failing. Any given Christian leader might be interpreting the bible rightly, or they might just as easily be way off base.
Problem is, Christianity is a complicated thing. Understanding the message of God through Jesus Christ and how this all ties into the salvific vision for humankind is not a simple matter. It helps to have a guru, just as it helps in learning the disciplines of Zen Buddhism. If you just go it alone, the propensity for greivous error is simply too great. So those who are thoughtful about their faith and about their commitment to Christ seek out a community which teaches something which resonates with their own moral convictions. But for a person of true faith, this must always imply questioning, because as I said, the leaders are human and subject to error. Nobody's perfect, so no matter who you're following, they're bound to be wrong some of the time. As an adult convert to the Roman Catholic church, I was drawn to the deep history and long tradition of art, philosophy, music and intellectual examination the institution has produced. But I have always felt that some church doctrine is utterly wrong (e.g., birth control... yeah, like we really need more people jammed onto this planet, laying waste to God's creation... but that's another long post....). The priest who guided me through the sacraments was a true guru, and when I confronted him with this, he assured me that this did not mean I was a "bad Catholic." It simply means that I am a person of deep and thoughtful faith, and that I am therefore obliged to always think long and hard about why I am making a decision that contradicts church doctrine, and make certain that it's out of moral conviction rather than convenience or self-interest. Then I'm in the clear.
And he often reminded me that Jesus defied virtually every dogmatic precept of his day, and yet lived the most holy and faithful life of all.
"And religion can seem like a slippery slope. By saying "Jesus is my Saviour, and we should all love one another", you also encourage others to say "this book says Jesus is my Saviour, and loads of us believe that; therefore it must be true, and by the way that means homosexuals will burn in hell, because that's in the book too"."
Well, no you don't really encourage others to say that at all. I have said for years that Jesus is my Savior and that we should all love one another, but I have never encouraged anyone to hate a homosexual. I mean, you can say things like this, God made us free, you can say whatever you damn well please! But you cannot make these two statements and sincerely believe both of them. One is founded in love and truth, the other is founded in hatred and error. I'm not going to quibble about which passage in the bible is supposedly referring to anal intercourse between men (unless of course it isn't, it's talking about something else), because that's hardly the point. Gay bashing clothed in a veil of Christian righteousness is just one symptom of a major spiritual disease, a cancer of the soul, it is common among humans everywhere, and it is certainly not the fault of God.
God gave humans the capacity to fear. Now, fear is a wonderful, indispensible emotion, I think. If you're walking down the street at night and you look down a dark alley and at the end you see three big guys picking their teeth with switchblades, fear is the best thing you can feel, because fear will tell you to run, and running will probably save your life. We have an instinctive fear of the unknown as well. But God also gave us shame (and there is certainly a place for this emotion too... I think we all wish bush* was capable of feeling it). And especially in American culture, we have taught ourselves to be ashamed of fear. You psychologists out there can supply all of the terminology (I always get association and transference and all that stuff confused), but you know what happens when we are ashamed of something, we try to turn it into something else. We fear what we do not understand, and we are ashamed of that fear. The two things we can turn this into are inquisitiveness or anger. If we turn it into inquisitveness, we attempt to learn about and understand the unknown thing we fear, and thereby render it no longer fearsome. If we turn it into anger, then we have saddled ourselves with another emotion that we feel some shame about, and eventually we need to simply band together with other ignorant, fearful, ashamed and angry people for moral support.
Sadly, such an organization of individuals often takes the form of a church. But once again, the fact that people do this does not make churches, or religion, or faith "bad" in and of themselves. There are racist, sexist universities in this country, but no one's saying "I don't believe in higher education, look at the horrible people who flock to it." You don't amputate the legs of everyone in the hospital just because the guy in 308-B has gangrene. This is neither logical nor moral thinking.
Yes, some churches harbor hate. Some people who go to churches do not think for themselves. None of these churches or people have anything to do with faith, I believe, exept insofar as they use an erroneous expression of Christian faith as a cover for their own moral failings. The easy way out is to say, "OK, I guess faith is good, but churches are all bad." But this is also wrong. The Catholic church has been responsible for enormous social good in its history, and at this time gives more money away to the needy than every other charitable organization on the planet combined. A huge portion of the good the church has done could not have been accomplished by individuals working independently without organization. Of course, the church has also been responsible for incredible atrocities, many of which were abetted by that same organization. But you can find this ambiguity in every human endeavor. We don't condemn science because some discoveries help mankind while others cause death and destruction. All of these things are what people make of them. Faith is, ultimately, what we make of it.
And that is about as independent as one can get. Each of us is resonsible for defining our own relationship with God. And God would not have it any other way.
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