Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, January 19, 2010

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of
fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.

Edgar Allan Poe, poet, was born on this date, 1809


Well, I would disagree – at last with half of what Poe says. That all religion is evolved out of poetry and imagination, I agree. That “all religion” is evolved “out of fraud, fear, greed”, I disagree. I would say that all false religion is evolved out of fraud, fear and greed. And I would add out of some others things – like guilt, powerlessness, ignorance, a failure to appreciate the sheer wonder of being Human and the glory of human intellectual and imaginative character.

“Faith” is to be distinguished from “religion”. “Faith” is a choice to believe in certain theological or philosophical principles which allow us to navigate Life with some strength and courage and wisdom. “Religion” is the multitude of things we do to support the Faith we have chosen, including worship, ritual, practices of all sorts.

My Faith and Religion are definitely a matter of my imagination and poetic understanding of Life and my needs. I have rejected all aspects of religion which are counter to thriving in Life. I think that Moses and Jesus did the same thing. They let go of prevailing ideas about “God” and rejected aspects of religious practice that were contrary to their understanding of God’s good purpose for Humanity. My Life has been a constant path of such winnowing out things which denigrate Life in all its beauty and holiness.

I would encourage you to examine your faith principles and your religious practice. If they don’t affirm the sacredness of your self as the ontological being you are, if they do not support the centrality of Love as the core of successful humanity, if they encourage the demeaning of other persons who are not “like you” or who follow different paths, let them go.

You will then be free to become the extraordinary being you were destined to be, and a healer of the World’s pain.

Brian+