RELIGIONS, THEIR ORIGINS AND NECESSITY, AND A POSSIBLE NEW, UNITING RELIGION ON EARTH

by Lawrence Wilson, MD

Ó March 2011, The Center For Development

Many people say that one should avoid discussing religion and politics. However, there is so much confusion about religion, and this confusion can lead to wars, and so few are willing to discuss it in what will hopefully be a somewhat objective way, that I will tackle this subject in this article.

Religions have been with humanity for thousands of years. The subject of this article is their origin, their evolution, their necessity and their future.

WHAT IS A RELIGION AND WHAT IS IT FOR?

The word religion from the Latin language means to link back, or to hold fast. This is an excellent way to understand what a religion is, at the deepest level.

In practice, a religion consists of 1) a set of dogmas or beliefs, 2) a set of behaviors or rituals, and 3) a set of ethics or rules of conduct. This may be said to be the essence of a religion.

In addition, religions can have many other aspects and purposes, such as:

1. Helping people survive physically, socially and otherwise.

2. Helping people organize their lives in safe and creative ways.

3. Preserving knowledge, such as when the Church of England and others kept records during the dark ages in Europe, when books were rare and costly.

4. Controlling people’s thought and behaviors. This may sound negative, but it is not necessarily so. For example, the Ten Commandments teaches “do not steal”, “do not lie”, and so on. This is definitely helpful for any society.

5. Helping to define gender, family and leadership roles.

6. Encouraging safe and healthful sexual, marital, and child-raising behaviors.

7. In the past, particularly, religion has played an important political role. For example, in most older nations, the priests were also the political rulers. America broke with this tradition with the concept of the separation of the church and the state. This has been misinterpreted to mean that America is not a religious nation, which is not the case.
It really just means that people can worship as they please, and must not be forced to join any particular religion. All are welcome, as long as they do not preach violence against any other group. By this definition, by the way, Islam is not welcome in America.

8. Religion has served as the source of information for questions that science is not yet prepared to answer. These include What is life? Who are we? Where are we from? Where are we going? Why do we get sick and die? and other basic questions.

THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION ON EARTH

As civilization has progressed, and as technology and understanding has grown on planet earth, religions have necessarily evolved as well. This process is happening ever faster today because technology and science are learning so much that it tends to challenge the old dogmas and rituals of the prevailing religions of today.

Older religions. What are called “primitive societies” usually have religions that permeate the lives of the people, and are aimed at helping them survive in a low-technology, dangerous world. Their gods are usually multiple, and they are often called magical, pagan, or polytheistic (multi-god ) religions.

In addition, they are often superstitious types of religions in which strange and powerful objects, animals, people, gods and places exert control and cause catastrophes and misfortunes. Mankind must learn about these power and gods and do whatever is necessary to appease them, work with them, control them and hopefully overcome or at least live in peace with them to survive and prosper.

The religions found in many indigenous cultures are also generally mystical. That is, they are based on observable scientific phenomena that are not necessarily scientific by our methods, but are often real to others. These might include the use of psychedelic drugs to create certain experiences, or certain rituals that provide benefits for the people, even though we do not understand how they work or even if they work at all.

More advanced religions starting with Judaism. Mainly in the West and the Middle East, the teachings of Abraham, Issac and Jacob brought a new type of religion to the earth. These include Judaism, Christianity and to some degree Islam. Islam is a hybrid type because it is not quite the same as Judaism and Christianity, which emphasize love and a loving god. Islam is an older style religion in some ways.

These somewhat newer religions are less superstitious than the magical and polytheistic older religions that preceded them. The newer religions generally postulate only one God or power in the universe. Objects, places and powerful people are still important, but not as important as in the pagan religions. The staff of Moses was such an object, as was the Ark of the Covenant.

The Jewish religion was also the first religion to have a clear, written text for all its laws, customs and rituals. Earlier religions were often carried on through oral traditions, rather than written ones.

These religions still have some magical and superstitious qualities, but much less so than the older ones. They are designed to help people survive and prosper in a world in which writing, military technology, social organization and so forth were far more developed on earth.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism and many other older religions of the Orient. Some of these religions arose at a similar time as the older Western pagan religions, so they share some qualities with them. Most believe in multiple gods and goddesses, and contain many mystical aspects.

Even newer religions on earth. While Judaism and Christianity are still prevalent on earth, the rise of modern science and other technology has devastated them, as most people are more interested in watching television and learning about new technologies, than they are about going to church. Yet humanity still has need of some type of religious experience and religious dogmas and rituals to help organize their lives. This has given rise to what may be called “new, secular religions”.

Some would say, for example, that modern medicine, environmentalism, and even some political ideologies like Marxism have become new religions. Let us examine these in a little more detail.

Today’s newer “secular religions” believe in the perfectibility of mankind. Unlike Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam, the newer religions are mainly more upbeat. That is, they focus less on sin, evil and ‘dark forces’ and instead appeal to people’s sense of wonder, their sense of adventure, and that life can be wonderful if one follows the rules. This is the opposite of following the rules out of fear of dying, or fear of hell, for example.

It appears that these motives are less powerful today, and that it may be better to motivate people with promises of adventure, good health and great happiness rather than running from evil.

The only problem with this stance is that most people on earth are still motivated by selfishness and fears. Therefore, when relieved of the “burden” of sinfulness by their new “religion”, many people allow their lower impulses to rule them and the result has been the Nazi movement, the Communist movements around the world, and much of today’s environmental movement, which is extremely authoritarian and even hateful in its expression.

It has also caused a tremendous gullibility among many followers of these views. This makes them vulnerable to great exploitation by unscrupulous leaders. Once again, we need only look to modern China, modern Russia and Nazi Germany to see what happens when people trust human leaders, rather than trusting and believing only in a metaphysical God or Jesus.

Jesus taught people to “love thy neighbor as thy self”, yet Hitler convinced millions of German citizens that we must cleanse the entire planet of all but the Aryan race. This is such a perversion of the Christian ethic that one wonders how in the world he accomplished this feat.

The only plausible answer is that he essentially set himself up as the new Christ, and his national socialism (or Nazi) as the new religion. He supplanted or replaced the old Christian value system with a new value system.

There is thus great danger whenever a new religion appears that appeals to people’s lower impulses. In contrast, the Jewish religion, and to some extent Catholicism, are quite demanding of their adherents. Judaism, in particular, does not seek converts and makes it difficult to join the religion, although anyone may join if they follow the rules. This is very different from the newer religions that actively seek members and basically bend the rules or lie about the rules in order to win over new converts.

The new attempts at a “world religion” based on science, medicine, or environmentalism are clearly just attempts. They fall short in many ways. However, in the future, I believe there will develop a new world religion that retains all the good parts of the older religions, and adds the newer perspectives brought to us by modern science. Here are just a few of the newer principles that I can imagine in a future religion.

A POSSIBLE FUTURE WORLD RELIGION

1. All mankind is one. If this principle were understood clearly, most wars and terrorism would cease. Another way to say this is that God, the deity or the holy spirit loves all people equally. No one is better than anyone else.

2. All mankind is under one god. This means that not only are all people similar in many ways, but all are loved equally by a benign force that we may call God, Spirit or the Energy Of Creation.

3. All mankind is one, under god, and all of mankind are brothers and sisters. This means that all of mankind are one, are loved by their creator, and are related to each other. In other words, if you harm the least of them, you harm them all. It does not matter what the others think, look like or believe.

4. All mankind is one, under god, and all of mankind are brothers and sisters, and all of mankind are one and the same flesh. This adds yet another idea to the previous three. It adds that not only are all of mankind related to one another, but they all share the same body type, DNA, minerals and vitamins in the bodies, and all other components of the physical vehicle or body.

These are four basic principles of the new religion on earth that is coming. It will be some time for this to occur. These ideas will not interfere, at first, with any of the dogmas of the current world religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Islam, but they can help stop the fighting that religion is now causing on earth. Much later, I expect, the world’s religions will see the wisdom in adopting these principles of unity, as they may be called.

For more about changing one’s belief system, which is difficult for most people, read Changing One’s Religious Beliefs on this website.

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