Turtle Life
A lot of the turmoil in our world today can be attributed to religion in some way or another. Because of this many people have taken the position that all religion is bad while trying to avoid it as much as possible. To many it’s something to be condemned and they wish it all away. The problem with that is religion, itself, isn’t inherently bad.
The reality of it is religion has a very useful and positive purpose in our lives and in this world. Unfortunately, that purpose isn’t easily understood by us and as such it doesn’t get properly utilized.
Religion isn’t something to define what we are and how we should be in this world. Instead religion is something to help us understand what we are and what we are about in this world. In action the two concepts are similar, but the outcome from the goal is what makes the difference.
To put this into perspective I’ll refer to a passage from the Christian Bible which speaks of putting on the whole armor of God.1 That’s a good way of stating it as in many ways religion is like the clothes that we wear. They do have a very useful purpose and benefit which is why we place a high priority on wearing them. The thing is when we look at the concept of religion from the clothing analogy we can take the phrase “the clothes don’t make the man” literally. Strip the clothes off the man and you’ll still have the man.
Just as the clothing that one may dress oneself in is not responsible for the deeds of one’s behavior while wearing them so, too, is it with religion. It’s what one does with or for a religion that defines it in terms of good or bad.
Even as it is that we may put on certain types of specialized clothing to help us perform certain tasks or survive under certain conditions the same can be said of our use for religion. In many ways religions help us survive and operate in this world.
So it really comes down to what we do with religion that determines the positive or negative value of it. We don’t need to turn away from, hide from, denounce or abolish religion. We just need to use it constructively in our lives in ways that allow it to be that which helps us flourish in life instead of that which breaks it.
Peace,
K
Reference
Digg
Twitter
Youtube
Facebook
Myspace
LinkedIn
private Twitter