There’s got to be more to it. At some point we come up against a wall. A wall where the reason has run out, the intellect has run out, the science has run out. We have to be willing to step out on faith and believe that there has to be more to it all; to our life, to this world, than our finite minds can fathom. Our reason and our science tells us that more possibilities can and do exist than our simplistic beliefs want to force us to accept.
We all have a need to be on the winning team. Our ego’s need us to be. We’ll do, believe, accept, justify, or rationalize anything and everything in order to support our choices in our vain and endless attempt to be
right. Instead of being
happy and
well-adjusted, most would rather appear to be
right and thus come off
self-righteous.
All world religions and spiritual belief systems operate on a blend of science, psychology, reason, and faith. When the archaeology, historical evidence and reason run out… we have to step out on faith. This faith to accept things
beyond our own ethnocentric beliefs... the beliefs that have been shaped largely by what were exposed to in the societies where we grew up throughout our lives, has to be given the same opportunity to exist as our other "faith" does. Faith has to be encouraged to accept our own beliefs as well as the possibility of other belief systems.
For example, since approximately one half of the world adheres to the Islamic religion, many more Muslims exist than Christians. Given that only a small percentage of western missionaries that will reach an even smaller percentage of the Muslim world, Christianity tell us that the rest are doomed to hell. This seems inconceivable that the personal and caring God that the Bible teaches about would allow this to happen. Logic tells us that there has to be more to this than our human minds will ever be able to contemplate or comprehend. God has to have a divine intention and supernatural order to things that will not allow the majority of his creation to perish simply because they were born in Pakistan instead of Pennsylvania. As soon as we start believing that we fully understand what God is and why he does what he does…we prove our ultimate ignorance and profound lack of real understanding. Rigid religion and lifeless dogma are soul poison and the enemy of a loving God. Even this statement though is a belief that is filtered by a faith that is primarily a product of the western world.
As intelligent and honest, faith-professing people, we have to be able to admit that we will never have 100% understanding of the subject of spirituality and faith. We should believe what we believe; but we should also be tolerant of other beliefs to exist because we cannot claim exclusivity or certainty of anything without some degree of faith. None of us will ever know ultimate and pure truth until we die perhaps. We can write books, give lectures, put on seminars, preach and teach using every multi-media means in existence to reach multitudes of people and convert legions of followers, still without ever knowing
for certain... save our faith.
This is
spiritual ethnocentrism... believing what we believe is somehow better or "more right" than other beliefs that we truthfully know very little about. It is contempt prior to investigation. It is not really bad, it is not really good, it just is. But just as is everything that God allows us to have and gives glimpses into who He really is... it all works together for good. We start to mess things up by assigning labels and categories to the undefinable. We distort the message of the truth by creating dividing lines on battle grounds. We perpetuate the problem by promoting piety. In the midst of this confusion however, we must carry this same faith forward and trust that God will sort it out in the end. We shouldn’t assume that responsibility, Lord knows we have enough to worry about managing our own lives, let alone attempting to manage the beliefs and convictions of others all in the name of "saving them." The phrase,
Healer, heal thyself, comes to mind here.
What of Biblical Christianity? What of Buddhism? What of A Course in Miracles? What of Judaism? What of Islam? What of Jehovah’s Witnesses? What of Scientology? What of the New Age or New Thought? What of Hinduism? What of Catholicism? What of it all? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Which team are we to pick? Is it easier to accept only one, or harder to deny several? What are the consequences for the wrong choice? The right choice? Is there a wrong AND a right choice? Should we choose at all? What if we’re wrong about the whole thing? What of it?
