Dovina27 Jan 2008

Beginning a new thread like a charismatic renewal of an old religion, this is an answer to atheists, a declaration of victory in the battle between enlightened secularism and Christianity. Or stated with recognition of human frailty, as Jesus taught to state, I preface anything I say with realization that Betelgeuse is 800 times the sun’s diameter and is so far away that nobody living today will see it, but only its light sent hundreds of years ago. And though it is unimaginably big and far, much greater things were flung by someone (Oh, sorry, that presumes too much.) My mistake, of course, is inferring God from science, instead of not-god from science.

Now where were we? Oh yes, we were relating morality and religion. Or stated another way, we were relating principles that hold society in harmony, with ideas about God. They seem unrelated to me, but I find it interesting that most religions hold the same morals in regard to stealing, killing, fraud, and the like. Religions differ on morals about the eating of bats, the covering of women’s faces, and the killing of insects. The first set of morals derives from polite society’s needs, and work just fine either couched in dogma or without religion. The second begin with writings and cleric’s decrees. Just because these “morals” get stuck into religion does not make them part of true religion. What could the eating of bats have to do with recognition of God? Jesus made this point clear, as anyone can see from reading him apart from later writings of his church. Christianity is about Christ (duh) not about superseded Old Testament texts or something a monk wrote in the fourteenth century.

In summary: don’t get me started.