Murray Haar On Religion: Religion and Thinking

Friday, October 13, 2017

Religion and Thinking

Some people have an incorrect view of religion. They assume that religious people do not think or if they think, they do not think well. Behind this assumption is the belief that religion has primarily to do with emotion and fear. The argument goes like this: People are frightened of death, sickness, accidents, tornadoes, failure, being out of control, you name it. . . Since they feel frightened they invented religion so they could jettison their fears onto an imaginary being called, God. Variations of this argument come from Spinoza, Feuerbach, Marx, Freud, Kafka, Sartre, Dostoevsky and more recently the less sophisticated modern atheists.

This assumption and its supporting arguments are wrong. Think about it: For all the faith people have put in God and religion, the world remains a dangerous and volatile place and many religious people know it. God and religion do not come with any guarantees or cures for undeserved suffering and evil. Praying to God in Synagogue, Church or Mosque will not keep craziness away from your door. Suffering and evil are part of life and prayer does not stop it.

People are religious because they care about truth. If I trust at the heart of the universe there’s a force that is for us and not against us, it’s because I weigh the evidence and conclude, given the amount of order amidst the chaos within our world, given the laws of nature, given all that is here, given our scriptural glimpses, trusting in God is not foolish. Faith may be risky but such is life. And when faith is mature it knows about the precariousness of life.

Granted, there are some religious people who use their religion as a balm to avoid looking at the craziness of life. These people have faith but not a very mature faith. And when religion is perverted it creates atheists and agnostics. When I read about the god in which Atheists do not believe , I say, I don’t believe in that God either.

I am a religious person because I care about truth. Yes, I have emotions, fears and superstitions that can cloud my better thinking. But when it comes to faith and faithfulness, I am determined to look life in the eye and not be afraid of any question from any person, field, or source. As a person of faith, I try to think and think well. I know that I could be wrong. That's why, I am always asking questions. But, Religion and thinking are not opposites; they are inextricably linked.

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Notes from The Door

Whenever you care for the neighbor in pain, at that very moment, God is real. At that very moment, the Messiah has returned. In every situation where there is pain and injustice do what you can do to stop the pain. Murray Haar
Religion was not created by God but by people. What God thinks of our religions only God can say. If your religion teaches you to love God and to stand with your neighbor in pain, it is a good religion. If it teaches you to hate and to be indifferent, it is a bad religion. Murray Haar
Get Busy livin or get busy dyin (Shawshank Redemption)
The Holocaust teaches us that it is possible to be alive but no longer human. Murray Haar
I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know. Socrates
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. W. H. Auden
For the most part, Christian pastors and priests are not taught to think but to transmit. They go to a vocational school called a seminary where they are taught how to transmit and proclaim the gospel but not how to teach their people to think critically about what they believe. They do not know how to teach their parishioners that Christianity could be wrong. Pastors and Priests are not prophets; they are religious functionaries who care about people and love Jesus. They themselves are usually nice people, will visit you in the hospital and give you bread and wine but they are not, for the most part, great thinkers. So, to expect them to reform the Church is just not realistic. Occasionally though, pastors show up who can think and believe at the same time and it is in them that there is hope for a reformation. I have met them. They are real and I have hope in them. Murray Haar
We do not believe in the Bible. We believe in God. The Bible is a vector toward God and the neighbor. When the Bible points us toward God and the neighbor, it is true. Whenever it does not, it is not true. We have to learn not only to read the Bible but to argue with it. Then the text will become real. Murray Haar
“In religion, the question is more important than the answer to the question.” A Midrash
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas
“He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” The Talmud
“We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed.” Joseph Epstein

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Friday, October 13, 2017

Religion and Thinking

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