Is religion inherently harmful?

In keeping with the recent discussion around the importance of the question rather than the answer, I will offer no answer yet this is the line of thought that led me to post this:

Humans are, by definition, ignorant regarding that which is beyond their capacity for understanding. No matter how much you know, there is a limit. Consequently, there are questions that will forever be unanswerable. But human thought does not like unanswered questions. Answers, no matter how silly, can make us feel more secure, more safe. This is the nature of belief. This is why we gravitate towards a belief system.

Once the system of belief is established, it provides answers to the unanswerable questions. Each system will provide it's own set of answers and if they can convince you that their answers are correct then, at some level, they have convinced you that all the other sets of answers are incorrect.

This is the seed of conflict that is then continuously cultivated by the society or culture in which one develops in association with this belief system. Some do a better job than others in encouraging skepticism and an open mind BUT as long as they provide answers, they are killing the question at some level. There will always be conflict as long as there is belief.

So religion kills the questions by providing answers based mostly on archaic writings of the "ancients" and the "master" and the "immortals" and whoever. Or by providing the "living word of God" or whatever, it doesn't really make any difference. The important thing is that the belief system says, stop asking the question, here is the answer. Stop inquiring. Don't look into yourself and into the world, accept this practice, this prayer, this meditation, this WORD, and then you don't have to be so afraid of what you don't know.

And so religion also creates conflict because any answer or belief system must be finite and so must never be capable of providing the real answer (as if our brains could conceive of what that would be anyway). And conflict among humans invariably leads to exploitation and suffering, sooner or later.

So religion strips us of the only real way of awakening - living the question. And then it creates polarization and conflict in the world between groups of people by teaching them that they are different from their neighbors (unless, of course, they share a belief system).

Now what if, instead of looking for answers, we just accepted that the universe and we as regular humans are fine, just the way it is (we are), and nothing we can do can really change the big picture. No answers, just a level of comfort with and interest in the questions, the lack of knowledge, the uncertainty. And a level of acceptance that it is all OK and there is nothing "better" but being here, now, and enjoying the blessing of our life and awareness (with it's ups and downs, pain and pleasure). Is this real faith? Not a belief in certain answers that cannot be proven or that go against common sense, but a real acceptance of what is here that we can experience and participate in.

Sorry to go on like this but it was stimulated, not by thinking about the Muslims and Jews and Christians and Hindus and so forth fighting in the world, but by seeing the conflict between Daoist and Buddhist (the most peaceful of religions!) right here on this silly little forum where we're all pretty similar and looking for more or less the same thing. It's fascinating and frightening. This is why I will never again define myself as an "-ist" of any sort. I am human and that is beyond any "-ism" and it will never be captured in any system of practice or belief. And it will never be improved upon by an practice or belief. Life is real, beliefs are illusion.

Just my $.02...

Thanks for listening...

PS - and just for the hell of it, I'm going to answer my question anyway - I think that religion is inherently harmful. Humanity will never be at peace while it exists here on earth.
Sorry for the gloom and doom, have a wonderful day!

I agree with you. I think religion is harmful. Not because of the religion, but because of all the projection done by the religious. They have a need to make everyone else join their religion. And that creates conflicts.

But I also think we need to give the religious some slack. They dont know any better and do as good as they can. I like Ken Wilbers explanation of human developement: We have the prepersonal, personal and transpersonal stages. Most people in the world are at the prepersonal and personal levels. In relation to religion we have the prepersonal which is where belief and dogma is dominant. The personal is where doubt and denial is dominant. And the transpersonal is where both dogma and doubt is transcended and personal experience is dominant.

And if we take reincarnation as a fact, if we dont identify ourselves as prepersonal or personal, we certainly must admit we have been there! So I think we need to accept that things are what they are, and notice that in the longer perspectives, it really isnt hurting us. Its just something we grow out of.

in a word - YES!

religion is not spirituality.
One seperates the other unites.

In the early part of my days playing pool for money, I developed a pattern. I would lose early and win late. This is a very stressful way to live as a pool player, since it takes longer, uses more energy, and is dangerous if I happen to run out of money early. I only ran out of money once, and that was because I went against my better instincts in making a game, but I was down to my last hundred more than once. This pattern played itself out often enough that I became quite familiar with the dynamic. The beginning remained a mystery for a long time, but I came to know the bottom, the turning point, very clearly. This is because the turning point is clarity, and the beginning was delusion.

Basically, what I began to notice, was that I was in resistance to the situation I was in. I told myself all sorts of stories, "I'm so much better than this guy. I shouldn't have missed that ball. I'm too tired to play. This is just bad luck. I just need to play faster. I just need to play slower. I need to concentrate. I need to relax. He's going to wilt under the pressure. We aren't playing for enough money. I hate him. I hate myself. I suck. I'm the best player who ever lived. Just accept that fact and all will be well..." The stories were infinite, and I was quite creative in exploring them. Eventually, whether due to absolute necessity (this my last hundred), or due to some grace of intelligence, I would stop telling the stories, except perhaps one last story, such as "I'm playing like crap," but immediately following that was, "OK." As soon as that "OK" arrived, and I let it take me over, then the other guy was done. It might take a few shots for things to turn around, but a force to win, because it was in opposition to nothing, carried me through.

I didn't really know what was happening at the time, but I knew that it felt pretty damn good, and it fascinated me, since I couldn't figure out how this whole process worked. It was my dream to be in that question with another who was in that question, and to play a really true game.

Needless to say, I didn't just have to find that "OK" once. Every day I had to find it, and in each new level of competition I had to find it. And, of course, if I found it in pool, didn't necessarily mean that I found it in the rest of my life, though for certain I was looking for it there too...

I think a lot of us have some experience with this "OK," since it is universal. It happens at every level. This "OK" is what drives us in our various pursuits, including cultivation, realization, and transmission. It is the good stuff, but when I was playing pool, I had to go through the losing in the beginning, since I was not aware of how I was pushing the "OK" away. And after I got through with riding a wave of "OK," I would promptly take credit for it, and begin telling stories in which I had said "OK" and so I could rule the pool world... or at least not have to lose three excruciating sets to Mike before I began beating him next time. I had reached a new level. Maybe so, maybe not. I began to realize that there is no limit to how bad I could play, as long as I insisted on telling my story... the center of which, was the idea of me.

Well anyway, thats a long story, but I tell it to highlight a dynamic. Can we find a parallel dynamic in our own lives? Can we find it in the history of the world, including its religions? Are these dynamics in any way different?

Every time that I said "OK," and felt that "OK" as an unstoppable force, it was the true "OK." And how many times did I throw it away? And how many ways can I throw it away?

Is anything better than the "OK"? And remember, what preceded the "OK" was usually something like "I'm playing like crap," though as I got better it could even be "I'm starting to slip a little." The transformation was seeing that fact, and letting go of the story. The story could only keep me in misery, or drag me down to misery, until it started hurting too much to hold on.

It's a really deep question. It can be looked at many different ways.

Since this is Taobums, I presume you are asking what is the "highest level" or most developed way I look at it. Forgetting about all the good or bad churches and religions may have done. Building up cultures or destroying cultures or helping people or hurting them.

Just what is this all about from the highest level I am aware of at this time.

From my limited scope, awakening is totally impersonal. Since awakening is impersonal and is not a finding of yourself as a seperate individual so much as an "aha!" experience of seeing through the individual identity, you might say the entire foundation religion is built on is false.

However, from the persepective of an awakened person this ignorance of one's true nature might be as dazzilingly beautiful as anything in nature or anywhere else enlightened people supposedly spend there time.

For example, my guess is Adyahshanti is not a Christian per se, but he frequently quotes Jesus and I have even heard him talk about how wonderful it can be to attend church services in his satsangs.

In other words, from the perspective of the one who no longer differentiates and sees things as they are, they can truely enjoy themselves. The beautiful architecture and ritual and practices of religion without getting sucked into the deeply personal, egoic side of religion.

Because, that's what this negativity amounts to. That YOU are going to be saved by YOUR God who is different than someone elses God.

If the awakened tell us there is NO YOU then it makes sense there is NO SEPERATE GOD and no one to be saved.

Adyashanti strikes at this first inclination towards illusion alot. Definetly the two times I saw him in person he struck at it. The entire foundation that all of this confusion, all these wars and all these so called problems are based on doesn't exist.

When I did a weekend satsang with a teacher named Jeannie Zandi last summer one man broke down crying during satsang and said "this is all a big misunderstanding".

But you can't force anyone to see that. They are either going to see that or their not. And even after it's seen it is easy to slip back into the personal.

But the real challenge might be seeing that there is no problem to begin with, definetly not something I have been able to do yet.

Cam

Cam,

Maybe it isn't so much a matter of seeing (which you already have done) but of allowing. Maybe its just a matter of allowing everything that you now see as problem, to be anything but a problem. What is it, if it is not problem?

If we find an answer for that, how does it feel? What was more alive? The question, before we knew, or whatever it is that we are using as placeholder for this question?

What is the question? What is the question before we ask it?

I haven't practiced enough to discover this

Talk to me in 20 years.

Ok.

But before you spend twenty years on it (not that there would be anything wrong with that), what is practice?

At the moment Kunlun

Apologies for the pedantry which is about to follow, but I think it might be helpful.

What I'd like to say is that it seems to me almost always unhelpful to use the verb "is" in this sort of question.

Religion isn't harmful in the sense that A never "is" B, or it would be B, not A. Alleging an isomorphism, as Dr Bob would say, always reduces the possibilities.

You can always find an example of sweet people who've learned nice kind religious rules and give some spare cash to feed the poor, or whatever.

It's so much easier to discuss, say, "Religion always produces harmful effects", because that doesn't rule out everything else it does.

Having said which, I believe that religion sucks dead dog's wang.

It's always about the past, and everything we need is present. It's nearly about mind and thought, when all we've got is body and awareness. And it's always about mediated access to the divine, when we gotta like, y'know, be it ourselves.