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Fog's Religion
I hesitate to get into any kind of a discussion about religion, but Fog's columns have elicited so much mail, that I no longer feel I can just ignore it all.
E-mail on Fog’s Religion
I just finished reading “Fog’s” columns, and he really made me think a lot about things, but give me a break! He says he’s not anti-religious….
JPS, Peoria, Ill.
Possibly he should have said he’s not “anti-spiritual.”
Fact is, if you read Fog’s columns carefully I think you will find that he’s very much a spiritual man, although not a religious one.
The distinction is important.
Fog has witnessed a lot in his long life: day after day, the good, the bad, and the ugly. In his columns he only alludes to a bit of what he’s witnessed.
Now that he's lived a number of years in relative solitude on his "Florida sand dune," he’s had the time to reflect on things.
Religion
has done great good throughout history. But, as interpreted and shaped
my men (and it has been mostly all men) religion has also been—and
continues to be—responsible for major injustices.
Fog rightly says that more people have been killed throughout history in the name of religion than for any other cause.
A careful reading of history shows that this especially includes the Christian religion and not just extremist sects such as the one that seems to be behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast of the United States.
Fog seems to be in favor of a spirituality—or a personalized religion—that derives its precepts from a personal relationship with God.
At the same time, he's suspicious of the whole assortment of intolerant, self-appointed emissaries of God who are able to attract hordes of followers through emotionalism, and the fostering of guilt and fear.
Fog believes that in the final analysis fear is the opposite of love, which would seem to make loving God and fearing God mutually exclusive concepts.
All of this is from Fog's columns, and so at this point I was stuck on how to expand on this reply. I called Fog in Florida, explained things to him, and asked him if he would elaborate on his beliefs.
Although he's no longer writing columns, in the subsequent conversation he offered these comments. What follows isn't exactly in his words—it's difficult to write up a verbal exchange—but I've tried to reconstruct the heart of the conversation.
While organized religion can help us keep focused on spiritual things, it can, and regularly does, impose man-made concepts that in my opinion can confuse and delay spiritual development.
All you have to do is to consider the hundreds of Protestant sects, each different in its belief, and each claiming truth.
Many times you find the more conservative varieties claim that if you don’t believe the way they do you are not in God’s grace, or worse, you are doomed to hell.
And this is just the Protestant sects.
What about the thousands of other religions around the world, each claiming to have the truth?
If I were born into an atheist family, or a family of drug dealers or hardened criminals, my chances of "getting religion" would be a much slimmer than if I were born the son of a Baptist minister in Orange County, Florida.
Or, if I happened to be born in a country other than the United States, I would probably live and die believing an entirely different set of religious beliefs.
When pressed to make sense out of such dilemmas most religions simply say, "We shouldn't question God's plan."
That might be fine if we didn't have a brain and there weren't a few thousand "plans" to choose from.
So what’s the truth; what are we supposed to believe?
The only answer I have come up with is look within and develop our own set of beliefs based on taking the time—taking regular time—to develop a personal relationship with God. (Readers may substitute their own names for "God" if they wish.)
But, first we have to try to rid our thinking of all the religious nonsense we've absorbed.
I say ‘try’ because it’s almost impossible to get out from under the fear and guilt that religions have so effectively dispensed.
They’ve done it, and are doing it, largely because it gives them a way of holding onto people. (Believe the way we do and stick with us or face terrible consequences.)
Then you can't discount an underlying element of ego that proclaims that you are right—possibly even believing that you have some special directive from God—and all others are wrong.
I think there are at least five major fallacies about God and religion that do a lot of harm.
First, I strongly oppose the notion that God possesses such very undesirable and very human traits of jealousy, anger, revenge, and retribution.
Even as human traits, we know them as being less than admirable. Simply put, these are very human characteristics (and failings) that humans have ascribed to God. For centuries we have tried to create God in our own image.
Second, even the scriptural literalists conveniently ignore mandates in the Bible and the Torah, as well as other ancient scriptures, that can only be called barbaric in nature.
Clearly, the absurdity of some of the ancient dictates points to a need to revise our moral codes to conform to the needs of the times.
The third fallacy is that God has needs that we must meet. ...a despotic need for adoration and worship, a need for us to do what He says...or else...a need to test and prove our allegiance...and all sorts less-than-desirable human needs.
The fact that we consider God perfect, but ascribe all kinds of human imperfections to Him, should make you to see how absurd such views are.
Fourth, it's assumed that God regularly spoke to people of olden times, but that He is no longer on speaking terms with anyone today, except maybe the Pope, or some such person. I personally think that God speaks to us—all of us—in many ways every day. Of course, whether we chose to listen is another issue. We have free will. And even with all of its calamitous results, this is God's greatest gift.
Fifth, and this will be the hardest for many to accept, many of the scriptural ideas that have been handed down are simply man-made constructs and myths developed by men—mostly all men—to meet their own racial cultural, and even personal needs.
Or, to put it even more bluntly, a high percentage of them are no longer credible, assuming they ever were.
In my own personal relationship with God I’ve concluded that while God may tolerate our various warped religious views, he doesn’t affirm them.
Given the diversity of contradictory opinion, how could He? There is no one right way; only different ways to the same spiritual ends.
I've concluded that He would much rather work with us individually—if we will just let Him—in developing values and beliefs that are best suited to our own individual strengths, weaknesses and spiritual needs.
This, of course, means, that there is no one "right" path.
Thus, we must be tolerant of other beliefs, even when they are quite different from our own.
The only limits to that tolerance should be when these beliefs infringe upon the human rights, liberties, and freedoms necessary to pursue individual spiritual goals.
One of my favorite quotes is this one:
For a religious devotee to try to reform others instead of reforming himself is a grievous mistake. - Gampopa
I hope this clears up some things a bit for your writer.
-Frederick (Fog) Horne, January, 2002.
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