Re: Zeitgeist


So whom do we believe, and why? Catholicism, Anglicanism, the
Pentecostals, Mahayana, Theravada, Zen?



Good questions.

In my opinion, we should least concern ourselves with the "whom". The
more important question is "why" do we believe? In many cases,
knowing "why" leads to knowing "whom".

What are some of the reasons for believing? They are myriad!
Religions, and their gods, bring hope to the hopeless, courage to the
fearful, strength to the weak, forgiveness to the unforgivable,
empowerment to the victim. The sad are brought joy. The dead are
given life.

Each of the items in those lists contain 2 basic categories:

1) Things people generally find appealing

2) Things people generally are fearful of.

Now, it's easy to find fear outside of church; fear is everywhere!
But there are few places where one can go to find all of those
appealing things, like eternal life, strength, hope, joy, and
forgiveness. For the most part, those feelings come from churches.

Back to the questions:

Why do we believe?

The answer: Fear.

In whom or what do we believe?

The answer: The one that soothes the most of our fears.

I once believed that as long as we could not explain where we come
from or where we go, there will be religion and there will be gods.
But now I think I am off on that. I think that religion and gods will
exist as long as there is fear.

Take me for example. I don't have any religion, don't believe there
is a soul, and I don't believe there is a god. But I'll tell you
what, I know that if a poisonous spider were crawling on my face, I'd
be promising my eternal soul to any god who would have it, because I'm
scared $hit of spiders.
.

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