No ambiguity

Bill Pike wrote: "No ambiguity."

There are a lot of statements in a lot of religion with no ambiguity.
Christianity says women aren't allowed to talk in church. Muslims use figs
and olives to pray. Baha'is can have two wives. Those are some of my
favorites, I know you have yours.

So what does a reasonable believer do in a religion that has statements by
which they cannot abide?

I know Christians pretty much ignore the statements. Or they compare those
statements with ones from Judaism (the Old Testament) that are worse and
note the progress.

Baha'is turn to the Writings and make sense out of the statements. For
example, the two wives statement was re-interpreted by Abdu'l-Baha to say,
well, no. Only one wife.

What bothers me mostly about Islam and Buddhism is that most of the
followers most often do not even consider the original holy scripture until
after it has been interpreted through the school they have accepted. Often
they only know scripture that supports their doctrines, not the scripture
itself in context.

So in my view there is always some ambiguity. My ex-wife grew up a Baha'i
and in her youth took a cruise when a young Italian member of the crew hit
on her big time. She said "no, I can't, it's against my religion" and he
said "that's okay, it's against mine too".

So Christians ignore, Muslims and Buddhist allow clergy to interpret for
them, Baha'is have re-interpretation built into the process of
Administration.

The issue in my mind is: with all the problems in doctrinal issues why is
there such a focus on the doctrines? In all religions it seems clear as day
what the major issues are: love our neighbors, justice, charity, hard work
in service to humanity, chastity, prayer, piousness, pure-hearted action....

Why so little emphasis on the important, universal, and truly un-ambiguous
issues?

As always, this is not a trap. I am not trying to spring the answer I
already know on anyone. My belief is that generally humanity is
hypocritical. We would much rather change others than change ourselves. It
is a constant danger we all must guard against.

Thanks for reading. --Kent








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