The Lost Place of God
Karen Armstrong a noted expert on religions has written an op-ed piece about the place of God and religion, where it used to be, where it ended up, and why it needs to find its way back. Essentially, God and religion have been a nebulous concept from the start that provided answers to the place of humans in this world. Religion and myths exist to answer the human questions such as our purpose in life and why there is seemingly so much pain, suffering, and even evil in this world and, more importantly, what we as humans can do to deal with them. With the advent of science, Christianity tried to obtain the degree of certainty and definitiveness of science. In doing so, it lost some of its original purpose. While myths and religions do explain the origin of the world, it is but a small part of the overall pictures. They often do so to illustrate a point but the point exists even if the illustration is lost. For example, the ancient Greeks used the myth of Baucis and Philemon to illustrate the concept of hospitality to strangers. The myth of the abduction of Helen and the Trojan War is another example of proper guest-host relationship. Neither of the myths are creditable anymore but the point still stands that as humans we should treat even strangers with hospitality and the recipient of that hospitality should be grateful and show respect to the host. Once religion, especially Christianity, moved away from its original role and into the realm of explaining the physical world it set up a confrontation with science that it ultimately lost. Once that happened, what purpose does God and religion have if not in explaining the physical world? Armstrong argues that the more humane questions and concerns are still with us today and there religion still have a purpose.
I would like to point out that in general atheism is the safer route. Be a man, walk the path less traveled.
Said by stirge February 01st, 2010 at about 8:38 PM