Religion is ridiculous — and required for our future
When I was 12 I thought about becoming a minister. It’s in my genes. My mother’s father served that role. My father was a doctor — in a way serving a similar function, where oftentimes he healed souls not just bodies.
By the time I was 13 I was a nihilist.
I lost God.
I lost faith.
I even lost basic trust.
Is was in part due to reading Schopenhauer, which, ironically, my father had gifted me for my confirmation. Later followed by Sartre and Camus…
Nihilism and Existentialism seemed to make sense.
Nothing had inherent meaning
Inherent meaning is a contradiction in itself. If meaning (from German meinen — “to make mine”) is in the eyes of the beholder, how could it be inherent or objective?
We give meaning to “other things”, to res ales in Latin, to our reality.
Everything is illusion. Is Maya.
It left me disillusioned.
It made me doubt everything.
It also led me down a path of studying Esoterics from all kinds of traditions around the world.
I decided to become a monk while in business school, studying Zen, Vedic traditions, and African and animistic religions at the time. In the decades that followed I learned with yogis on Indian mountain tops, and drank weird shaman juices in the jungles of the Amazon and California’s deserts, met hermeticists, occult magicians; I learned from neuroscientists and esoteric teachers of all ilk (Los Angeles, where I have lived for twenty years, is full of them).
“You’ve worked your way through every school,
Even, God help you, Theology,
And sweated at it like a fool.
Why labor at it any more?
You’re no wiser now than you were before.”
Goethe — Faust
Along the way, step by step, I regained faith, regained a basic trust in life — and even death.
Learning more and more about the many beautiful traditions of the world, practicing and experiencing the various faiths and their ways inspired me to become more every day, to push myself. To face and dance with my demons. To go all out in daring, and to find the time to heal, so I could give myself to life more and more every day.
Realizing while it’s all Maya, I am here to play Lila, the game of life. And take things with humor. All the wise ones have twinkles in their eyes…
I took charge of creating my own religion.
At the core of that are the myths I create for myself. The archetypal stories I make up about about why I am here and where I am going.
Deeper even, and, in many ways, the practices I engage in every day. How I relate to idea of the holy, myself, and that, which is around me.
Exoteric or esoteric?
In every religion there is an exoteric part. From a cynics perspective: the stories you tell people to keep them in line — the “opium for the masses” as Marx suggested — prefab meaning. Mostly comprised of stories about morals. What to do, when to do, how to do — and more often what and how and whom not to do.
Some of the stories have tremendous wisdom. Some of these stories and their derived rules don’t seem to make sense. Some of them might have made sense once, but seem to miss the beat of the current times. Worse, each of us slightly interprets them differently, and not surprisingly.
The Exoteric part of religion is ridiculous. Or, more precisely, nonsense. In the strict logical sense.
In logic, statements are either true, false, temporarily or permanently indeterminable.
(for a more complex and pluralist version of argumentation see Jain logic)
Exoteric statements about “Truth” are nonsense, since they cannot be resolved. They are permanently indeterminable — and thus nonsense.
(for a deeper exploration of this, I recommend Raymond Moody’s work — nothing like studying near death experiences to find the humor in it all)
There is only one God.
God loves you.
Bad deeds will land you in hell.
Once enlightened, you will not have to be reborn.
God loves pepperoni pizza.
These are all equally nonsensical statements.
Please take no offense if any of those statements are true for you.
No problem. That is fine. In addition, I invite you to consider that we cannot determine “Truth”, an objective one, valid for everybody, since each of us always — by default — can only perceive what we can perceive through our individual lens.
So, what’s the point, if religion is “ridiculous”?
Can so many people be wrong?
Stories have value.
Even nonsense has value.
It can inspire, transform, heal, and bring us together.
Key is to tell ourselves stories to reconnect: with something bigger than ourselves, with ourselves, and with each other.
And then practice what we learned from them.
The other side
There is also an esoteric part to every religion. Usually closely connected to the actual lineage and teachings of the individual or group the religion originated from, its monastic tradition.
Esoterics are about the experience of religion.
About practices and Rituals that will create repeatable results.
The empiricism of religion.
What does it even mean?
Religion comes from Latin religio, re-ligare, and translates to “re-connecting” (as in ligament).
At its etymological root, religion is about reconnecting.
Reconnecting what?
“I” and “Other”.
Experience requires separation.
There has to be a distinct point of perception to experience. Even in experiences of Oneness, ecstatic moments, there is still a perceiver of the experience, however faint.
We are each separate by default, and at the same time part and parcel of everything there is.
Religion is about re-membering, about becoming a member of the whole again.
Religion is about letting us integrate that paradox of separation and wholeness at the core of our awareness of self.
Harvard divinity school suggests that there are three aspect that exist in any religion:
- Ecstasis — inspiration
- Catharsis — healing
- Communitas — belonging
Religion, reconnecting at its base seems to be about reaching out from your human center of relational experience (your heart in center) and:
- Connecting to your genius/ soul/ higher self as a gateway to the numinous to gain inspiration and insight (our creative part, our voice, our vision and our conjuring capacities)
- Connecting to yourself in existence — and heal by integrating your experience as a human (our existential part, our body, emotions, and thoughts)
Together they comprise vertical integration. And in your spheres of interest (from Latin inter-esse, which translates to “in the midst of”):
- Connecting to people, to your kind (the ones you expect to be kind to you, and who you are willing to be kind to). Experience a sense of belonging, losing your sense of aloneness in dissolving in “other”.
Your horizontal integration.
We need religion more than ever
In a world where loneliness and diseases, deaths, and deeds of despair are on the rise, from anxiety and suicide to lashing out at perceived other; and in a world where planetary crises are looming, storms and draughts, both biologically and metaphorically building on the horizon, we need each other more than ever.
- We need to process the new level of planetary integration and need a new sense of, and connection to the divine (however we conceive of it), so we have something bigger to orient ourselves on and not get lost in nationalistic or local culture boxes. We need inspiration, moments of ecstasy, to dissolve our little selves for moments, so we can overcome our own outgrown selves. Shed our last identity, so we can become more of who we are here to be.
- We need to connect to ourselves again, go inward instead of being constantly distracted by outward noise, so we can make our lives meaningful. We need healing in a world that constantly wants us to be something else, creates artificial needs and plays with our addictions, ultimately distracting us from our wholeness, to leave us disconnected, empty and alone.
- We need to connect with each other, as humanity, beyond our geopolitical and sociocultural localizations to create a sense of belonging we can share as humanity. We need community. Our spaceship earth needs lots of new solutions fast. From systems to govern ourselves as a planetary species to creating ways to sustain humanity in harmony with the rest of nature. Otherwise, we are likely heading toward a win-lose scenario, and the majority of humanity will be on the losing end.
We need connected individuals, and we need individuals who realize their interdependence with all life, and act accordingly.
We get to set aside our exoteric differences for a moment, see them for what they are, stories, and honor that each of our individual traditions brings value and wisdom. And I mean individual — no two Christians, no two Jewish people, no two Muslims, are alike, let alone two Hindus among millions of gods — and, of course, the many other traditions from around the world and the micro variations and subcultures of each.
Religion is ultimately individual.
It is the stories we tell ourselves to make ourselves understand this world.
And, more importantly, it is the practices we engage in to actually create connection:
- With whatever divine (or whatever you consider bigger than yourself, if you insist on materialism , like “nature” or universe)
- With ourselves, our ever shifting yet centrally anchored identity,
- and with each other, the people and beings of all kinds of consciousnesses around us.
Litmus test for religion
I don’t care what God you pray to, it might as well be the flying spaghetti monster, for all I care.
I only ask of you and your religion two questions:
- Are you feeling connected to yourself and to life and inspired to keep growing?
- Are you adding to life by giving yourself and your capabilities in service to life?
If those are happening, I dig your God.
Otherwise, I invite you to review your religion.
Create your own roadshow
Tell yourself some better stories about why you are here — after all, you cannot deny you are life, so maybe start there.
Begin to practice:
- Breathing is a good start
- Doing nothing for just a moment so you can sense and feel yourself
- Find as many things as possible to be grateful for
- Learn about a new religion. There are so many beautiful traditions around the world, each filled with inspiring stories — pick and choose and build your own myths
- Engage in random acts of kindness — look around you, there are so many people who could benefit from who you are — everyone has something to give
- Make time to play, to do things just for the sake of exploration. Paint, sing, dance, write, act, whatever sparks you
- Envision the future — and not the zombie alien apocalypse or raptures where only a few privileged ones win, but a future full of life on this planet — and who you could be in all that — what would be your most brilliant life?
- Make it happen. Do something. Create value for someone. Put yourself out there. What do you have to lose? No matter which religion is “right”, if you do good in your community that should garner you some brownie points
Apart from that, there is only one true religion: YOURS.
Please practice it with hand, heart, and soul — our future as humanity depends on it.
To a reconnected world.
Hat tip to Jamie Wheal, whose book “Recapturing the Rapture” just made it onto my favorite books list — if you want to go deeper on this topic. Or connect with me. I always enjoy learning😉
The future belongs to those who create it. What kind of future can you envision? For yourself, for your organization, for the planet?
Connect with me through LUMAN or http://philiphorvath.com and let’s create the future together.
