Modern With a Hint of Religious Cynicism

My views on this week's topic are pretty modern.  Part of this comes from my own personal history with religion - as others have mentioned, my post on that is back at the beginning of our blog, and it'd likely help establish context if you don't already have it.  Part of it comes from the circumstances that I find myself in, particularly in my personal life.  These days, I find people who are seriously traditionalist about their religion to be people that I have little to no interest in spending time around.  This was actually a more recent development - one of my better friends growing up was Mormon, in a very traditional Mormon family.  He could never do anything on Sundays, and his mother had some extremely strict ideas about what was appropriate and what wasn't.  Despite this, I enjoyed spending time around him, and he's still my friend to this day.  Notably, his family has eased up on their traditionalist viewpoint a lot - they've taken on much more of a modern viewpoint, and that's likely part of why things haven't changed between us.  I actually asked my friend and his brother earlier tonight whether they supported WBC, and they looked at me like I was stupid. His brother even said "Hell, no".

Finally, part of this comes from my doubts about taking -any- text as the absolute rule for... well, anything.  Who's to say that this one version of the bible is any more or less historically accurate than another?  Who's to say that any of them are?  One might remember that I mentioned the book Blankets, by Craig Thompson, in my religion post.  (If you haven't read that book yet, you should.)  There's a part near the end of the book where the main character begins to question sections of the bible that have either been altered, or had extra passages added to them, in order to deliver a more positive, uplifting message (as opposed to the original message, which basically said "Screw up and you're damned", or something similar... I'm going off of memory, here).  This awakened a likely-eternal skepticism in me about the validity of -any- parts of the Bible.  How are we to know what the original thing said, and what's been added or modified over the countless years?  We know what we're told, and that's just not good enough for me.

No, my viewpoint is pretty modern.  It's pretty simple.  I've established to myself, generally speaking, what's "right", and what's "good".  I try to be those things and/or do those things as often as I can, even when it's hard (ESPECIALLY when it's hard).  I try to live my life more focused on making the people I know happier than making myself happy... and generally, when I can make other people happy, it makes me happy anyway.  I try not to judge people (... not -too- much, at least), and I don't generally condemn people if their viewpoint is different than mine (unless they're just plain wrong).  Things like that.  It's worked well for me so far.  I can't imagine anyone really taking offense to it, though I'm sure some people out there would.  I don't mind the idea of traditionalist thinking, but in the instance of religion, I don't think the roots are strong enough to be an effective foundation.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed this week.  We'll have a new topic announcement tomorrow!

Intelligent Design is Not Science

For anyone that might have missed my post from Personal Religious History week, go check that out before reading further. It may help with providing a bit of context for my opinions here.

Science is a pretty great thing. Advances in our understanding of the universe and how it works are pretty fantastic, and I think that's just because it allows us to reassess the situation based on new information, and generally, if the assumptions we've made are correct, then it'll work. If they don't work, then we have to rethink our views and find a way to adapt.

This is just how life works. With that, I find it kind of bizarre that so many people can be resistant to that idea when it comes to apparent conflicts between religious texts and science. The idea of, "Well, the Bible says that the world's only existed for about 6000 years, and science says it's been billions of years, so clearly someone has to be wrong."

Though, this might just because of the way that I think of the relevance of religious texts. They're not so much about the details, because let's face it, it's entirely plausible that the details were lost in translation or were never recorded correctly in the first place or were exaggerated to make the impact clearer and... religious texts and ideas aren't perfect, and I think that if they conflict with reason and the overall message that the religion is trying to convey, then there's a problem and you should rethink your interpretation of the text.

The fact that I'm rather irreligious may make it seem like my insinuation that these texts could be flawed is occurring way too lightly, but I really don't think that's true. If I believed in a particular religion, I could believe that someone that believed the same general things thousands of years ago could have made an incorrect assumption or written something down that made sense at the time and doesn't anymore.

To sum up, I think my point is that if your religion tells you to love everyone and be forgiving, then you should let people have dude sex and not protest at the funerals of soldiers. That is all.

It Only Matters if You Hit a Point

This feels like a strange topic to me. Not like, strange because the topic itself is odd, but strange because I'm not quite sure how to frame my viewpoints on it. I mean, I easily lean towards more modern religion, although I see the appeal in have to traditionalism of religion as a steady rock. There is something about tradition that is inherently appealing to human nature; the knowledge that things will not change day to day.

But the topic brings to mind the recent controversy of United States nuns and the criticism by the Vatican as too radial, or in our case, too modern. According to the Vatican, the nuns were not focusing on values they would want to be pushed to be upheld, such as abortions, and instead the nuns were focusing more on the poor, addressing gay issues, just more modern ideas that contrast with the more traditional stance the Church has lately been taking. And the fact I would easily side with the nuns tells me that I stand on the side of modernism, which I did already know.

Inherently, for all the comfort traditionalism can give, its unbending nature is a problem. To many of today's problems are linked to the unbending nature of religion, too much controversy over how everyone wants the world to be. And when change comes, there seems to be a reaction by religion to bunker down on their traditional values, leading to the clashes we see today. So part of me views traditionalism as harmful to the world, that religion has to be allowed to bend is the world is going to become more peaceful and accepting.

It's not even modernism or traditionalism to me, but the ability to be flexible and view all people as having the rights to have rights. I do not feel like I have a stake in religion, but I have a stake in how the religion affects the world. So there's nothing wrong with wanting to hold traditional human values, as long as you aren't harming another person in the process, or recognizing that not everybody holds or will hold the views you do.

So I suppose that's it. I guess you can't be absolutely traditional if you are willing to be flexible so as to prevent the kind of conflict religion is in the middle of throughout the world, but there is no reason to change yourself to be completely modern. I'm not even arguing for a middle here, just enough willingness to recognize that the world is not always the same. But then again, some of the extreme religions don't even feel like pure traditionalism, but instead a reaction and an interpretation of the text. And religious texts have been re-interpreted all throughout history, so I do believe that religion will continue to change in one way or another. Framing it as traditionalism vs. modernism makes it feel like one side verse another, when religion is like a spectrum. There is nothing wrong with a person's religious viewpoints until they reach a certain part of the spectrum, where people start getting hurt.

And there I go rambling again. I do not care what your religious views, whether or not you are more traditional or modern, as long as you believe it is okay that all people deserve rights. Since I am not very religious, I do not see any reason to have a stake in the debate beyond that one hope. As long as religion is able to respect everybody than I think that many of our problems could be solved. So that is all I can say I want. Yeah, I believe I am going to end this post with that opinion.

Modernism with a side of Traditionalism?

Okay, so I don't know much about either of the views of religion that we are debating this week.  So I am going to define what I think these mean, and go with it from there.  I think of traditionalism as a literal translation of something, and modernism as an individual's interpreted view of that same thing.  I suppose since we are talking about religion, that something would be the Bible or some other holy book.  Oh, I guess I should give you my religious background, since I wasn't here in the beginning when you all posted about it.

I'm a Mormon.  My entire family is Mormon, and I grew up surrounded by church and other religious things.  That being said, I'm not a very strict Mormon.  I do most of what they say, like not drinking or smoking or stealing, because I don't have an overwhelming need to do those things.  I can come up with non-Mormon related reasons just as easy for most of the things I do or don't do.  However, I don't agree with many of the viewpoints that the Mormon church has that have to relate to other people.  I am definitely all for non-hetero marriage and other things of that nature, and the Mormon church is, well, not.  For the most part.

Anyways, enough about me.  On to traditionalism vs. modernism in religion.  Mormons are generally traditionalist in their views, I think.  They really like quoting scriptures and talking about what they mean in context and how they apply to a person's life.  They tend to allow individuals to come to their own conclusion on how they want to apply something personally, but they definitely have a decisive idea on what the particular scripture means and how you are supposed to follow it.  So, I can understand the point of a traditionalist view on religion even if I don't generally follow it.

I am (relatively) open-minded, and I don't care much how other people decide to follow the rules set down in their holy book of choice (or no book).  Unless it's screwing their life up.  But, that's not on topic.  I think a person should have enough good judgement to have the ability to decide for themselves what is right, wrong, and which one they are going to choose.  Consequences will generally follow, but they should be able to at least know what they are doing and how it should affect them.  Now, there are exceptions to everything, but that would take way too long to cover, and I am already rambling.

Okay, to wrap up, since I'm not sure I actually made any sense in this post.  I think most people try to have a more modernism view, because then they can have a more flexible set of rules to follow and decide how much they want those rules to have an impact in their life.  This topic required a lot of thought and rambling, so I hope you all got something out of it.  Kathleen will post tomorrow, and I can't wait to hear what everyone else has to say on this topic.

I'm going to hell, aren't I?

As you may recall from my religion post (all the way back on week one), I struggled a lot with Christianity and how it related to the Bible. Basically, I decided that if the holy book of Christianity was the Bible, then I was going to follow everything in it to the best of my ability. The problem lay in the fact that I couldn't believe what the Bible told me to. I couldn't believe that Jesus was the only way to get to heaven. I believed (and still believe in) a lot of the moral teachings Jesus preached about loving your neighbor and not casting the first stone and removing planks from your own eye before the sawdust from your brother's (Jesus was a cool dude), but I couldn't just take the Bible at face value, even taking into account what may be metaphor. Because of this, I looked at various religions and eventually decided my answer was "none of the above."

That about sums up my last post on religion (it was very, very long, so if you haven't read it, I'm trying to make it so you don't have to). Of course, this seems to be fundamentally based on the idea that being a Christian requires believing everything in the Bible, and that's significantly because that is what I believe. This week's topic is traditionalism versus modernism in religion and I have to say I fall squarely into the traditionalism category. I believe if that something as important as a religion, something that wants to be the center of your life and values and judgments, is malleable, can change with interpretation and from person to person, then what does it mean? It's a very closed-minded view of things, I understand, but just...what's the point of having a holy book with teachings and beliefs if they aren't meant to be followed and...believed? Obviously, we can't know what God thinks about the Internet and that's something that would have to be interpreted, but as far as things that are explicitly in the Bible...I don't see how you can not believe it and then call yourself a Christian.

I just don't understand how the word has any value if it isn't consistent. I don't mind people that have views that differ from the Bible and still call themselves Christians but I just don't actually...I don't know. I can't consider you as such unless you are evangelizing the hell out of me, and if you are, then I probably won't want to talk to you.

I guess I just believe that if your religion is something you think is personal and between you and God, then that's fine. If you want to call that relationship Christianity, then I expect you to have certain beliefs that, frankly, most people don't have. If you think the only way to get to heaven is through belief in Jesus Christ, then you, as a Christian, should be perpetually terrified about all of the people in your life that are going to hell. I don't know anyone that can live life that way. I know I couldn't.

This post ended up being full of things that came off very offensively. Please understand that I do respect and love most of the people in my life that identify as Christian. I just have very strong opinions on religion that I don't like speaking about because I don't like offending people. I also know that this week's topic was on religion in general, but my perspective is limited mostly by my experiences with Christianity. In general, I believe that if you subscribe to a religion, then you have all of the beliefs that that religion entails. I don't believe in reinterpreting things to fit with today's moral values, because if the religion doesn't fit with today's moral values then maybe that's a problem with the religion. I don't believe you should have to fumble around awkwardly ignoring parts of your holy text just to make you feel comfortable like I did.

Foundations and Interpretations

When I think about the dichotomy between traditionalism vs. modernism in any religion, I try to examine how we use each approach to determine the ways we should go about living our lives according to our religious beliefs.

A traditional approach tells us that all of the answers can be found in the scriptures.  Followers of a religion need to base their lives on their scriptures, but there can be a risk of using individual scriptures to answer a question, instead of considering the entire body of work to determine the intent of the higher power for one’s life and behavior.

A modern approach can focus more on the individual’s application of the scripture to his own life and behavior.  This more often includes a consideration of the entire body of the scripture, but can leave the believer open to misinterpretation of the intent of the scripture.

According to most religions, scripture covers everything, but I believe that it needs to be critically applied.  Context is very important, and I think that approaching religion from a purely traditional viewpoint often causes us to miss out on what the faith itself stands for.  My own religious beliefs, and the beliefs of many others, are based around the concept that we should love God and love one another. However, I think that the concept of loving one’s neighbor often gets lost in the translation when we read scriptures for their face value and forget to apply the concept of love to the principles of our faiths.  (See 1 Corinthians 13.)  A lot of times, traditionalists and modernists alike can get bogged down by judgment and “straining gnats while swallowing camels.”   Following a combination of both forms can help believers stay true to the overall concept of love for one another.

Week of 7/8 - Traditionalism vs. Modernism in Religion

Our topic for your perusal this week is traditionalism vs. modernism in religion.

These days, most religions (among other things) tend to have at least two differing viewpoints within the same framework.  There are those who believe in a more traditional, literal view of their holy scripture, and adhere to that - for example, the commandment to "Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy".  The most immediate examples of this that I can think of are the restaurant franchise Chick-Fil-A, which is inevitably closed every Sunday, and the Westboro Baptist Church, which... ... well, topic announcements are supposed to be neutral, so I'll just say that they're very vocal about their beliefs.  The other viewpoint(s) that we'll be looking at for this week's topic deal with a more modern-day view of messages and teachings, and a belief in a more open-minded, accepting view of society and people in general - for example, a church that openly welcomes non-hetero members into its fold.

We'll be looking at these differing viewpoints across (potentially) multiple religions throughout the week.  I'm interested in seeing what thoughts will be shared about the validity of either (or both, or all) sides of the issues, and how our contributor's experiences may have influenced their thoughts.  Pendleton will start us off tomorrow, and I'll be back on Saturday to wrap up.