CNN's Belief Blog

Here's something a little different: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/08/10-things-the-belief-blog-learned-in-its-first-year/?hpt=hp_t2

I found #4 to be the most interesting personally. I've been on various chat platforms, and I used to hang out in the religion rooms. It never failed to amaze me how little the Christians in the room would know about their own book. I could quote passages from the Bible that Christians argued didn't exist until I put up chapter and verse.

I don't have a problem with the Bible. It's filled with all the same stuff you'd see on TV today; blood, sex, violence, porn, drugs, rock and roll. But for me, the Bible is a snapshot, a guidebook for a culture that existed 2,000 years ago. Does that mean the Bible isn't valuable? Of course not. We don't claim that major works of fiction aren't valuable, but we also aren't claiming to be worshipers of the White Whale.

In current cultures we treat religion as a separate piece of our lives, a distinct room which we fill with whatever we decide our beliefs to be. In the past, religion was much more practical. It was meant to be used as a daily guidebook, constantly consulted during applicable situations. Even though I don't believe in the Bible, my family still followed its advice when we planted a lemon tree. There are 600+ laws in the Bible, covering all aspects of life from birth to death to marriage to agriculture to specific architectural designs for their temples.

Given the demonstrably practical nature of the Bible, I'm not sure if that ancient culture would have even identified what they were doing as a "religion." I can certainly imagine an ancient Israelite working according to the Bible because it's the way she thinks, the way she feels, part of her identity. One of my professors in college described a lot of the laws in the Bible as a way of making Jewish culture distinct from those around them. The laws of the Bible become a "this is what I do because I'm Jewish, that is what they do because they aren't." Perhaps the world's first written form of discrimination?

I don't know if many Christians want to actually read the Bible. It may force them to think, which is something they may not want to do. It is certainly easier to swallow what your preacher tells you, and go on your way, thinking you're doing right by your fellow man. But are you really?

I respect Islam far more than I do any other Western religion that I've been exposed to. Islam requires consistent, daily practice. You cannot be a "Sunday Muslim" the way people are "Sunday Christians." The religion doesn't allow for it. Most Muslims I've met are far more informed about what their religious books say; this stems from the belief that they are supposed to study and understand the Qu'ran for themselves. Yes, they have Imams, just as Christians have pastors, but the individual comprehension of the Qu'ran is key. If Islam had not valued individual education, we likely would have lost all of the ancient scientific information we enjoy today. Instead, it would have been destroyed in the Dark Ages, a Christian endeavor which obliterated many many ancient works of literature, art, and science.

In the "Information Age," ignorance should be viewed as a cultural disease. Now, access to information is simply too easy to permit intelligent people to allow themselves to be lazy thinkers or followers. The way forward is not rooted in the laws and traditions of the past, though they offer value in providing a glimpse into human nature. Instead, the future belongs to the trailblazers, the thinkers, the rebels. Jesus himself was a political dissident, and he challenged established authority to the point that they felt the need to put him to death. To say that slightly differently, the established authorities considered Jesus to be such a threat to their way of life that Jesus was put to death. To be "truly" Christian, shouldn't one follow in his footsteps?