What is an idea? A belief? What about an ideal?
The dictionary defines them as follows...
i·de·a[ahy-dee-uh, ahy-deeuh
]–noun
1. any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding, awareness, or activity.
2. a thought, conception, or notion: That is an excellent idea.
3. an impression: He gave me a general idea of how he plans to run the department.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
be·lief[bih-leef]
–noun
1. something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.
2. confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.
3. confidence; faith; trust: a child's belief in his parents.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
i·de·al[ahy-dee-uh
l, ahy-deel]–noun
1. a conception of something in its perfection.
2. a standard of perfection or excellence.
3. a person or thing conceived as embodying such a conception or conforming to such a standard, and taken as a model for imitation: Thomas Jefferson was his ideal.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Christianity is a broad term for countless different denominations. Their beliefs and ideals are different, but yet they all say basicallly the same things. They Know that theirs is the “only true God,” they Know that by doing / believing a strict set of “things” that they will be saved, and they Know that anyone who does not do /. follow / share in those actions / beliefs will be eternally damned to the fiery pits of hell. These beliefs when looked at from a distant point of view may appear rash and extreme - and even when looking at these beliefs, similar to all Christians, those beliefs are rash and extreme. Christianity states that all men are deserving of rights and certain protections (this philosophy overflows into the constitutions and declarations of the world’s governments), yet the right to have other opinions and view points is one right which seems to go by the way side a notable amount of the time.
Many religions state that they will accept people of all races and denominations, and of all different faiths. But they later stipulate that those people must alter their views to conform to that of the majority religion. For “there can be only one true God,” and he alone is perfect. Christianity is a plethora of hypocrisy.
For those who choose to believe their own ideas - they are cast out from the mainstream. They are looked down upon. They are castigated by the majority. They, who did not believe in the one “true” God, would be excommunicated from the Church, and be privy to the punishments of the “barbarians” who would pillage the villages of old world Europe. Notably this was a long time ago, but those who still choose other faiths to follow, or who choose to have no faith, are still subject to the “evil eye” of the Christians of today. Modern times have become more open to other ideals, but there is still the ever-present look of the Christian Church and society.
Our day-to-day lives are always under examination by those around us, and typically there is at least one person who follows the word of Jesus Christ. That person will most likely be holding you up to their standards of “Christian Morality,” and expect that you meet the basic expectations of their God.
I was raised as a Christian, my family established Churches across the US. As a child we went to every service. We were a proper Lutheran going family (with the exception of my father, who had been raised Catholic, and had somewhat lost his faith). As I got older, I began to go through the age old right of every Lutheran child, Catechism. I began to learn more about the world and other philosophies (something which my mother had primarily sheltered me from). I began to question “the Faith.” I began to see that there were many different possibilities for the meaning to life, and what exactly it means to be human (other than the singular point which I was raised to believe).
It was not until college that I finally announced my complete abandonment of the Faith. I had tried several different denominations of Christianity, including Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy (the later being my last true go at Christianity). But I finally could not take the hypocrisy. I am not trying to talk bad about any Christian denomination, I am truly only sharing my story.
I made the announcement to my mother that I no longer accepted the faith - this incident affected her deeply - it seemed as though I had told her that she failed in some way as a parent. This was not my intent, but I could not pretend to believe in something that I did not any longer.
Plato describes one incident where Socrates had been questioned about why any person should accept God. He stated that there is no reason not to believe in God, if he does exist (and you “believe” in him) you will be able to go to heaven, or if he does not exist (and you still “believe” in him) you will die and nothing will happen. I learned this in a philosophy class, and it has stuck with me ever since. I honestly tried to use it as a justification to believe in the “one true God.” But I came to the conclusion that if God does exist and he is so self-centered as to say that completely good and honest people will go to hell simply because they deny Him, that I would not want to believe in Him. That I could not believe in any deity who would knowingly punish an innocent person for a lack of believing in Him, and Him alone.
I see examples of the Christian church forcing people to accept their religion. On the very campus of Eastern we allow representatives of this “church” to pass out the word of their “God.” Because American culture is primarily Christian, and expect all who are truly “American” to believe in this faith as well, these missionaries are able to carry out this task. You can see countless people carrying around these little orange or green bibles.
This act may seem benign, but in fact it is only oppression. People who are not “true believers” but rather simply say that they “are” Christian carry this books around. They parade the word of God, without understanding what it truly means or says. They blindly bind themselves to that religion. And for those who deny those missionaries and do not accept the bibles, they are looked down upon.
If some other, less socially accepted, religion were to attempt to spread the word of their God or Gods in this manner they would be ran out, or at the very least mocked. Why should we, as a community of learned people, allow this hypocrisy to continue on our very own campus?! My very simple solution, one of two things - one, we could allow all religions/faiths to preach openly - OR - two, we could allow no religion/faith to preach on our campus. I would personally prefer that, as a community of learners, we accept all forms of religion, all beliefs, and allow all to preach the word of the God/s or lack there of, but then and again I am somewhat bias to individual freedom.
I feel inspired to test out your idea that someone spreading the word of a less socially accepted religion such as Islam would truly “be ran out” or at least mocked. Perhaps to combat the one sided debate on religion that we have seen on our campus commons this spring we (students) should invite several other religious leaders to come and pitch their religion and its norms and mores to ewu students. Would we see that our student body is intolerant? Would the student body run them out as this blog claims? Would we mock them as we have mocked the fanatic Westborough “Baptist Church” or the guy who reads from the bible outside the pub?
ReplyDeleteI wonder why only Christian extremists or fanatics are here on campus. Why does this religion produce so many people who are willing to stand on the street corner and confront anyone who walks by? It is not the only religion to promote itself through outreach and conversion. Is there a literal campus rule against other religions being screamed at us? I doubt it and it makes me wonder why Christian fanatics are the only ones targeting us.
I agree with this blog that we can allow all religions/faiths to preach openly and we should start with our resident Christian crusaders. That way when other religions do roll in to town to pay some attention to us we will have lots of practice ignoring and tolerating them.
I think even more importantly than asking other religions to come and preach that we take the time to critically think about this scenario. Would we be ashamed of the reaction of our EWU community if we did invite someone else to come out? Or would it completely change the scenario if that other person was invited rather than some group or individual who has chosen to preach their faith to the seemingly mindless masses.
ReplyDeleteWhat about those who preach their “religion” of tolerance and only aspire to spread the word of hate? What about those individuals who claim that theirs’ is a forgiving God, one who will accept anyone who is willing to sacrifice themselves to him? If we cannot use reason to communicate with such individuals how is communication even possible? Are we to become just as extreme as they are? Preaching words of openness and understanding and accepting nothing else? Would those words of wisdom fall upon deaf ears as well? Would those who preach true peace and a communal area for ideas be ran out under the term of heretic simply because their form of “peace” or “harmony” does not sync up exactly with that of the majority religion?
How can we help to avoid this conundrum? How can we avoid becoming just as single minded as those we have the problem with?