Fact Sheet: Secular Pathways To
God
This is a highly risque essay and has been flagged as RED as a High
Alert in the Textual Terrorism catagory: Sister Amelia
Postmodernism
Postmodernism does away with many of the things that religious
people regard as essential. For postmodernists every society is in
a state of constant change; there are no absolute values, only
relative ones; nor are there any absolute truths. This promotes the
value of individual religious impulses, but weakens the strength of
"religions" which claim to deal with truths that are presented from
"outside", and given as objective realities. In a postmodern world
there are no universal religious or ethical laws, everything is
shaped by the cultural context of a particular time and place and
community. In a postmodern world individuals work with their
religious impulses, by selecting the bits of various spiritualities
that "speak to them" and create their own internal spiritual world.
The "theology of the pub" becomes as valid as that of the
priest.
The inevitable conclusion is that religion is an entirely human-made phenomenon.
Precedents
This is not a very new development. In Japan, many people have
adopted both Shinto and Buddhist ideas in their religious life for
some time. In parts of India, Buddhism co-exists with local tribal
religions. Hinduism, too, is able to incorporate many different
ideas.
Ways to God
In a world where there is no objectively existing God "out there",
and where the elaborate sociological and psychological theories of
religion don't seem to ring true, the idea of regarding religion as
the totality of religious experiences has some appeal. Religion in
this theory is created, altered, renewed in various formal
interactions between human beings. Images and ideas of God are
manufactured in human activity, and used to give specialness
("holiness"?) to particular relationships or policies which are
valued by a particular group. There is no one "right or wrong"
religion - or sanctifying theory. There are as many as there are
groups and interactions, and they merge and join, divide and
separate over and over again. Some are grouped together under the
brand names of major faiths, and they cohere with varying degrees
of consistency.
Others, although clearly religious in their particular way, would reject any such label.
Some Examples
Some of these interactions are labelled "religious": rites of
passage like weddings and funerals, regular worship services,
prayer meetings, meditation sessions, retreats. Some of these are
just the rituals of everyday life. These include cooking and
cleaning, and working. (Many established religions had that insight
a long time ago - although they required the actions to be carried
out with a particular attitude of mind to count as
religious.)
Yet others are group actions designed to "bring about the Kingdom
of God" on earth. These are often initiatives for social change, or
charity work, or fighting for individual human rights. These dramas
remove religion from the exclusive narratives of scriptures, or the
lifestyle rules of various faith communities, and bring religion
into everyday life. They enable people from different faiths, or
none, to work together in religious acts when they engage in social
action -
they are working to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth, and they don't worry about who God is, or whether God is.