Thanks, Steve. You've made some good points too, of course. It is hard to be an apologist for religion at this point because it has proved absolutely unable to help with the most important issues facing the [post]modern world. It doesn't even seem to help much with the unimportant ones these days. It seems totally out of touch with the living present. Instead it can apparently only look back, nostalgically, on the past. It really has to be said...it has become all but irrelevant. The philosopher Nietzsche was no fool when he declared "God is dead". He was saying that religion had ceased to be the center of our lives and had become only a small fractional part. He was correct. Religion is a once-a-week quirk now, on the periphery rather than at the center of our cultural universe. It is now a bit like having a quirky hobby rather than being the foundation of our entire lives. That is a condition where "god is dead, and we have killed him".
Perhaps the worst thing that religion has done is to romanticize poverty and sentimentalize human suffering. To paint it as some kind of quaint situation that makes western people feel better about not being able to afford the latest iPhone. The rich kids with their "OM" t-shirts ask the poor kids for money to give to the poor people in other countries as a U2 song plays in the background. As far as I can tell, only rich kids got to go to India and meet all the gurus back in the 70's. Only rich kids can afford to go to India now on a spiritual journey. Grinding poverty is not something romantic. It is inhuman.
Philosophy works for some, for me it has its place.That place is a part of the activities of the mind and thought processes. Spirituality is beyond the mind and those experiences that we have in meditation are transcendental. They do not occur when the mental processes r churning. So u have philosophy and religion basically on the same level. They r both products of the mind. Spirituality is beyond mind. It is the experience of peace, bliss, joy and love and there r corresponding biological manifestations in evidence. You cannot explain such things to those who have never experienced. People think God is dead but they have never tried to still the mind. Until that has been experienced at some level it is a useless conversation if someone has no faith in what is beyond mind. Unlike philosophy the adage-- i think therefore i am-- is replaced with-- i think therefore i am restless and i experience therefore i am not.... at the very least i am not what i thought because 'I' has gone.
