Open religion = poetry.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s just say: religion = poetry. I\u2019m not talking about words, rhythm and rhyme, although poetry of course can also be cast as such. It\u2019s also much wider: the poetry of any art, the poetry of a beautiful sunset, a smiling face, the love in one\u2019s eyes, the inside of a church or temple\u2026 There are degrees in poetry. It can be very artful or less artful, deep or superficial.<\/p>\n
The \u2018religion = poetry\u2019 stance may not be religiously correct.<\/strong><\/p>\n God-believing people might feel offended. I do my best not to offend them, but sometimes offence is unavoidable, either in one direction or in the other. The only solution might seem to not speak out. That might be \u2018religiously correct\u2019 but to me, not ethical. Moreover, not-speaking-out may also be offensive. Not-being-allowed-to-speak-out, even more. Opinions need to be voiced for real and durable solutions to be crafted, at best, in mutual respect. To many people \u2013 as to me \u2013 free speech is \u2018sacred\u2019 but \u2013 according to me \u2013 it presupposes human respect. There is no freedom without at least an endeavor to the latter. There is no free speech also without thoughtfulness. Within this mindset, I hope the following will cause the least possible offense.<\/p>\n The \u2018religion = poetry\u2019 stance proposes an immense expansion of the religious domain.<\/strong><\/p>\n Personally, I feel very religious without any god-belief outside of poetry. Even more, a poetic person may be more<\/em> religious than many who abide to a god-belief\u2026 or so they show themselves.<\/p>\n In the following, I use \u2018god\u2019 between brackets to indicate an entity or agent (willful entity) that\/who is the main subject in what any number of people see as their god-belief. This is quite circular but you get the meaning.<\/p>\n In the \u2018religion = poetry\u2019 stance, something is not religious if it\u2019s not poetic.<\/strong><\/p>\n There is nothing poetic about believing that it\u2019s going to rain tomorrow. Using the word \u2018belief\u2019 or \u2018believing\u2019 is clearly not enough to be poetic.<\/p>\n For instance, is it poetic to believe that god is a man with a white beard sitting on a cloud, continuously watching you and judging you? Hardly so. Talking about \u2018god\u2019 is not enough to be poetic. I also don\u2019t see any poetry in the need or demand to literally believe in what is written in a god-book.<\/p>\n Using \u2018god\u2019 as an explanation for what is culturally not yet understood \u2013 such as thunder and lightning used to be \u2013 is not poetic by itself. It\u2019s just a pre-scientific explanation.<\/p>\n Using god-belief as a source for ethical boundaries, is by itself not poetic.<\/strong><\/p>\n To a poetic person, a non-poetic god-belief may be deeply hurtful in its insistence that \u2018god\u2019 is about something devoid of poetry. As to god-believers, I see their endeavor as worthwhile to the degree that it\u2019s infused with poetry, to the degree that what they feel and do, has a poetic-symbolic ground.<\/p>\n Conclusion: a god-believer who just believes that \u2018god is there\u2019 with no poetic interpretation of this sentence at all, is not an open-religious person. If from such a standpoint, such person says that \u2018I must believe\u2019 or that \u2018I must not do X or Y\u2019, I don\u2019t see this as a \u2018religious\u2019 claim which that person can make. I don\u2019t offend his religion if I do X or Y, because he has none.<\/p>\n