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Each Belief Deserves Respect – In Freedom, Openness, and Depth

January 1, 2020 Open Religion No Comments

We are not going to get out of a big religious mess without respect and a huge exercise in ‘saying yes.’

Religion and belief

A religious feeling is, well, a feeling. And It’s religious. So far, so good. It can be a wonderful, poetic feeling. To me, ‘religion’ is about this feeling. [see: “The Religious Feeling“]

A ‘belief’ is quite different and, in my terminology, always conceptual. One can believe that a particular book holds the truth, for instance. This can go together with a religious belief, but not necessarily.

Nor vice versa.

Different people have different books

Everybody knows that. Yet most people – including believers – act as if this is not so very important. Of course, ‘others’ have another book ― “how silly of them!”

It’s an open door: The ones who say so are the others of the others. So, logically, as much as their belief is conceptual, most believers believe in the wrong conceptuality. One question remains: Is it the others or the others of the others, or all of them?

So, through the open door, we enter a desert.

Then, why respect each belief?

I remember, as a kid, having had intense religious experiences. At the age of ten, still knowing what I was reading back then, I was beyond it, with certainty. Going to church was OK as a kind of Sunday habit, looking at people with wonder.

Yet I could savor their belief. I knew and still know what it’s like to have the certainty of faith. It’s easy and gratifying, all right. But it’s more. It’s like living inside a poem day in day out.

It’s about knowing that life has meaning, without needing to give it much further thought. You are there. God is there. Life is there. The universe is there.

There are no boundaries. Life is eternally long. God is infinitely good.

You see.

I look at believers, and I can only respect their belief

if it’s genuine.

I still hope they don’t need it anymore one day because it makes them vulnerable. For instance, a populist manipulates it ad libitum. In this worst case, the main difference with others is another populist.

Still, the belief is to be respected. Through respect, it can be deepened.

Through respect, it can be valued as a beautiful poem. What is worth more? What is more to be respected?

If you say ‘no,’ you close the door. If you say ‘yes’, the door spontaneously opens. No other charm is needed. ‘Yes’ is enough

if it’s genuine.

Then people find out for themselves.

It’s the only way. It should be OK for anyone. The belief is the door. The desert behind is Emptiness. [see: “Emptiness!“]

We can go there, yet we are still far from there. Adherents of different beliefs still aggressively fight each other.

How did we get in this mess?

The world gets smaller. Technology makes everything more complex, thus also more potentially energetic.

At the same time, we don’t get a hold of who we truly are as a species. We don’t realize the basics.

That way, we do not understand ourselves, nor do we understand each other. We don’t understand very well how, in this peculiar brain of ours, religion came to be.

Such an understanding would certainly help.

Yet we don’t need it to be there.