an open letter to religion (and monopoly of truth)

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“… of finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to be in error … in the business of the visible working world they are confessedly by no means superior to one another; whereas in abstruse matters of mere Faith, not admitting direct and sensual evidence, one in a hundred will claim to be right, and immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong.”

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Sir Richard Burton

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Ok.

I maybe should have titled this ‘viewing faith, as in religious faith, with open eyes’.

To be clear. I love having face to face conversations about religion. I find most people are passionate in their beliefs, or non beliefs, and … when pushed … are articulate and thoughtful and insightful.

I may agree, or not agree, but it is irrelevant.

Its irrelevant if you truly care about learning about a person. If you ever want to delve into people’s attitudes & behavior discuss religion and faith. It gets the heart pumping, the mind swirling and the soul … well … it is food for the soul.

By the way. Any discussion is food for the soul.

Now. I typically don’t like to write about religion. And certainly avoid writing about faith. And, yes, they can be different.

I hesitate because in writing about religious beliefs one’s meaning can be misconstrued with one simple word. Therefore weaving one’s way through a minefield of unintended meanings in a ‘loose’ word tends to make writing about religion difficult <and sometimes quite unrewarding>.

And faith?

Well. One’s faith is, well, one’s faith. Debating one’s faith is like debating whether a dawn is more beautiful than a sunset. All I know for sure is that as long as you view either dawn or sunset as beautiful in some way you are good <at least with me>.

All that said.

I recently used a great quote from a British adventurer, Sir Richard Francis Burton, and he wrote something about religion and faith that made me decide to take a chance and put something out there in writing.

First. About Burton.

Sir Richard Burton, who died in 1890, was a British consul, explorer, translator, writer, poet and swordsman known for his travel and exploration adventures as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures.

Bram Stoker said of Burton <describing a meeting together in September 1886>:

… Burton had a most vivid way of putting things. He had both a fine imaginative power and a memory richly stored not only from study but from personal experience. As he talked, fancy seemed to run riot in its alluring power; and the whole world of thought seemed to flame with gorgeous colour. Burton knew the East. Its brilliant dawns and sunsets; its rich tropic vegetation, and its arid fiery deserts; its cool, dark mosques and temples; its crowded bazaars; its narrow streets; its windows guarded for out-looking and from in-looking eyes; the pride and swagger of its passionate men, and the mysteries of its veiled women; its romances; its beauty; its horrors.

Second.

Burton pondered a shitload of issues as he traveled and when he wrote he tended to write from a third person perspective by placing an ‘enlightened person’ into the role of the thinker and questioner and ‘philosophical muse’.

So. All that I just wrote leads me to share something from one of his writings:

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“… looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems, maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the world, and of finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to be in error, and raising disputes whose violence, acerbity and virulence are in inverse ratio to the importance of the disputed matter.

A peculiarly active and acute observation taught him that many of these jarring families, especially those of the same blood, are par in the intellectual processes of perception and reflection; that in the business of the visible

working world they are confessedly by no means superior to one another; whereas in abstruse matters of mere Faith, not admitting direct and sensual evidence, one in a hundred will claim to be right, and immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong.  Thus he seeks to discover a system which will prove them all right, and all wrong; which will reconcile their differences; will unite past creeds; will account for the present, and will anticipate the future with a continuous and uninterrupted development; this, too, by a process, not negative and distinctive, but, on the contrary, intensely positive and constructive. I am not called upon to sit in the seat of judgment; but I may say that it would be singular if the attempt succeeded. Such a system would be all-comprehensive, because not limited by space, time, or race; its principle would be extensive as Matter itself, and, consequently, eternal.

Meanwhile he satisfies himself, — the main point.

 Christianity and Islamism have been on their trial for the last eighteen and twelve centuries. They have been ardent in proselytizing, yet they embrace only one-tenth and one-twentieth of the human race. He would account for the tardy and unsatisfactory progress of what their votaries call “pure truths,” by the innate imperfections of the same. Both propose a reward for mere belief, and a penalty for simple unbelief; rewards and punishments being, by the way, very disproportionate. Thus they reduce everything to the scale of a somewhat unrefined egotism; and their demoralizing effects become clearer to every progressive age.”

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 Richard Burton

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Well.

I admit. Religions confuse me a lot.

Confuse me in that, within really good discussions, I often find myself discussing what I believe is perfectly a nuance <from which there seems, to me, to be disproportionate penalties & objections> compared to what another person believes is an imperfect perception of a perfect important truth <my nuance is not even close to a nuance to them>.

I imagine this confusion on my part is simply because I just do not understand. I imagine that in some way I have never really understood faith. But I will also admit … I don’t want to be confused and I do want to understand.

Where others are quick to suggest religion and faith is outdated or worthless or unequivocally flawed … I do not. I do not reject – I want to accept. In my mind that most likely means that maybe, just maybe, I just haven’t found the way yet.

But that doesn’t mean I will not continue seeking.

Regardless. Burton, a much smarter man than I, apparently struggled with the same issues as I.

In that I take some solace.

To be clear.

Burton, as I, was not an atheist. He believed in God. Thomas Wright reminded us that Burton said this of Christ:

“He had given an impetus to the progress of mankind by systematizing a religion of the highest moral loveliness, showing what an imperfect race can and may become.”

I imagine religion and faith confuses me because in the end … don’t they all reflect we are an imperfect race of people and, yet, each religion wants us and encourages us to be all, or the best, we may become?