As with mostly strongly held beliefs or formative influences, religion is part of a believer’s identity.
Some people seem to find that peculiar or irrational or just plain incomprehensible. But how peculiar is it really, when one considers all of the things we humans attach our identity to: jobs, professions, gender, sexual orientation, skin color, ethnic origins, place of birth, place of residence, political persuasion or party affiliation, educational level or intellectual accomplishments, physical appearance, even the sports teams we follow or what foods we eat (or refuse to eat). We seldom, I think, sit down and contemplate how central these things really are to who we are or perceive ourselves to be.
I self-identify as a believer in God—specifically, a Bahá’í. Because I’m a Bahá’í, my identity and what I build it around is exactly the sort of thing I’m encouraged to contemplate. I also self-identify as a mother, wife, writer, and musician—specifically, as a singer, and a filker. Each of these things forms a greater or lesser part of my identity from moment to moment. Some are “containers” of more minutely defined bits of identity.
But what connects them all in one way or another is the first—my identity as a believer.
Why? Because it’s contributory to the other areas. I wrote in an earlier episode of Why Religion that religion, in the scriptures of the Baha’i Faith, is a target—a set of goals. Of those goals I wrote:
“It’s the bullseye at the center of the human being that we strive to hit. Could I have come to appreciate these qualities were I an atheist? Maybe, but I doubt that I would have seen it as part of my identity as a human being to work day in and day out to acquire them. I doubt I would be conscious of their effect on every facet of my life, or concern myself with how I should apply them to every situation I encounter.”
Hence, my faith or religion or spiritual orientation, if you will, is what gives me both the incentive and the tools with which to strive consciously to progress in all of the other areas—to be a better mother, wife, writer, musician. The conscious aspect, I think, is important. The scriptures of religion make a point about self-knowledge and self-awareness. Buddha remarks that:
“Nirvana comes to thee when thou understandest thoroughly and livest according to that understanding, that all things are of one Essence and that there is but one law.”
The Bahá’í writings frequently refer to the human heart as a mirror and note that the purer and more polished the mirror, the greater its reflective powers. They also state what should be obvious on a moment of—heh—reflection: a mirror reflects whatever the individual chooses to turn it toward. ‘Nuff said.
I freely admit to bias in this area. I derive a great deal of joy from my faith, but in part that’s because it satisfies and challenges on so many different levels. I can think of no negatives to having an identity that is grounded in a process of conscious transformation. For one thing that process is infinite. You never use it up, it doesn’t fade with age, you don’t lose it if the stock market crashes, or if you lose your job, or if your marriage crumbles, or if the Muse deserts you—the words won’t come and the music won’t play. In fact, you may be even more aware of the process in the throes of some difficulty.
Well, I can think of one negative of the above. It’s work. It’s a lot like being a student. What I am studying is being human.
One of my favorite passages of Bahá’í scripture, is one in which Bahá’u’lláh warns of basing identity on the wrong things—things that perish, things that may even be harmful. He concludes:
“For every one of you his paramount duty is to choose for himself that on which no other may infringe and none usurp from him. Such a thing—and to this the Almighty is My witness—is the love of God, could ye but perceive it. Build ye for yourselves such houses as the rain and floods can never destroy, which shall protect you from the changes and chances of this life.” — Gleanings CXXIII
It goes hand-in-hand with Bahá’u’lláh’s exhortation to “translate that which hath been written into reality and action….”
This is similar to Christ’s message to believers in the Sermon on the Mount, which is contained in the seventh chapter of Matthew.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”
This is not easy advice to follow. It’s perilously easy to become attached to the things and people around us such that they begin to define who we are. Many people are attached to their political parties or to particular politicians whose identities (at least publicly) seem to mirror their own in some way. Even in the realm of faith, it’s easy to identify with outward forms, rituals, and doctrines—and I think this is what secularists quite rightfully decry when they see it in the religious sphere. Those outward forms change, and if we attach our identities to them rather than to the process of transformation that the Revealers of religion have universally encouraged, then we may find ourselves in a constant battle to maintain those forms.
If we look at those outward forms and trappings of religion as if they were religion, itself, then it’s no wonder our secular friends may wonder what possible benefits we can derive from our faith.
Next time: Religion as a source of awe.
12 comments
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Barney
May 16, 2012 at 9:37 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Spot on, Maya! This is an insightful and helpful post.
Mark H.
May 17, 2012 at 2:47 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Yes.
Religion is about the distilling of things to their essence, or perhaps, the distilling of oneself?
Maya Bohnhoff
May 17, 2012 at 3:37 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
To me it is about distillation. That’s what all the Revealers of religion have taught—what Gautama Buddha put so well—that everything is evolving according to one law. Everything—including us. It can either be a conscious evolution in which we target goals we wish to reach or it can be an accidental evolution in which we stumble along attaching our identity to the things we own, our bodies, our superficial roles in the world.
I note that sometimes this can happen at the expense of more critical roles. Since Mother’s day, for example, I’ve seen two women bloggers argue that child-bearing and rearing is an diminishment of a woman’s identity. One woman said she felt as if people viewed her only as a “carrier’ when she was pregnant and she found the baby shower “creepy” because it was for a person that wasn’t there yet. Another wrote in support of the idea that the woman as natural nurturer and first educator was wrong and that being the first caregiver robbed women of living “fully adult lives” as if a fully adult life could only be lived in the absence of children. Made me sad and filled me with a wild impulse to hug all my kids.
Identity is the issue, too, I think when I have non-Baha’is react with surprise or even horror when I tell them that I don’t drink, do drugs, or have multiple sexual partners because I’m a Baha’i. “You gave up X to be a Baha’i? How could you stand having someone tell you you couldn’t do X?”
Of course, from my point of view, it was never about giving up anything that was intrinsically or essentially me. What I was being asked to exchange (and it is an exchange) was ephemeral, transient, even potentially harmful behaviors—two of which I’d never partaken of in the first place, though I had plenty of rock and roll—for a beneficial, positive process and a lifestyle that would encourage and aid me in becoming a better human being. As Baha’u'llah says—the religion of God was revealed to unearth those gems that lie hidden within every human being.
That beats the bloody heck out of any thing sex, drugs, or even rock and roll has to offer.
Roland St-Onge
May 18, 2012 at 8:41 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Excellent explanation of your bahá’íe identity
Roland St-Onge
May 18, 2012 at 8:49 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
There is a point that I fell bahá’ís sould think about. It is not appropriated to represent Bahá’u'lláh in any form. Maybe that rule should be applied to all God’s Messengers, like Christ.
Maya Bohnhoff
May 18, 2012 at 10:18 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’m an artist as well as a writer and while I would never presume to paint or draw a portrait of Christ, I’m not actually certain if it’s inappropriate to use existing images of Him. Certainly, I understand that the Manifestation of God is not to be worshipped—much less a mere image of Him. I know we’re discouraged from owning pictures of Baha’u'llah, but I’ve never seen any directives from the House of Justice as to the use of existing art.
Most copies of the Bhagavad Gita and often the Dhammapada as well have images of Krishna and Buddha on the covers, and many Bibles have images of Christ (which again, Baha’is understand do no represent what any of these Messengers looked like.)
I admit I have a great fondness for statues of the Buddha.
Brett Glass
July 11, 2012 at 8:12 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Is this identification with one’s religion necessarily a positive thing? What if one is, say, a Thuggee?
Maya Bohnhoff
July 11, 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I think it depends on how one define’s religion. For the sake of this blog, I’m defining it as the body of spiritual teachings that come from a divine revelator by which an individual can, if they wish, guide their lives. Anti-theists of my acquaintance define it as the body of ignorant dogma that has given rise to division and strife and which is always anti-knowledge, anti-science and which promotes ignorance as a virtue and justifies violence against anyone dissenters.
The whole point of my blog really is that in order to be any of those things, religious dogma must violate the very principles upon which it is supposed to be founded. Principles of reciprocity—and even further, altruism that is more than merely “enlightened self-interest”.
If one identifies with the manmade dogma, then it can easily become a negative thing. And that has been well-documented by religious and anti-religious observers alike. In fact, it’s become, in it’s own way, a dogmatic attitude toward religion and religious people that insists they are all like X. I’m trying to offer an alternative point of view to the one that has begun to permeate our society.
I got a tweet that insisted we must “fight religion with every weapon available to us”. This is a mirror image of the dogmatic religious view that we must fight irreligion or evil or (your group of “other” here) with the same zeal. As I said in the last sentence of the post: “If we look at those outward forms and trappings of religion as if they were religion, itself, then it’s no wonder our secular friends may wonder what possible benefits we can derive from our faith.” But those things aren’t religion—they are what we, in our immaturity as human beings, have made it.
Brett Glass
July 15, 2012 at 3:53 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I guess that my view is different in that I do not see religious doctrine as “revealed” but rather “discovered” or “invented.” (And I say this as an exponent of Judaism — one of the oldest extant religions and the first “people of the book.”) Judaism has lots of good in it, but also plenty of holes and contradictions — many of which were inherited or even amplified by Christianity and Islam. (Christianity was, after all, founded by Jews, who combined Jewish ideas with memes acquired from ancient Babylonia and Egypt. Islam cuts and pastes yet other memes.)
Historically, religion has served many roles — a primary one being a “place holder” in the absence of scientific knowledge. Long before man knew anything of biology, chemistry, or physics, religion provided us with “working hypotheses” that may have been incorrect or arbitrary but nonetheless let us get on with our lives and organize our societies.
Unfortunately, the memetic selection process for these “place holder” ideas allowed the most sentimentally appealing ones to dominate. So, even though in many cases we now know better, we still find adherents sticking to them. And religious organizations, having proclaimed themselves to be infallible and their scriptures to be both immutable and literally true, have positioned themselves so as to be unable to accept new discoveries. This has caused problems such as the persecution of scientists (e.g. the excommunication of Galileo) and the rejection of evolutionary theory and the tremendous advances that have stemmed from it.
Also, religious organizations do have a tendency to seek control of areas of life that fall far outside the realm of spirituality. Depending upon the group, it may seek to control government, civil justice, criminal justice (often criminalizing violations of religious dictates or the questioning of dogma), the conduct of business (see, for example, Old Testament prohibitions against interest, the temple-clearing incident in the New Testament, or modern day “blue laws”), the military, food and agriculture (e.g. Old Testament dietary laws). They may levy taxes (tithing) and regulate major life and family events: marriage, coming of age, family planning death, inheritance. (One of the most common things they try to regulate, perhaps unsurprisingly, is sexuality.) On the positive side, they’ve been great patrons of the arts and great vehicles for charity.
My personal view is that as mankind becomes increasingly enlightened about what makes himself and the universe tick, the role of religion should shrink… to the point where it provides charity, comfort, solace, community, and support for ethical behavior. Of course, religious organizations — and those who desire to use religion as a manipulative tool — will not give up their power over other areas of life without a fight, but ultimately we must engage in that fight if we are to become truly enlightened.
Maya Bohnhoff
July 15, 2012 at 11:31 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
(with apologies for length) I think religious doctrine as it exists today is a mixture of revealed truth and manufactured dogma—good and bad. Historically, there have always been individuals who claimed to be the Spokesperson of the Divine. Regardless of where or when these individuals appeared, there are certain principles that they unfailingly taught their followers. They also sometimes gave social teachings that were time bound—take the Jewish and Islamic food laws, for example—and dependent on the exigencies of the time. The Bahá’í take on this—which is clearly explained by the Founder of our Faith—is that these similarities exist for the simple reason that the Avatars, Buddhas, Prophets (whatever you want to call them) are Emissaries of the same Universal Spirit, whose one essential quality was the love that resulted in the creation of Live, the Universe, and Everything.
I was severely challenged by this idea, coming, as I did from a Christian background. I loved Christ and recognized the beauty of his teachings, but I loved church doctrine not a bit. In fact, I could find no basis for it in anything Christ uttered. It was necessary for me to dig deeply into the sacred texts of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc. to see if what Bahá’u’lláh suggested (that there was really only one progressively revealed faith) was even possible. What I concluded at the end of my initial search—and what I continue to find—is that the “memes” as you call them are there because even the faiths that are lost in the mists of time came from the same Source.
The problem with the role of ecclesiastical institutions of the past, IMO, has been that they have impeded the natural evolution of faith. Just as we are evolving our understanding of the physical universe, we must also evolve our understanding of the spiritual one—especially our understanding of ourselves in both arenas. A hallmark of fundamentalist world views is the tenacity with which adherents cling to ideas that are not only outmoded, but only tangentially supported by their scriptures, if at all.
Spiritual realities are, of necessity, couched in metaphors that only hint at the real relationships, but, as you note, some believers insist on taking them literally, with sometimes disastrous results.
The supposed conflict between science and religion is something we discuss at length here in CGG. I did a whole series on myths relating to that conflict. One such myth is that the Catholic Church was and is anti-science. That’s hard to credit given that the Church supported the great universities of Europe as far back as the middle ages and that until very recently, most of the scientists who laid the foundations for modern work were religious men who felt that their work in the sciences (or natural philosophies) were mandated by faith.
Bahá’u’lláh’s states that “Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth is a direct evidence of the revelation within it of the attributes and names of God, inasmuch as within every atom are enshrined the signs that bear eloquent testimony to the revelation of that Most Great Light. …How resplendent the luminaries of knowledge that shine in an atom, and how vast the oceans of wisdom that surge within a drop!” This is an echo of the 19th Psalm: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.”
We have to be careful, I think, not to fall into the trap of binary either/or thinking: religion is bad; science is good. Darwin’s (and his predecessors’ and successors’) work with evolutionary theory gave us great advances, but also gave us some horrors to go along with. Social Darwinism, eugenics, the lingering idea that there are superior and inferior races, etc. also came out of that nascent science.
Which brings me to a point that Abdu’l-Bahá (Bahá’u’lláh’s son) makes so eloquently: “… the principles of the Divine religions can hardly be evaluated by the acts of those who only claim to follow them. For every excellent thing can still be diverted to the wrong ends. A lighted lamp in the hands of an ignorant child or of the blind will not dispel the surrounding darkness nor light up the house — it will set both the bearer and the house on fire.” — Secret of Divine Civilization p 72
I agree with you that as we mature as a species the role of religion in the form of ecclesiastical organizations will dwindle. I think this is why Bahá’u’lláh has abolished such institutions in the Bahá’í Faith. We have no clergy and no individual believer can set himself up to interpret the writings for anyone else. In the elected institutions we do have (which were designed by Bahá’u’lláh, himself) no one member’s opinion outweighs any other’s. And outside of the counsel chamber, even members of the global administrative body have no special authority. It’s a unique system that functions on principles of compassion and consultation and turns the concept of leadership on its head.
However, I think that religion as a body of ethical and spiritual teachings will be a necessity for a long time to come, until the day in which, as the Torah puts it, God will write his law on our hearts.
And that brings me back to the point about the necessity of evolution in religious understanding as there is in scientific understanding. As Abdu’l-Bahá put it: “Religion must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive. If it be non-progressive it is dead. The divine institutes are evolutionary; therefore [their] revelation must be progressive and continuous.” — Abdu’l-Bahá, Foundations of World Unity p. 83
After making the same observation about the evolution of sciences, he asks, “In view of this, shall blind imitations of ancestral forms and theological interpretations continue to guide the spiritual development of humanity today? Shall man gifted with the power of reason unthinkingly adhere to dogma which will not bear the analysis of reason?”
The answer is, of course, “no”. We should not adhere to dogma. Nor should we imagine that dogma and faith are the same thing. And that, ultimately, was the point of my post.
Stephen Friberg
July 16, 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi Brent:
Insightful and interesting post! I can give you the POV of someone who is both a scientist and who just got back from pilgrimage to the Baha’i Holy Places in Haifa Israel and the old city of Jerusalem.
Brent: I guess that my view is different in that I do not see religious doctrine as “revealed” but rather “discovered” or “invented.” (And I say this as an exponent of Judaism — one of the oldest extant religions and the first “people of the book.”) Judaism has lots of good in it, but also plenty of holes and contradictions — many of which were inherited or even amplified by Christianity and Islam. (Christianity was, after all, founded by Jews, who combined Jewish ideas with memes acquired from ancient Babylonia and Egypt. Islam cuts and pastes yet other memes.)”
SRF: I certainly can share your POV. Certainly, much of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is “discovered”, “invented”, and borrowed. How can it be otherwise? Judaism and Christianity relied on oral transmission of their truths, and what was eventually written down was a mix of the original animating spirit and interpretation. (Islamic scripture had much fewer transmission problems, the Baha’i Faith none – essentially due to its 19th century origins). But the core teachings have a spirit that is civilization building and animates a social phenomena that is unparalleled in terms of long-livedness and influence.
In Haifa and Akko the last two weeks, I went to all the places where Baha’u'llah lived and suffered, seeing first hand the nature by which his teachings were revealed and the seed-like potency of their unfolding. I then visited old Jerusalem.
Now, could I say that Baha’u'llah discovered or invented these teachings, for example that it is the time to build a peaceful and progressive world civilization, that all the religions are one, the equality of women and men, the unity of mankind? I could, but it wouldn’t be in any ordinary sense because he would literally speak them out quickly and rapidly without pause for reflection or planning – and we are talking about complete books. It was as if he was speaking from an overwhelming powerful set of extraordinarily clear insights. From understanding the origins of the teachings of the Baha’i Faith, I can extrapolate back to the inspiration that drove the founders and prophets of Israel, to Christ, to Mohammed and readily expect that they had the same kind of immediacy and inspiration that Baha’u'llah had. And I saw the power of that inspiration at the Wailing Wall, and the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
Brent: Historically, religion has served many roles — a primary one being a “place holder” in the absence of scientific knowledge. Long before man knew anything of biology, chemistry, or physics, religion provided us with “working hypotheses” that may have been incorrect or arbitrary but nonetheless let us get on with our lives and organize our societies.
SRF: I’ve looked at this question in depth. I find little or no indications that religion was a place-holder in the absence of scientific knowledge and a lot of evidence that religion was an instigator of scientific search prior to, say, the 18th century. The view that stories like Genesis are other than allegories of greater truths is of much more recent origin – basically an invention of the enlightenment. So, no, it is not true that religion had a primary role as a place holder for science.
Brent: Unfortunately, the memetic selection process for these “place holder” ideas allowed the most sentimentally appealing ones to dominate. So, even though in many cases we now know better, we still find adherents sticking to them. And religious organizations, having proclaimed themselves to be infallible and their scriptures to be both immutable and literally true, have positioned themselves so as to be unable to accept new discoveries. This has caused problems such as the persecution of scientists (e.g. the excommunication of Galileo) and the rejection of evolutionary theory and the tremendous advances that have stemmed from it.
SRF: Agreed mainly, which is why the religions have to be renewed.
However, Galileo was persecuted because he objected to the Aristotelian science embedded in Catholic doctrine and badmouthed the pope when Catholicism was under severe attack by Protestantism. The rejection of evolutionary theory most likely is due to the fact that it was – and still is – used as a secular version of the Genesis creation myth and a support for things like eugenics, scientific racism, communism, colonialism, homophobia, etc. in the past. (Of course, there was the shock value too.)
Brent: Also, religious organizations do have a tendency to seek control of areas of life that fall far outside the realm of spirituality. Depending upon the group, it may seek to control government, civil justice, criminal justice (often criminalizing violations of religious dictates or the questioning of dogma), the conduct of business (see, for example, Old Testament prohibitions against interest, the temple-clearing incident in the New Testament, or modern day “blue laws”), the military, food and agriculture (e.g. Old Testament dietary laws). They may levy taxes (tithing) and regulate major life and family events: marriage, coming of age, family planning death, inheritance. (One of the most common things they try to regulate, perhaps unsurprisingly, is sexuality.) On the positive side, they’ve been great patrons of the arts and great vehicles for charity.
SRF: Lots to discuss here, and I agree with you on much of what you say. Generally speaking, religions have promulgated a lot of social laws – charity, family, cleanliness, pilgrimage – some of which have to be updated from time to time. And various leaders have invented their own too, diluting and destroying the integrity of the religions.
Brent: My personal view is that as mankind becomes increasingly enlightened about what makes himself and the universe tick, the role of religion should shrink… to the point where it provides charity, comfort, solace, community, and support for ethical behavior. Of course, religious organizations — and those who desire to use religion as a manipulative tool — will not give up their power over other areas of life without a fight, but ultimately we must engage in that fight if we are to become truly enlightened.
SRF: If religion is not simply a place-holder for science, but if rather it is the instigator of individual and social growth – spiritual development – and if these are essential elements of our life as humans, then it seems to me that we need to drop the accretions of religion that you talk about (manipulativeness, outmoded social laws, prejudices, false idols, etc.) if we are to go forward. But we shouldn’t throw out the baby (religion) with the bathwater (the accretions). If we are – as the religions agree -spiritual beings, then science – basically facts about simple things in nature and/or methods of systematic acquisition of knowledge – is only a part of the picture, something that certainly helps us see through the nonsense, but not a description of the nature and purpose of our lives.
This, of course, is different than the enlightenment vision of science which tends to hold that the spiritual truths of religion can be replaced by various metaphysical doctrines inspired by science. I think that the secular vision of progress that you describe is outmoded, given that it is based on a conflict model where religion has to be conquered (18th century Europeans were very much into conquering) and the assumption that metaphysical sentiments inspired by science are a replacement for the verities of religion.
So yes, science has given us great technologies, but also extraordinarily destructive wars, extreme poverty for billions, a colossal global economic meltdown and much else that it destructive. And that is what you expect from a misreading of science (i.e., falling into the trap of thinking it to be a source of metaphysical truths about the meaning and purpose of our lives). Science doesn’t answer the bigger questions. For that, and to provide the impetus for individual and social growth, a revitalized religion is needed.
Again, thanks for your detailed comments!
Jason Malcolm Stewart
July 11, 2012 at 8:36 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thank you for more insight and thought-provoking commentary. I really see the desire to be a truth finder in your works.