I am not a person without faith, I have faith in bucket loads however, I'm not exactly sure what it is that I have faith in. Certainly, I do not have faith in the Catholic church, and Catholicism being the religion within which I was raised, this has led to a natural suspicion of all organised religions.
Religion is, in my mind, not far removed from politics, but at least politics is open about the influence of political motivation upon those who operate within the scope of its influence (wait, in a democracy shouldn't that apply to all of us?). Most of my problems with the Catholic church (aside from the abuse of children that occurred at the hands of members of this organisation) stem from its operation as an organisation that resembles both a business and a pressure group.
However, I am a great believer in a good yarn and I think of religion as being the story within which we frame our faith. I'm interested in marketing and media, as well as writing off the top of my head and am always fascinated by the creation of narratives to communicate ideas. People love a story that they can sink their teeth into and religions, of whatever flavour you partake of, provide just that - a tale complete with characters, plot, beginnings, middles and ends.
Best of all, religions provide us with a role in the very centre of the fray - they explain our position within this narrative and how we interact with the central characters. Who wouldn't love a story that they star in? However, this is one bed-time story that comes with a rule book. Oh I am all for freedom, free thinking and free markets, but let's face it, we do like a bit of structure. Like newborn babies, most of us crave a little routine, a few guidelines to tell us how to live our lives in accordance with best practice. Religions provide this playbook and in most cases, they also provide for the human contact and community that most (non-nut-type-forest-hermits: see yesterdays post) of us crave. And they give us hope - the true secret of life?
As I said, I have faith and I do believe that it is entirely possible that Jesus walked the earth and even that he may have been a messenger from God, I also believe that aspects of other religious tales may have some basis in truth. It doesn't seem to matter who we believe in or where we believe we are going when we leave this planet, what matters is to have a story, to find a way to interpret what we see, touch and feel around us and, more importantly, where we fit into it all.
I've studied quite a lot about the early modern period, when people read the world as a complex sign system and did not believe that anything was as it was, but rather that it was a representation or symbol of something else that was deeper and closer to God. I don't believe that this is an accurate understanding of our world and I'm all for seeing a table as a table, a bird as a bird, a milkshake as a dense and sugar-filled drink, but if I lived in a world where food was limited, sanitation pretty much non-existant and where, if I gave birth or cut my leg badly I would probably die, I might also find solace in believing that THIS was not IT.
In my opinion, religion is a means of understanding our own place in time and space and for investing meaning and hope into a life that can sometimes seem so difficult that we don't know how to go on without believing that there is something more and better beyond, and a life that can sometimes be so spectacularly beautiful that we cannot fully enjoy it without finding someone and some way to say thank you.
As I take a first peak at some of the religions of the world I will attempt to keep this in mind and to try to be respectful, because I will be dealing in other peoples' language of life and of hope.
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