It seems to me to be very clear that we experience happenings and then intend to tell stories to describe and explain them. Whatever we experience, it is the result of an interpretation that our minds make of the input of our senses. In the same way, our stories are interpretations rather than descriptions or explanations, although these may be our intention, and there may be multiple interpretations of the same occurrence.
Religions are made up of such interpretations, mostly pre-scientific interpretations of experience, sometimes erroneous in their assumptions, many times the stories are dated and no longer speak to our common sense, but equally, there are numerous stories which have the depth and wisdom that we need to understand ourselves and others. These stories present us with “the other”, and allow us to give life a metaphysical perspective, presenting ourselves with a self-observation quasi from outside.
However, there is the mysterious aspect of life. The unknown or the ineffable experience which we may often think to be a figment of imagination is borne out by the universality of the experience, and there is enough indication that there is something of a collective source of symbols and mythology, which may be a result of a common psychology. Life remains a mystery, and is particularly visible in the explosive genesis on a small planet in a vast universe of hidden potential and hostility at the same time.
The idea that religions are a short step away from the superstition of an angry personality behind a thunderclap just show the fact that we have lost connection with the complexity of human experience and psychology, which the shamans and witchdoctors seem to have intuitively grasped, despite being regarded as primitive, and which they have addressed with mixed results with their medicine for mind and body. The fact is, modern man is becoming increasingly primitive, despite technological advance, and is forced by the sheer amount of information he is confronted with to reduce his decisions to black and white, yes or no.
The complexity of the human psychology has been rediscovered and seems to have two levels. On the one we have the group-dynamics of contention and competition, on the other we have the sensibility and empathy of compassion. We need both but each in different situations, depending on where life takes us. We also have the emotional component, which makes the shift between these two levels sometimes almost impossible – even if it makes sense. Religion is known to address this complexity, often in analogy, parable or poem, with themes which try to make the experience of the individual the message: What you feel is what others feel too – learn from it!
Unfortunately, human society has been making all the mistakes of which the varying sources of wisdom warn us about. Often we fail by having too many rules, having too little room for learning, putting on too much emotion and aggression, and allowing too little sensibility and empathy. These lessons of at least two thousand years are becoming too quiet in an ever louder environment in which the loudest is heard best (even if wisdom says that empty vessels make most noise), or they themselves figuratively raise their voices and compromise their message.
Even here, where we come to discuss religion, the quieter voices have been shouted down and have left, and discussion becomes sparse. What is there to do? Is there a way out of the dilemma – for society, for humankind, and even for the religion forum of ILP?
