The End of Religion - Readers’ Forum

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A Response to Paul Alkenbrack: I agree when you say a true Christian would be "inward not outward." I don't agree with what you seem to be implying: that Robert Lewis's book is mistaken in observing that in the name of Christianity, a huge number of adherents of that religion say that we are separated from God. I understand the position of much of modern Christianity to be that sin separates us from God and that only through His Son Jesus Christ can we be reconciled with God. Jesus, however, taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is "in the hearts of men" (perhaps he meant 'some' men? good question I think). I believe we are all living in the mind of God, and this is found in Kaballah, verbatim. Many so-called Christians believe in a hell of eternal torment, as if God will splice off part of His mind and reserve it for an infinite grudge. I believe He will cause Him/Herself to forget, at some point, that which does not need to be experienced any more. The misunderstanding, in my opinion, of much of Christianity is the idea that heaven is somewhere 'out there,' which means that the 'inward'-looking aspect of experiencing God is minimized, or confused with the very selfish goal of toeing the line in order to get a reward.
Michael Kent
Toronto, ON, CAN

"One's wisdom is reflected in the art of living with others." Yepp, that´s it. I´ve got another friend who has been searching for God (I guess he is a kind of a New Age philosopher). He is into buying a house in the woods and meditating, doing yoga, reading books about God (Gaj, sorry), and so on. He is searching alright, but he is a wreck when it comes to socializing with other people. He knows a lot about karma, Shiva, and the cat position, but he just doesn´t know very much about just being who he is. And that is a problem when one is looking for Gaj. We easily forget who we are, our friends, what we like, and thousands of other basic things essential to our wellbeing and those around us when we focus on finding Gaj. I think it´s because most people get so ignorant and small-minded when they experience God. We experience something out of the ordinary, and so we push everything else aside and look only for this because this man, this is it, the only thing that really matters. When one is looking for the one, perfect love, say God, their is a big risk that you will forget your fellow man and the fact that he/she is your brother/sister. Compassion for one another, the word of Jesus himself, and this I truly believe in. God is important, but God is the creator of everything, our bodies, our friends, our enemies, and so we must realize that God is everything. We don´t really need to look for God: God is there, everywhere, in these words (well, some of them might be the work of the devil). Actually, I think, all we need is love and to give it and to recieve it. Amen.
Holger Eriksson
Montreal, QC CA

I agree with you fully that the quest for something should not keep us from being present in the more immediate realities of life. But isn’t this what all spiritual questing comes back to: an awareness that one need only be centred in the present moment in order to experience the core of all reality, the stillness at our hearts that hums throughout the eons without concern? The aboriginals understand that the spiritual person does not isolate him or herself from the world, as though Gaj resides elsewhere. No, the spiritual person is spiritual in the world, where one’s wisdom is reflected in the art of living with others … however tempting it is in the present age to retreat when all around us seem mad in their “ignorance” of the holistic reality in which they partake. So, yes, by all means, stop reading my book. Just be sure to pass it along to someone who might find it useful.
AUTHOR RESPONSE / Robert Lewis: To Holger Eriksson
Montreal, QC CA

After reading and rereading your book for more than a year or so, I have decided to put it down. I try to avoid the subject (God, religion) since I guess I have been doing it for too long, and I am only 27. God will always be there, but life will not. My point is that sometimes we tend to look for something, and we don’t see what we really need, even if most of the time it is right in front of us. I think it is important though not to forget the mystery in this life. Then again, it is a bit hard to forget something that is so obvious. I think you are very right about tao, but for me, something is missing. I have an old friend believing in something he calls Rastao™, a combination of rastafarianism and taoism. There is no such thing I suppose as a perfect religion, but Rastao sure sounds good to me. The Bible lies within us, whether we want it or not, and so does tao. It is a part of our natural being, as is the Bible of our history. But we also need to be open to the life that rules today and the one that is coming tomorrow. Live your life like you mean it, that is my advice to all you soul searchers out there.
Holger Eriksson
Montreal, QC CA

When asked why Hindus worship so many gods when in fact Hinduism teaches that the essence of the universe is Brahman, the one pantheistic god of Hinduism, a Hindu philosopher answered by explaining that all religions and religious practice, as with the many gods of Hinduism, are like fingers pointing at Brahman. There are those, he explained, who will spend their entire lives focusing only on the fingers/metaphors and never really understand the pantheism of the universe. What I am trying to do with this book is to suggest new metaphors that will propel our gaze beyond the metaphors themselves and toward a fuller understanding of what it means to be a participant in a holistic reality. So you are correct: I am talking about both the rhetoric and the metaphors of belief -- because, whether provable or not, what we believe influences our conduct in innumerable ways. If "believing better" means adopting a worldview consistent with our highest ideals as a race, then yes I think that it is possible to "believe better."
AUTHOR RESPONSE / Robert Lewis: To Liz Pasternak
Montreal, QC CA

So you are writing about the rhetoric of belief, right? Or are you writing about how we may better believe (more fully, pantheistically, organically) in God/Gaj? Or rather in God/Gaj in us? You ask, “do the metaphors SERVE us?” So the question becomes one of how one wants the metaphors “to SERVE.” So are the metaphors the vehicle, the way to become God/Gaj?
Liz Pasternak
Toronto, Ont. CA

I thank you for drawing attention to a passage that I have since slightly revised. The original on page 80, as you quote it, reads: "If a flower possessed free will and could choose not to open its petals to the morning light, as it harmoniously should, it would not wither and die because it had contravened Gaj's will but die because it had defied its own nature. Similarly, we are free to violate our collective Gajhood, particularly with respect to the myriad harms we inflict upon one another, but we are not free to declare that these harms are natural." You point out that because anything that we do is necessarily part of Gaj (the one god of pantheism), then even the harm that we do to one another is part of Gaj, or to use the word in the quotation, "natural." The last part of the quotation would be clearer if it read: "... but we are not free to declare that doing so is consistent with our holistic nature." It may be, as I argue, that everything that transpires (including the harms that we inflict on one another) will necessarily work itself out for good, but this does not mean that we should gleefully go about doing harm as though all roads to good are the same. They are not. Human will, the choice to align ourselves or not with our holistic nature, is what determines the quality of the road to the best possible good. So please note that I advocate prayerful thought not as a means to bring the self closer to Gaj (the two are inseparable) but as a means to achieve harmony between one's will and the reality of one's participation in a nondivisible and holistic universe.
AUTHOR RESPONSE / Robert Lewis: To Devin Baldo
Montreal, QC CA

It is true that I find Taoism, understood as a philosophy rather than a religion, to be most consistent with my "spiritual" outlook. But it is also most consistent with my "intellectual" outlook. Both my spiritual and intellectual practice are based on observation, "experiments with truth" (to borrow the title of Ghandi's autobiography). In this, my practice is consistent with Taoism, which posits that by observing nature, we will learn all that we need to know about how to coexist in harmony with the universe, reality, and one another. To avoid any confusion, let me emphasize again that both pantheism and monotheism are worldviews based on a belief in one god. The difference is that the one god of monotheism is largely seen to be an individual separate from us, whereas the one god of pantheism is synonymous with the universe and everything in it. We are the one god of pantheism self-experiencing. As it says on the Temple of Delphi, "Know thyself, and you will know the universe and all the gods." Self, universe, and god are synonymous. So my philosophy is based not on a bias in favour of Taoism but on my best efforts to reconcile the truths to be found in all traditions of human thought.
AUTHOR RESPONSE / Robert Lewis: To Jean Goulet
Montreal, QC CA

Originally posted 29 March 2005 at http://www.hour.ca/books/books.aspx?iIDArticle=5370 This book needs to be read with criticism...It is obvious that the author has a bias through is own spiritual way of taoism...and the way he describes monotheism is far from explaining why numerous people in the world found the need of a religion with only One God. So it is a good book to discover a new way of spirituality, but have in mind that the author wants to bring you in this new way of thinking ...
Jean Goulet
Montreal, QC CA

Originally posted 17 February 2005 at http://www.hour.ca/books/books.aspx?iIDArticle=5370 ...the 21st century in all of her seeming flaws and troublesome attributes represents the cracking of the tightly wound sheathings of ignorance: religion has always been about remembering the true word of the creator -- and has become obviously distorted to create the current waters of guilt: shame: fear: and greed as a means and a way to perpetuate the tentacles of ignorance and confusion fed and kept fat and bloated by the circus of popular distractions and perpetual media circuses (..from king george's exploits to the king of pop's danses in court...): ..led to the muses and personal readings of quantum physics via grant morrison's landmark tale of everything in the graphic novel the invisibles - i have come to embrace the endless corridors that the thoughts of quantum physics engender for the mind to consider as well as my lifelong studies of carl jung's works and other writings and thoughts that are not found in the current glut of shite books by hack writers paid their large up front fees to create a 'best-seller' that offers little to nothing but distractions to the masses - the lines between fiction and 'non-fiction' doesn't exist: science that seeks to strive as a 'pure science' un-tainted by religion remains as un-focus and as un-accessible as religion that strives to remain 'pure' and un-touched and un-bothered by science: the two are birthed from the same initiating spark that belongs to the creator - and the blather about this prophet and that prophet being the 'true' son of g0d belongs to a tradition that has failed many and many more with a litany of d0gma and useless rhetoric designed to imprison and to create a constant climate of fear: guilt: shame: and greed while denying the birthright that seeks constant expression and constant knowledge dwelling within each and everyone of us - academic blatherings and semantical masturbation removed from the equation - we are left with the quest that has no ending and no beginnings in gaj.
Gary Womac
Montreal, QC CA

Originally posted 17 December 2005 at http://www.hour.ca/books/books.aspx?iIDArticle=5370 The bible say's man does not kwow the way to knowledge and peace,reading this piece is proves that. The path to enlightenment IS AN INNER JOURNEY. A real christian is innward not outward.Man is,body[flesh].soul[spirit body] and spirit[intalect]. When you BELIEVE JESUS is the Son of GOD and confess your faults in his name he forgives and the holy spirit will link with your spirit and teach you the mysteries of the universe.YOU DON'T GET BECAUSE YOU DON'T ASK,YOU DON'T FIND BECAUSE YOU DON'T SEEK,IT'S NOT OPENED TO YOU BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOCK.THE Godhead is easily explained in all that is made especialy man,two bodies one spirit.THERE is only one you and there is only one Creator. God the father[one body] GOD the son (second body),Holy spirit( intalect),the spirit is the real you.There is only one GOD . THAT IS WHY JESUS SAID "I ONLY DO WHAT I SEE MY FATHER DO,AND I ONLY SAY WHAT I HEAR MY FATHER SAY. Question? if you had two bodies and one spirit would not one body do exactly what the other one body does? Jesus said"if you have seen me you have seen the Father ,IF YOU CONTINUE IN ME YOU WILL KNOW THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE.HE REVIELS SECRETS TO MEN WHO ASK. GOD BLESS.
Paul Alkenbrack
Montreal, QC CA

Originally posted 23 February 2005 at http://www.hour.ca/books/books.aspx?iIDArticle=5370 The way I see it, religion has a few key purposes. To educate the masses between good and bad by instilling a sense of morality and a code of ethics. To make us beleive that their is a higher being in charge and who will deal with us if we are in fact immoral. Otherwise who would bother? Any differences I beleive are cultural not spiritual and therefore can easily be surpassed. The only reason that religions be they monotheistic or polytheistic are viewed as being different is simply politics. Religion is easily the most powerful tool there is to make people beleive in someone else's agenda.
Tanya Parvez
Montreal, QC CA

Originally posted 30 March 2005 at http://www.hour.ca/books/books.aspx?iIDArticle=5370 All religions (it seems to me) are attempts at creating metaphors and paradigms in an effort to understand the universe- cosmologically and personally. I agree with Mr. Lewis in that these metaphors having been created in time immemorial, in far off lands and by peoples who's cultures vastly differ from my own -have lost a great deal of meaning. Here, Today -we have science and informed knowledge of every kind (psychology, biology, physics, anthropology, archaeology) With the proper - humane application of this knowledge our quest to understand our place shall continue in a more relevant way. Many would argue that science is cold and definitely not humane.. I argue the opposite.. When you realize that all of our solar system (that includes us) is made from the dust of stars long since dead.. that all the element of your body had their origin in the nuclear furnaces of stars billions of years ago.. how can you not feel connected to the universe.. to GOD (whatever that IS). We are but the dust of stars. When (through science) you understand the recycling of matter on earth you realize that from death comes life. I believe one can gain courage and needed connection to fellow humans through such ideas. I believe that faith and the longing to connect to the universe are not the eminent domain of religion that there are many ways to the top of the mountain -but the religious path has become over used and worn out.. and therefore increasingly dangerous and irrelevant. Given that today we have worldwide communication and the advanced state of scientific knowledge we have many possible avenues of exploration -many more paths to the top of the mountain than ever before. Each person must climb the mountain themselves, no one can carry them up.. not even a religion...
Jody Emond
Montreal, QC CA

Originally posted 11 October 2005 at http://www.hour.ca/books/books.aspx?iIDArticle=5370 This commentary is in reference to what you stated on p.80. You state "If a flower possessed free will and could choose not to open its petals to the morning light, as it harmoniously should, it would not wither and die because it had contravened Gaj's will but die because it had defied its own nature. Similarly, we are free to violate our collective Gajhood, particularly with respect to the myriad harms we inflict upon one another, but we are not free to declare that these harms are natural"(Robert Lewis, p.80) How can one go against Gaj (universe) when all is Gaj even that which some deem bad. The bad in the universe will undoubtedly result in good. No matter what happens all the universe will return to Gaj (itself) and all wrongs lead to Gaj in the end. If one commits a crime against another he has two options and both lead to Gaj. Say he does the same crime over and over again the pain created by such acts can only lead to good from a macro understanding of the universe. Say the victims of actions learn to understand to love what they are even if it is a result from his crime this is Gaj. Say the community learns from his crime this is Gaj. Say he dies from his crime this is Gaj, only good may come out of bad and only bad out of good. The only logical way to cope with being a victim of evil is to recognize that you are good because of this evil. Both good and evil are Gaj, both are a reflection of the universe and the reflection of self. Thus to say that one must order one prayers to better be in touch with Gaj and thyself is misleading. Yet me sitting here contradicting your words from pg 81-82 is still Gaj. Man need not attempt to better reflect Gaj and the self as all reflect all. To say Gaj is outside of self is Gaj . Thus what is most important for me is knowing that I am always connected to Gaj and myself and my actions both evil and good are witnessed by the universe to be components of the Universe.
Devin Baldo
Montreal, QC CA