The Narrow Lens of Religion- An Introduction

“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means” – George Bernard Shaw

Kaleidoscope
As a child one of my favorite toys was a kaleidoscope. A simple but imaginative device it is a tube of mirrors containing loose colored beads, pebbles or other small colored objects. The viewer looks in one end and light enters the other end, reflecting off the mirrors. Typically there are two rectangular lengthwise mirrors. Setting of the mirrors at 45° creates eight duplicate images of the objects, six at 60°, and four at 90°. As the tube is rotated, the tumbling of the colored objects presents the viewer with varying colors and patterns. Any arbitrary pattern of objects shows up as a beautiful symmetric pattern because of the reflections in the mirrors(1).

The wonder of this childhood toy for me was if I got bored with or didn’t like the current configuration of pattern presented, I need only twist the lens to see something more to my liking. Peering through a kaleidoscope offers a variety of different views but it is only possible to see a variation of views provided by the limited components of the scope. So there I would sit with one eye closed to the world around me and the other eye firmly planted to the end of a tube that represented the world in a pleasing and satisfyingly changing way.

The lens of religion works in much the same way. The religious close their eye to the world around them and peer through their religion to find a pleasing and satisfying world view. If they are unhappy with what they find they need only tweak the lens until they find a desirable configuration. Like the kaleidoscope no two views are the same.

The Assertion
Christianity today is a shadow of it’s previous self. What believers tout today as “moral living” and “upright behavior” would, in previous eras, be considered heresy. Those who preach anything resembling historically accurate religious theology are considered fundamental and obnoxious. Among their ranks are religious zealots such as Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps and young earth creationists including Patrick Young (PH.D). Many, if not most, main stream Christians have included into their doctrines certain basic scientific proofs including older earth theories, evolution (within the same species), basic astrology facts and have acknowledged the power of medicine. They have taken special care however, to credit God for allowing all of these truths to exist and using them as examples of his greatness.

If any of today’s Christians were to time travel to mid 1300’s they would be tortured and killed for heresy, yet their claims of belief are unchanged. They still serve the same God; they govern good and evil from the same text and preach the same basic message. The moral code upon which their faith is based is unchanged and yet what is considered moral and true has changed dramatically.

If we were to ask Christians today about such things as slavery, genocide, child abuse or rape and inquire as to whether or not such actions were a sin they would certainly (at least in my experience) and universally say that they are. Furthermore, defense of the position of these actions being immoral would be produced from scripture. Upon contest of their stance utilizing alternate scripture, the defense is given in regards to the time the scripture was written. One must take care to remember that in many circumstance these same scriptures, in generations past, were used to support what today would be immoral actions.

What this series is about
This series will center entirely upon the Christian religion. This is appropriate because of the various religions to analyze, Christianity, in all various forms, has been and remains the religion that takes the least amount of ownership for its actions and has also been the least consistent religion on the planet. Christianity shares with its chief rival, Islam, a conviction of being the only true path to God and also has a commonality of a particularly bloody past. The primary difference being that Islam, has, for all intents and purposes, embraced these attributes while Christian apologists have attempted to justify or disown the immoral actions of previous generations.

There are more than 34,000 variations of the Christian religion(2) including Catholicism. Each of these variations has their own kaleidoscope with which to see the present world and the history of mankind and each of these believe they have found the true key to salvation.

Many Christians have chosen to leave the label of “religion” behind them. These believers have decided that no religion is representative of what they see through the kaleidoscope and state that they have found the “real” Jesus. These types feel that the previous 2000 years of Christendom are all incorrect and they have received a personal revelation as to the truth about God. The narrow lens of religion is very accommodating and will allow a person see whatever they want to see as they look through it.

There are far too many variations to address each one in this series so I will speak in general terms about the generally accepted articles of faith of Christianity, unless otherwise stated. For instance, I can make the statement that Christianity views homosexuality as a sin, this is a general truth. There are variations that do not, but as a general rule it is applicable to the large majority of Christian faiths. Conversely prohibition of birth control is not generally accepted by protestant faiths but held firmly by the Catholic faith.

The Narrow Lens
The narrow lens of religion is a term I use to describe the view the religious person has of the world around them. It extends from how they read and interpret the Bible to their views on the after life. The lens filters world history and indeed, in many cases, eliminates all historical contexts for belief between the time the New Testament ends and the present, because the events do not fit the lookers current interpretation of God or his will.

The lens’ range inhibits the lookers thought processes. It conditions the mind to stop asking questions and accept that the unknown is God’s doing and no further investigation is needed. Indeed, historically speaking, the lens has made its lookers quite violent towards those who have stepped beyond its scope.

The lens narrows the looker’s reality to the contents of a book and those concepts and realities forced upon them by society. The intriguing thing about the lens however is its ability to, once included, make what it sees seem like the way it has always been. Again, the lens negates history and insists that the current view is the one, true, and correct view and that said view has always been thus.

The lens’ historical filter enables the looker to embrace concepts such as Pascal’s wager, the proofs of Thomas Aquinas and the “miracles” of the patron saints but filter out the unpleasantness of the inquisitions, slavery, women’s rights, witch trials and the murder and torture of freethinking men and women of philosophy and science. The lens is a versatile tool, employed largely unconsciously, throughout human history.

My Lens
As a former believer I remember well the inner struggle to quench the questions that almost universally began with “What if?”. When the questions were to strong my lens was there to remind me that “What if?” was irrelevant – close one eye and peer through the scope at the symmetrical patterns of faith I had learned so well. The lens of religion calmed my mind and allowed the world to make sense once more.

As I began my voyage away from belief, I tucked my lens away in its velvet case, placed it in a drawer somewhere in the recesses of my mind and I remember feeling quite naked and exposed. I also reeled, as I still do, at the exploration of the pebbles and beads of religion, science and philosophy that were not reflected in the mirrors of my own kaleidoscope. Everything that I found, discovered and learned since that day has solidified my decision to leave behind me the world of fairy tales.

~AP~

(1) Kaleidoscope (2)World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions – AD 30 to 2200