Truth - part 2

If I may be allowed to speculate further on the subject of truth, let me say that my objections to religions are not so much with the religions themselves, but with their adherents, and in particular their fundamentalists. I understand religion and the need that the human being has for reference points and answers to fundamental questions about the meaning of life etc. The human being is a social being and so requires a collective experience and a collective security and the all-embracing social nature of religion and the collective experience of church, chapel, mosque or whatever with its rituals and symbols provides people with a comfort and security that an atomised and individual experience cannot. The sociologist Emile Durkheim told us that
“What is needed if social order is to reign is that the mass of men be content with their lot. But what is needed for them to be content, is not that they have more or less, but they be convinced that they have no right to more. And for this, it is absolutely essential that there be an authority whose superiority they acknowledge and what tells them what is right.”

 As a result, religion refers to those socially shared ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that have to do with the supernatural. Humans appear to need to explain what they regard as supernatural forces, and, as we saw, even people in advanced and educated societies like modern America attempt to describe natural disasters as a form of supernatural occurrence that happens for a reason. Thus, in their religious behaviour and practice, humans create a social world of rules and meanings that not only govern, but explain their experiences in individual and social life and in their daily social interaction, and this form of social activity becomes internalised in our individual consciousness, shaping our personality and providing strategies for coping with life. As a result, religion is one of the most powerful integrating mechanisms we have at our disposal for producing the social order Durkheim is concerned with, providing meanings, an authority structure, and a commonality of belief and solidarity, but, I would argue that an understanding of that is far more important and satisfying than an understanding of 'truth'. It is not truth we should be seeking, but an understanding of how 'the truth' is poisonous and dangerous and how we can combat the hate and discrimination that emanates from all forms of truths. However, as I said, my main problem is with fundamentalism as I find fundamentalists of all stripes very unattractive and completely irrational; they are impossible to have any kind of logical relationship with as their minds are completely closed and quite impenetrable.

For example, The Bible tells us that we cannot know the absolute truth and that is why at the end of the day the whole Christian message is based on faith and if you knew the truth then you wouldn't need faith. God has no empirical existence as we cannot see, feel, or touch Him/Her. So, as we cannot gain our knowledge of God directly from source, we are reliant on secondary knowledge, principally a book but crucially, on the various interpretations of that book for our knowledge of God, and indeed that applies to all major religions. We must therefore have faith that not only that the book is true, but also the interpretations of that book. So, if you cannot directly know 'the truth' then you have no justification for persecuting, punishing and murdering those of us who do not share your (incomplete) belief system, because, as your truth emanates from secondary sources, it may just not be true. That applies if you are a Christian, a Communist, a Muslim, a Jew or a member of the Flat Earth Society etc. Indeed if you are a Christian you are expressly forbidden to punish anyone who disagrees with you because you are bound by your religion to love your neighbour and leave all punishments to your God who tells you that "Vengeance is mine". So, if you believe the Bible, or any other secondary source of supernatural revelation, then you are in serious breach of your faith if you persecute, kill or discriminate against any other human being in respect to belief, race, gender etc. I can find no reference in the Bible giving Christians permission to punish other people. That thar's the truth, you have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat