Religion, Reality and Mystery

[Rev. Thomas H. Griffith]

A few days ago, Barbara Franchi wrote a paragraph about Sharon
Newman's series of novels, set in 12th century France. She seemed
puzzled about the religious themes, though, writing:

<<Catherine's fear that the stillborn baby will burn in hell because
he was not baptized; and her refusal to eat rabbit stew on a Friday,
even though she is recuperating, makes one wonder about the the power
the Church held over the minds of even educated people.>>

Though I would never wish such an event on anybody, the mass suicide
near San Diego of the "Heaven's Gate" cult this week gives me a
wonderful example to show that blind adherence to faith was not simply
something related to the Roman Catholic Church, nor was it existent
only in the middle ages. It has always existed. These folks all
committed suicide because of their religious beliefs, nutty though
they may seem to each of us.

To be sure I'm "staying on topic", let me refer to a mystery novel I
just finished reading: the first in Rosemary Edghill's "Bast" series,
SPEAK DAGGERS TO HER. I think I can safely say, without yelling
"spoiler alert," that this book provided an excellent description of
how people can view their faith, their allegiance to whatever sense of
deity in whom they believe, as a controlling force in the universe
(both with deity controlling them as well as them manipulating deity).

Part of the reason for that is that anyone's perception of reality
will definitely be shaped by their understanding of their own
relationship to the divine, however they may perceive that
relationship. No one can comprehend ALL of reality. We only get bits
of pieces of reality through our own experiences and our shared
experiences (which we call history.) We tie those pieces together
into a semi-coherent whole through our understanding of how the
creative force beyond us is reveals *all* of reality on the basis of
the sample pieces we have within our grasp.

This is not exactly a new idea. In the nineteenth century, Bishop
(Lord) Berkeley postulated that we can prove nothing by our senses.
If I say, "Look, I see a tree," I can't prove I see a tree. What I
*actually see* are light waves reflecting off the tree. Based on that
sensory input, I posit, I "believe" if you will, that said tree
exists. As I recall, Berkeley went on to suggest that no one ever can
prove anything at all exists, including our own bodies. Rather, he
suggested that when more than one of us sees the same thing, we are
sharing a portion of the mind of God.

Consequently, any person's understanding of his/her faith, of how they
tie into that which they consider divine, will always color how they
perceive reality, and have an effect on how they react to the various
stimuli in their lives. It's not a matter of education, it's a matter
of faith. Sometimes that faith leads people to do self-destructive
acts (as was the case in the "Heaven's Gate" suicides.) Sometimes
that faith leads people to do psychopathic, sociopathic, or criminal
acts. We all read or write about murders in our mystery novels.
Murder is an act which most often is committed because the murderer
has a misapprehension of his/her relative importance in the universe
as compared to the perception all the rest of us have. N'est Pas?

The problem of religious belief (to which Barbara reacts) is that
ideas get started, generally for very practical reasons. What then
happens is that a particular belief or act of faith becomes sanctified
by repetition and enshrined as something which is "holy;" even when
the reason behind the act has long since become obsolete. *Every*
religious tradition has a long list of such practices which would take
up far too much space to catalog. Yet people cling to those beliefs
because they are afraid that if they give up those beliefs, or accept
the fact that those beliefs might no longer be valid, they would have
nothing left to believe in. (This is essentially the problem of
fundamentalism in any branch of any major religion.) Edghill showed a
number of examples of this in SPEAK DAGGERS TO HER.

So lest we begin to cast stones at others for what we consider to be
*their* blind adherence to religious beliefs which *we* think are
non-credibile, perhaps we ought to examine our own lives, and our own
personal beliefs. I suspect we will find that there are parts of all
of our lives which will seem silly to others, but which we treasure as
actions which tie us to the presence of the divine.

And every good mystery novel we'll read, if you think about it, will
have an explanation of just how this particular *religious* phenomenon
is applicable in the context of the plot and resolution of the novel.

End of lesson from Philosophy of Religion 1A.

I hope you all have a glorious Easter.

Tom Griffith