Dear Theophilus, 

In your last letter you indicated some questions which come up from time to time concerning religion. If I may summarize them, they would as follows: isn't all religion really a crutch to help mankind deal with frightening and threatening situations, particularly that of death, and isn't it true that fundamentally all religions are the same.

At the outset I would like to say that it is amazing how much people talk about religion without really studying it or learning about it in depth. It seems that everybody thinks they are entitled to an opinion on religion without a necessary preparation on the material. Having said this, I think that if we explore religion a little bit, we will find answers to your questions.

Religion has been around for a good number of years and we have records which indicate a little about the content of religious beliefs. At the outset I would state that religion has not always been a comfort to people and those say that it has, do not look at the evidence but merely project their views. It is a quite recently development that the concept of post-death survival is even discussed. In early religion, there was no what is called 'pie-in-the-sky' sentiments where we live and then die to go to some happy place. The earliest pictures of religion paint a portrait quite different from this. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, which predates the Bible and was written in the Middle East in Mesopotamia, the after-life was far worse than death and many hoped for death as an escape from the post-death existence. Here is just a taste, describing a vision of the underworld: "I stood before an awful being.....and he led me ....to the house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay their meat... they see no light, they sit in darkness." This gloomy picture of the after-life was inherited by the Jews and the Greeks. It is only much later, with the Zoroastrians, that the concepts of hell and heaven are introduced. This is but one example to illustrate that religion, at least initially, did not promise happiness after life and therefore, could not be seen as a crutch for a frightened humanity.

The other point that you raise is that religions are fundamentally the same and the only differences are in some minor details of regulations and laws. Here, again, there is little evidence to support this view. The evidence that is raised is to say: look at the great mystics of the religions of the world. Do they not, unhindered by dogma and narrow views teach that we are all reaching for the same goal? For Christians, mysticism is a very intimate meeting between God and man. It is a love affair that eventually ends in 'union" where neither God nor man disappears, but there is such a closeness between man and God that everything changes for man. For Hindus, mysticism is seen in a totally different light. There can be no union between man and the Supreme Being because there is nothing outside this Being, so how can one talk about union?

In a sense, the existence of a variety of religions is a scandal. What is common to most of them is that they acknowledge the general fact of human unhappiness and suffering. In this they agree. But it is in the way they see this suffering and how man is to saved, that they differ and differ in a profound manner. Just a brief illustration to make my point. In Christianity we talk about people inheriting eternal life after they die. But what the Hindus teach is that what make's humanity's lot unendurable is the inability to die. They keep coming back in reincarnation to again go through suffering and pain and what is looked for is the stopping of this cycle of things. For Christians, sin is a central concept; for Hindus and Buddhists, sin is incomprehensible. Therefore, to say that religions are merely paths that lead to the same destination, is not to be totally honest. Buddhism, for example, is basically an atheistic religion so how can we say that it and Christianity lead to the same goal?

Having said this, though, there is a curious similarity between the various religions and it is to this that I would like to turn now. It is often said that it is the dogma of the Trinity (and along with this the Incarnation) that differentiates Christianity from other major religions. Yet if we look at these religions, we see operations within them that seem to indicate a movement of the Holy Spirit. Consider Islam for whom the idea of God incarnating is an anathema. But as early as the third century of the Mohammedan era, the person of Mohammed is endowed with the attributes of Christ. He has become the "center and animating principle of the whole created universe, the spirit and life of all things..." Mohammed has in fact stopped being only a prophet but, and this is important to underline, not in agreement with any teaching in the Koran. The Buddha made no claims for himself. His only goal was to obtain enlightenment and to be freed from this world of illusion and to show others how to do this. In the Mahayana school of Buddhism, Buddha appears as the supreme deity who took on the human form of Buddha born on earth in the sixth century BC. This, again, is in total contradiction to the actual teachings of Buddha. The same tendency appears in Hinduism, as well.

Christianity bases itself firmly on the Incarnation of Christ, one of the persons of the Trinity. He does this in order to free man from the scourge of sin and to reconcile man with God. There is nothing that even approaches this in the holy books of Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism. And yet, all three of these religions develop the idea of incarnation of God to act as mediator between man and God. But in all these religions, except Christianity, this development is contrary to the teachings of these religions. It seems that the reality of God Incarnating is so strong that this dogma expresses itself even in hostile religions thereby expressing a similarity between Christian orthodoxy with non-Christian heterodoxy. This shows that there is not so much an underlying unity in religions, as a unity in the yearning of the human spirit. It is ironic, as well, that it is the doctrine of the Incarnation, the doctrine that we thought distances us from others that in fact shows us the closeness we have to others.

Religion is not a crutch but a living reality of human existence. There is an important role that religion in general can play within our society. Recently we have been looking at the rational and the non-rational in man and how these affect man. One of the prime roles of Christianity has been to keep these two powerful forces in balance and in check in man. It has been to the Christian Church's credit that she brought reason to serve faith and to enlighten faith. Faith, without reason, can lead to fanaticism. Religion without reason can lead to superstition. Both are necessary ingredients for a healthy mankind and both have been embraced by the Church. It was ironic that it was Nietzsche, a German philosopher of the nineteenth century who dubbed reason a whore. A follower of Nietzsche, Adolf Hitler showed what happens when man is unbalanced as the dark Teutonic myths of Germany gave the background and impetus to Hitler's mad dreams. If this century has taught us nothing else, it is this: we cannot afford to ignore either aspect of man, the rational and the non-rational, and if we do, then we will reap the disasters that the imbalance will surely bring. Religion is not some unnecessary trinket in man's gallery of toys; it is essential for a healthy humanity.

In the past, some religious authorities have reacted negatively to scientific exploration. These people, often influential, saw in science an attack on some of the religious teachings. A case in point has been the dispute over theory of evolution. To be absolutely fair, it must be pointed out that there are those within the scientific community who have been intolerant towards religion and have displayed as narrow an outlook as some leaders of religion. The bitter fruits of this squabble are still being felt within the religious community which is often portrayed as anti-intellectual and still stuck in the so-called Middle Ages. This is an unfortunate and unfair portrayal, but quite widespread, and it is hoped that with time, it will disappear.

Yours truly,

Bar-Abbas

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