| Religious Life | ||
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Because God is Love | ||
| Author | Ygo A. Donia | |
| Language |  English
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| Publisher | The House Publishers | |
| Publication date | 2010 (Lovia) | |
| Editions | One (1st) | |
| Genre | Non-fiction > Philosophy; Religion | |
| Media type | Print (paperback) | |
| Pages | 525 | |
| Rating(s) |  La Quotidienne Nova Times  The Lovian News
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| Preceded by | Lovian Dialogues (with Y. Medvedev) | |
| Followed by | What would Jesus do... would He have lived today? | |
Religious Life is the book Ygo August Donia wrote in 2010. It was a work written mainly by his father August Magnus Donia but Donia the Elder could never finish it because of his unexpected illness and premature passing. Therefore Donia the Younger has finished the book, which is to be published somewhere in mid-November 2010. The book will deal wife the religious beliefs of the author(s), his search for the “absolute truth”, which, as he concludes, does not even exist, and with the importance of religion in our everyday lifes.
Content[]
Finding the truth[]
I am always in search of the truth, but what is the truth? Is it something that can be measured, something that can be seen, or touched? Does the truth exist at all or is it just an empty word made up by people who have no clue what is true and what is not, this is the question we must ask ourselves.
Life starts for someone the moment he or she is born into this world. We, the children of mankind, are born with a conscience and with a mind and opinion of our own, which develops over time. We have the ability to think and we have the ability to learn and to evolve. We can be taught to believe blindly in what we are told. At home our parents may teach us to pray and read either the Bible, the Quran, the Talmud or perhaps even the Origin of Species or Mao's little red book. One can be raised and educated by either religious parents or atheist parents. One could be taught at school about the theory of creationism and at the same time could be taught the basic principles of the evolution theory. We get access to tons of information and we choose for ourselves what to believe in. We may keep our personal beliefs to ourselves but in essence, our minds belong only to ourselves. All of us are able to belief in God, and also to abandon our faith at any time. We can choose to belief something just as easy as we can choose not too.
Both a scientist and a priest believe in things they have been told. The same can be said for an atheist and a devout Christian. Because proof is always lacking. A teacher could teach his pupils about the big bang theory, and he will tell them his words are words of truth and wisdom. But can he proof his theory, a theory that has been invented and made up by other as a “plausible theory”, and nothing more? No, he cannot proof it. After all he was not there when the earth was created and neither where those who came up with the theory in the first place. Then a religious teacher could teach his pupils the earth was created by God, in six days and that He took a rest the seventh day. The pupils will most likely believe what they have been told, after all their teacher is a man of wisdom, a learned man and he took his knowledge from the Bible. And whatever the bible says is instantly the truth, of course. Or is it?
The truth is: we do not know. We are unknowing creatures, us people. We think so much and we will start to doubt everything at some point. There are no certainties for us if we keep challenging the given certainties. Religion and science are both based for a large part if not the biggest part, on speculation. How did the dinosaurs die out? How did animals “evolve” (if they ever did), and why are we, humans, on earth? Are there facts, are there any certainties at all? There are only two certainties: we are born into this world one day and we die another. We enter, and we leave. Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return. Other then that, what do we know for sure?
I believe God made us. I believe God created man after His image. Mind you, these are MY beliefs, and yours could differ greatly from mine, which I respect. Darwin claims we are all the descendents from apes. And it is true, in a way, that we, or some of us, do act like we’re animals from time to time and commit beastly acts. This can be seen if we read the bible; both the Old and the New Testament describe bad people and good people and several groups of people stand in sharp contrast to each other. This is meant to show the read what is good and what is bad. It is meant to teach the reader moral values. Over time, these change. What would have been considered normal 2,000 years ago would not necessarily be considered normal today. Many passages of the bible are awfully outdated but that doesn’t mean we should simply dismiss the bible and its teachings altogether. Who knows what we will find out over the cause of the centuries to come? Who knows what we will discover, what we will learn? In two hundred years virtually all people may be rolling over the floor with laughter when they read about a big bang theory or the evolution theory; as many people today are.
Each and everyone of us has his or her own truth, and there is no such thing as an universal truth. We can be completely sure of something and then suddenly one question, one word, one sentence could cause you to doubt your beliefs. You could believe firmly, even fanatically in something and a sudden and unexpected remark of someone or a book you’ve read could rock your world and make you doubt everything you seemed to “know for sure”.
The origins of religion[]
We do not know exactly why we are here on this earth, and what is the exact meaning of life is a question that remains unsolved to this very day. What we do know for a fact is that we life on this earth and that we have done so for at least thousands of years. Traces of human existence have been found indicating we walked the earth long before the invention of written language. We did not began writing down our experiences of everyday life until the invention of writing systems. That does not mean, however, that we did not exist before then, and that we did not have feelings, emotions and had no language, albeit one we did not write down.
Because we had emotions and because we had feelings, as do all living things, we had fears and we had joys. If we had a particularly good harvest we wanted to praise someone for it, so we began sacrificing parts of our harvest or our hunting spoils to a higher power. If a group of hunter-gatherers would shoot two elk bucks they would, for example, bury or burn parts of the hide or a skull, to praise the spirits of their ancestors who they thought where responsible for their success. In times of hardship they would pray for their ancestors, their Gods, and ask for better times, ask for food to survive the winter, for fertility for the tribe to survive, for luck when hunting or gathering for food. It was a form, albeit it a simple on, of what we nowadays know as religion, or at the very least; the believe in a higher power, or spirituality.
We are not always able to satisfy our needs, and things don’t always work out for us the way we want them to. In the grim and dark ages of primitive men and women, many dangers threatened their lives; wild animals, draughts, famines, forest fires, floods and other natures disasters for which they found no reason and against which they could barely arm themselves. It is only logical, therefore, that in these dark days the seed of religion was first planted into the minds and hearts of our early ancestors. A seed soon to grow to grow into a powerful tree that still offers many people support and trust in our current day and age. If you are frightened, and the world around you often seems terrifying and strange, you go out and seek a solution for it all, a theory, a reason. And you find this in a higher power. Why do we know day and night? The higher power makes the sun and moon trade places. Why did our best hunter die last week? He must have done something to anger the higher power. So the people began worshipping a higher power. They were humble before the higher power, begged it for guidance and luck. Then holy men and women stood up. Through them, people were able, for the first time ever, to communicate with the higher power. These people where the first priests. Religious life was taking form.
If you live in a world in which you do not understand many things, if you live in a world full of fears and frightening occurrences, then religion is what you need. Because it offers you comfort and it offers you certainty, and takes away the fears of people. What science would try to offer nowadays, religion already offered thousands of years ago: knowledge. And if you lack knowledge, you start making things up. You invent fantastic theories of your own and make them sound interesting. You invent formulas and you concoct rules most people fail to understand, then you twist them and turn them and make them sound logical. When it comes to explaining why things happen you have numerous approaches of doing so. Why does lighting strike down a tree, why does a forest fire destroy the lands, why do animals die out, migrate away, even “change over time”? The first approach would be to say: they just happen because they happen, and we have no influence over them. This is the easiest way to explain that which we do not know. A different approach would be to see whether there is a logical way something happens, if not, then the third approach would kick in: maybe something happens because a great and all-knowing power makes them happen. And things happen because this power wants them to happen. The power has a plan with the earth and everything on it, and so whatever happens is the will of this great power. It has probably always been like this, and will always be like this. We, mere mortals, cannot do anything to change the mind of the great power. All we can do is try to please it, and hope it helps. This way of thinking led to the idea of the existence of a higher power. People began worshipping their ancestors but now this belief was gradually replaced by the belief in Gods or Goddesses which now started.
It did not take long before people who already believed in a higher power became to pick one God or one Goddess as the most powerful one, the one that possessed the most power. To this God they would pray. It is only logical they did this; if you are a factory worker and you want a promotion, who do you talk to? A fellow worker or “the big boss”? Right, the big boss. The most powerful and influential force. Religious life got more complicated when people decided to attribute rules of life to their God(s). What is good and what is bad? We do not know. But God must know this, so will He tell us? The priests, those who claimed to be able to communicate directly to God, came down from mountains with rules, moral values, and these where transmitted orally, and often became distorted. It often took ages for people to write them down and much of these teachings where lost in the process. Religious life became more diverse. At the same time there was Zoroastrianism, Judaïsm, and then there where the Egyptian Gods later to be followed by the Greek and ultimately the Roman Gods and those of the Hindus in the Far East.
The importance of religion[]
I n my personal opinion religion is important to us all, without it the society would never be the same again. I would even go as far as to claim religion in our lives is the only thing that keeps us away from total and utter anarchy. Religion is often ridiculed by people who disrespect the beliefs of their fellow countrymen, people who fail to understand what religion can mean to people, what it offers people and why so many people cannot live without it. Religion, as I have said earlier, was the first source of moral values. Priests where the first who taught their pupils about how to live your life and about what is wrong and what is right. Now I am not saying that atheists lack the ability to oversee their actions, not at all! Far from it, in fact. In essence, we are all people. We all think more or less alike, I think we can all agree on that. Why then do I believe religious life is always preferable over a-religious life? Simply because religious people believe in the after life. Their actions on earth are extremely important to them; after all, they will later be judged by their actions. Not only on earth, but also after their earthly lives are long over. If a feeble minded atheist would somehow get the idea of burning down a school, he would have to think about the consequences on earth; people would judge him for it, dislike and despise him for it. Then one day he would die and it would all be over for him; eternal rest! Now if a criminal has a religious background he would think twice about committing such a horrendous crime, or any crime at all. Because doing so would mean to sell his immortal soul to Satan. Not only are you faced with the consequences of your actions in life, but also after your life is over you will be faced with them. Burning forever in hell is not something we would like to get ourselves into so the fear of the double consequences would keep deeply religious people from committing crimes some atheists would easily commit.
A Christian, a Muslim or a Hindu has Holy Books to rely on, to provide him with rules and a clear guideline throughout his entire life. An atheist has none of these rules. The golden rules of an atheist include a rule that says they want to “maximize the amount of happiness”, it does not say; give up your happiness, sacrifice your happiness for the sake of others. It does not say: share your earthly wealth. It does not say: give money to charity or even: support your fellow man. They only seek to find their own personal truth, attack religion and arrogantly walking trough life with an air of superiority over the “mindless masses”. Religions, too, tend to claim moral superiority over other religions or ways of thinking. In my opinion, all who live well will eventually be rewarded for the good deeds they’ve done in life. I do not believe the God of Christianity is a different God then the God of Islam for example. We all serve the same God so we will all be rewarded for our loyalty and our belief and support in the Lord. Even an atheist cannot be and will not be punished for his disbelief in afterlife, after all; we are just humans. We each have our flaws. Abraham and Hagar, Jonah and the Whale, Salomon and his many wife’s, Jesus who turned water into whine… They are all humans. Not devine beings, but humans with human emotions who are often far from perfect. They can be misguided, make wrong decisions, make mistakes, fail in their goals, fall and stand up again. And in the end, God forgives them. He forgives them with all His heart, and embraces them as His children, as we all are. Because God is Love.
Critical reception[]
Religious Life was well accepted in circles of moderate religious people. They deem it a successful attempt to show the positive effects of and the need for religion in our modern times. Though the relativism and attempts at reconciliation with other views have been praised by both religious and non-believers, it also was subject to severe criticism of more strict groups. Organizations of traditional Muslims and conservative Christians were deeply critical of the the book's relativist views. Luke Schuster, a Roman Catholic priest, stated, 'It can't be that 'everyone of us has his or her own truth,' if two people are able to hold contradictory views. If you are deeply convinced that something is true, then logically, you must be equally convinced that certain other beliefs are fundamentally false.' The author of the book, Ygo August Donia, responded that this is exactly the kind of attitude that gives religion its bad name: 'Religion should be open to anyone, our differences are of lesser importance compared to the fact that we are all children of God'. Schuster later pointed out that disbelief does not have to imply disrespect.
There also came a lot of negative commentary from the scientific side. According to Blackburn University professor Brandon Culligan the book 'tries to make it seem as if religion is equally true to science because both lack proof, which of course absurd'. Culligan admits not every scientific theory is or even can be proven, but that the strength of science lies in its search for truth by doubting everything. Donia responded that 'doubting everything' is not necessarily productive in every area of thought, though he agreed that the scientific method was powerful in many respects.Reginald Holmburg, a social scientist of the same university, also criticized the publication for not recognizing 'any advancement made in the field of social sciences in the past fifty years'. The professor argues that the interaction between society and religion is much stronger and much more defining for both interaction partners than Donia wishes to accept.
A final group of commentators focused on the position of the publication on religion as a source of morality. The book seems to claim that one can not be moral without being religious. In regard to this Yuri Medvedev stated that 'the insights of Darwin and Marx deliver a stronger basis for morality than religion because they start with the human being and not with some divine dictatorship'. His close friend and playwright Jonathan Frum formulated it in a more cynical way by asking the following:
- How can acting out of fear of an absolute dictature be morally good? If I 'am good' because I don't want to burn for all eternity, I'm not good. I'm just being afraid and selfish. I'm literally trying to save my own ass and the poor fellows are just lucky that they get something in the process.
This theory came under heavy fire from theologians, such as Robert Smith, who told Medvedev, 'it's astounding that prominent intellectuals should suggest religious morality is based on 'divine dictatorship."'
August Donia defended himself against the scientific criticism by referring to the transcendent nature of believing. He agreed that 'when you think in scientific terms such and such conclusions can be taken, but God is not something that you can grasp in scientific concepts'. The author also stresses that religion is based on experience and emotion and that it is very human to believe. The only written part he regrets is where he portrayed the ideas of Charles Darwin in a wrong way.