Worship

My younger brother, Brian, recently wrote an article that I found very thought provoking. I've always effectionally deemed Brian 'the prodigy' to people who don't know him. But I think that is just a way of saying that his brain functions at a higher level than mine does or ever will. His article said somethings that automatically jumped out to me as some logical and theological errors, but then I reminded myself that he hasn't been sitting in a christian institution for the past six years rigorously studying these things. Rather, he comes to it from a 'quesearching' perspective, as Corey Mann so beautifully put it. Quesearch being a combination of questions and research. Before I go any further, I'll just let you read Brian's essay, and then my comments will follow at another time once I have sat with it for a bit. I thought I would throw it out for further consideration. You can also find it one facebook here if you're a part of that online community.

"since i have more time to myself than i have been accustomed to, i've contemplating some things. if you are one of my friends and read this, let me know what you think...

i was contemplating the idea of idol worship. nearly all of the major religions condemn idol worship to the pagan lifestyle. i've been wondering about the nature of this condemnation.

reasons why i suppose idol worship was condemned:

1- a god should be immaterial
the worship of a stone or a tree is the worship of some material object. the existence of that object is fleeting. also, the state of the object is conditional upon its surroundings; a tree in a warm climate appears differently than a tree in a cold climate. god is something as most of the major scriptures agree that is a creator, eternal, and beyond the realm of this world. since he is beyond the realm of this world, a god cannot be perceived as being conditioned by material causes. in this way, a material idol makes a poor and deceiving representation of a god.

2- god cannot be crafted
similar to the first, but with the added element of human design. a statue is something crafted by humans. according to the laws of nature, the statue creation bears no necessisity, its existence is based almost entirely on the arbitrary nature of human choices. the reason why a crafted symbol of god is dangerous is that again, if god is beyond this world, then a god cannot be crafted by things of this world. humans cannot be allowed to craft their god as they deem appropriate.

here i think is the general point. imagine a group of individuals in a circle worshipping a large stone. the point of the condemnation is that your faith should exist in the realm of the intelligle (i.e. the realm of thought and ideas) and not in the material (i.e. the stone). the test of the faith is this: with the stone, the individuals worship, but if the stone is removed and the faith crumbles, then it is not a valid faith.

this is a huge point in education. it is the point where you stop seeing with your eyes, and start seeing with your mind. the foundation of your faith should be in principles, not in objects. the foundations are stones of thought as opposed to stones of earth. a faith that is constituted purely of thought and principle, is that faith which is most pure.

the real question then after the condemnation of idol worship is this: how do individuals arrive at these principles? the accepted answer is through scripture. the hebrew bible, the new testament, and the qur'an are accepted as presentations of the principles of faith.

but do the scriptures become a new breed of idols? taken to be just a text, they fail in both of the categories presented earlier in that the are material, and they are crafted. the texts are presented through the use of word, and word is constantly in flux. the meanings of words change over time; the meanings of words are conditional upon the context in which they are presented. also, these texts are heavily crafted. they are constantly being translated, with translators inserting new interpretations into the text, thus altering them from their original form.

the key point i believe is this. the scriptures are presentations. they are not treatises, merely a gateway to the principles of faith. the real principles are between the lines.

remember the test of the stone. if you remove the stone, and the faith crumbles, then it was a poorly founded faith. if i remove the bible, and christianity fails, then it was a poorly founded faith.

is that true? maybe.

however, i don't think it is true in an absolute sense. the scriptures are presentations, gateways. a presentation is a first step, an introduction if you will. a gateway is something you must move through and past. it is the first step, and the step from which all other steps follow, but it is just the first step. ultimately, we must move past introductions and walk through doors. in another analogy, the lines of the text are the presentation. the principles are between those lines. ultimately you should be able to see between the lines so well, that you stop seeing the lines altogether.

when you stop seeing the lines, that is when you faith is based purely on principles. once you arrive at the principles or perhaps just the one principle, then everything about your faith you should be able to derive from that principle. you would no longer need ten commandments, because if you just knew the principle, you would know based on that principle that the things in the commandments are true. the difference is this, you can accept that commandments as true because the scripture says so, or accept them because based upon the founding principle(s) of your faith, the principles of the commandments are logical derivations of the founding principle(s).

when you reach that point. i could take away the bible from you and it would matter not. its not because you've memorized it, but because you understand principle. you aren't supposed to be a student of the presentation, but a believer in the principle(s) the presentation presents.

christ did not want you to worship him. he wanted you to worship the principle(s) he stood for. his life serves as a presentation, but ultimately, i think what christ would have wanted is this. that through his life, people could understand the principle and so that once the principle is understood, all the symbols of his life would disappear, all the crosses would leave, all the bibles gone, but the principle would still endure.

the term islam in english roughly means a submission. i take it to mean that the role of individuals is to find god, and then submit themselves to that which they find. sometimes the largest significance of a word is not what the word is but what it is not. notice words they did not use, such as agreement, association, acceptance, belief. the word is submission. to me this word has two implications. you must first, find the principle that is god, and then second, submit yourself to it. some of those other words only capture one of the implications. it is not enough to agree with the principle, or to associate yourself with those principles. you must also submit to that lifestyle.

the knowledge of principle must be accompanied by the conscious practice of principle. a lot of us seem to know what kind of person we want to be, but we sometimes fail to realize what that will actually require in practice. the first step in faith must be to understand the principle(s) of the scriptures, and then, once these principle(s) are found, sumbit yourself to them. submission means a concious decision to condition your actions in accordance with the principle.

anyway, these are just my thoughts on the matter of faith. if you have comments or suggestions, please let me know. i've decided that i'll write notes and hope that people respond to them, because often the best place to find ideas in in discussion with others. if this happens, then maybe i can get some sort of real benefit from this otherwise object of vanity that is facebook. "

-Brian H. Myers