Source: Huff Post, by Peter A. Georgescu.
Hindus believe there is a monkey god who travels thousands of kilometers at a single somersault. Catholics believe a woman who had not yet been fertilized by a man became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy, whose body eventually after his death was carried up to a place called heaven, often represented as being located in the sky. The Jewish faith believes that a supernatural being gave a chunk of desert in the Middle East to the being’s favorite people, as their home forever. No other feature of religion creates a bigger divide between religious believers and modern secular people, to whom it staggers the imagination that anyone could entertain such beliefs.
Religion has become improverished and identified with an irrational belief in far-fetched stories — if taken as literal fact — which were intended as parables symbolic of larger truths in human life. The virgin birth became a miracle to be “believed in” literally rather than a myth about how a human child could also be identical to a perfect God. David sums up Armstrong’s point wonderfully: Religion isn’t about adherence to doctrines as literal truth; it’s about living ones life a certain way from hour to hour and day to day.
Categories: Belief, Faith, Religion, Religion and Science