Disturbing Preoccupation with Worldly Things

The concept of religion is as old as humanity.  It exists in some form in virtually every human society, and it typically holds a position of high esteem in those societies.  But religion for all of its high aspiration is the work of mere mortal men, and as such, religion is prone to the weaknesses of these very mortal human administrators. 

Albert Einstein addressed these issues of weakness in his New York Times Magazine, 1930 article 'Religion and Science'.  In this article, he called out the most primal emotion in the original development of religious thought and experience as fear.  What he said in paraphrase is that:

'it does not take much consideration to see that the predominant emotions presiding over the birth of religion has been above all else our fear of the great unknown that surrounds us. The human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal. In this sense [he was] speaking of a religion of fear.

This fear is  an important element that stabilizes the formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a role of societal dominance on this basis. In many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests on other factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common cause in their own interests.'

Albert Einstein - 'Religion and Science' - 1930

In these few words, Einstein has captured the essence of the great problem that plagues all religions in all times.  They all beginning with the message of some noble moral intent, but the process of getting this message out inevitably results in the creation of an organization that needs followers to fund the effort and make the existence of the organization relevant.  These organization's pursuit of followers can lead its leadership to a disturbing preoccupation with worldly things.  A trap that seduces many of these religious leaders who control the religious message to become false prophets.


This disturbing preoccupation with worldly things can have a very divergent affect on the religion's messages and intent when changes are made to the message for the worldly sake of the organization. This control of the message affords those church leaders considerable power.  When they control the scripture and its interpretation, they have a lot of opportunity to insert personal opinions and prejudices. Through the ages there have been church leaders with personal opinions who wanted to insert their thinking into church doctrine. In some cases, these insertions were done to promote a cause they thought had been overlooked. In other cases, they were trying manipulate thinking a more selfish way. 

This primal fear of the great unknown that surrounds us creates a special vulnerability in potential religious followers that can be exploited to extreme advantage.  To allay this primal fear in their followers, religions profess to assume a higher ground to provide comforting explanations and a sense that a higher power is providing us guidance.  They frequently  proclaim  there is a powerful being who is watching over us, and this loving being has a code of behavior that must be followed to warrant the favor of reward over the punishment for misdeeds.  

Some succumb to the temptation and exploit this special vulnerability for personal gain.  There are no shortage of those willing to exploit.  These exploitation problems with organized religions can be found throughout history. Some recent examples include the Prosperity ministries and The Guru of Bling, but the decadence of the 16th-century Roman Catholic Church that led to the Protestant Reformation is a classic example.   But as Einstein said, the problems goes back much further than this as in all the way back to their inception

The fact that the western religion clergy control their scriptures has been known for a long time. Even Jesus acknowledged the problem in one of his sayings recorded in the Gospel of Thomas: 

Jesus said, “The Pharisees and the Scribes have taken the keys to knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered, nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so. As for you, be as clever as snakes and as innocent as doves.” 

--  Gospel of Thomas saying 39

In eastern religion, the Buddha denied many things around the ritualistic brahminism that dominated the Hindu world view of his times.  His teachings are filled with truths from the Veda scriptures, but he denounced organized Hindu brahminist that lead how the Vedas were understood and practiced then. He took the radical position of taking only the Vedic inspired kernels of truth and dismissed the rigid structure of rituals, forms, and methods that largely favored the religion organization.  He made enlightenment a personal struggle to overcome to overcome illusion and suffering.

Many people derive great solace from their religious beliefs, but much of this solace is from the fear of the dire consequences their religion has instilled in them about not believing their religious doctrine. Somewhere along the way, many religions have become very aggressive in their pursuit of followers sometimes to the extent of actually waging war against those of different faiths. Some religions actually regard apostasy as a capital crime in places where they have the political clout to enforce these executions. Ironically, all this coercion, hate and violence is being done in the name of their god(s) who they say is full of love and mercy.

The religious messages of love and compassion have become corrupted and mangled by centuries of manipulation by persons and institutions that are much more focused on power and wealth instead of spiritual fulfillment. After centuries of this corruption, any spiritual value these religious messages may have had originally are now pretty much diluted away with religion being plagued by a number of problems such as religious inspired hate and prejudice and faiths sharing the same scriptures openly hating and are in conflict with each other.

These religions all claim to be the worldly representation of the same god(s) who lovingly created life and gave it free will, but their leadership ranks are filled with those who are much more interested in their personal well-being. Many of them are quick to point out these weaknesses in the religions they compete against for followers, but they are unable to see the very same corruption in their own ranks. Some are involved in religion for the right reasons of doing right unto others, loving their neighbor, and loving (not fearing) their god. They may even be a majority, but this scourge of personal self-interest for power and wealth seems to overwhelmingly predominant perception.

All these religious zealots who want to forcefully apply their religion seem to have missed one very important point. All men are endowed by their creator with the free will to aspire to whatever spiritual pursuit they choose. No mortal man or institution has the right to abridge that god given free-will.

In many ways today, it appears that religion has created more suffering than it has alleviated. 

So where do we find our salvation?