Does manmade religion require the flock to check ‘independent thinking’ at the door?

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[First posted in 2015; our opinion/position has not changed, worth the revisit.—Admin1]].]

In our country base, we have a homegrown religion, notorious for complete control of its flock. Well, not just one religion but it seems like our people have the tendency toward becoming fanatic followers of church leaders; in fact it is uncanny that we do have more than one denomination with hordes of followers who, when their leader says “jump” the flock responds with “how high?” Our populace, bless their spiritually-hungry hearts, are zealous God-seekers and soooo religiously inclined that they become gullible to the leading and dictation of both charismatic and non-descript religious leaders, even on the choice of church candidates in political elections.

It has always baffled us how religious leaders can have that kind of a mesmerizing effect on masses of people who act like . . . well . . . blind sheep! As a biblical metaphor this is apropos: the sheep know the shepherd’s voice, hear his call, follow , no ifs or buts.

Not a problem when the teaching is in sync with YHWH’s TORAH, but it’s a problem when there is wrong interpretation according to their founders/leaders ‘honest’ misunderstanding and worse, when there is deliberate twisting of scripture to mislead the flock.

The ‘flock’, (isn’t that a perfect metaphor), convinced that all of scripture are ‘the very words of God’ do not dare question the claims of their leadership since that is tantamount to questioning God Himself! How could they? Many barely read or study scripture on their own, thinking that is the purview of pastors and bible teachers. So they are dependent on the ‘religious professionals’ for their spiritual feeding. Consequently they are fed according to the denominational interpretive bent.

Having been-there-done-that, we’ll be the first to admit that it is not easy to read and understand a book of antiquity that claims to be divinely authored, not just divinely inspired. And because of such a claim, there is non-stop investigation of its claims by theologians, textual ‘detectives’, translators, archeologists, researchers from all fields of study. Each generation of biblical scholars build upon the foundation laid out by forbears and this is great; there is no dearth of research/scholarly records on any area of biblical study. But understandably, who bothers to check out any teaching, nor even have the capability to do so? The flock tend to trust ‘religious authority’, that’s just the way it is.

That said, hereunder is an excellent article that has been in our backburner, forgotten; it was published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), August 24, 2012, authored by YORAM HAZONY. [Reformatted for this post.]

—Dr. Hazony is the author of “The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture,” which has just been published by Cambridge University Press, listed on our MUST READ/MUST OWN category.

THE GOD OF INDEPENDENT MINDS

Is Religion the Enemy of Reason?

A look at the questioning, disobedient heroes of the Old Testament

Today’s debates over the place of religion in modern life often showcase the claim that belief in God stifles reason and science.

As Richard Dawkins writes in his best-seller “The God Delusion,” religious belief “discourages questioning by its very nature.”
In “The End of Faith,” his own New Atheist manifesto, Sam Harris writes that religion represents “a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible.”

The argument that religion suppresses rational inquiry is often based on the idea that “reason” and “revelation” are opposites. On this view, shared by atheist crusaders and some believers as well, the whole point of the Bible is to provide divine knowledge for guiding our lives, so we don’t need questioning and independence of mind.

This dichotomy between reason and revelation has a great deal of history behind it, but I have never accepted it. In fact, as an Orthodox Jew, I often find the whole discussion quite frustrating. I will let Christians speak for their own sacred texts, but in the Hebrew Bible (or “Old Testament”) and the classical rabbinical sources that are the basis for my religion, one of the abiding themes is precisely the ever-urgent need for human beings, if they are to find what is true and just, to maintain their capacity for independent thought and action.

Almost every major hero and heroine of the Hebrew Bible is depicted as–

independent-minded,
disobedient,
even contentious.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph’s brothers, Moses and Aaron, Gideon and Samuel, prophets such as Elijah and Elisha, and exilic biblical figures such as Daniel, Mordechai and Esther—all are portrayed as confronting authority and breaking the laws and commands of kings. And for this they are praised.

But aren’t these biblical figures just disobeying human institutions in response to commands from on high? Not at all. Very often the disobedience we see in Hebrew Scripture is initiated by human beings with no word from God at all.

Thus the midwives Shifra and Pua resist Pharaoh’s decree to murder the Israelite children in the Exodus narrative.
And Moses’ mother and sister hide the infant boy, although it is against the law.
And Moses grows up and slays an Egyptian who is beating a Hebrew slave.

None of these deeds is initiated or guided by divine command. Like many other stories in the Bible, they tell us about human beings who make their stand entirely on their own authority.

Some will want to object that the biblical heroes exhibit such independence of mind only with respect to other human beings, and that they become pushovers when God enters the picture. But that isn’t right either. Many biblical figures dare to extend their arguments and criticism to God himself.

Abraham is famous for challenging God over the fate of Sodom: “Will not the judge of all the earth do justice?”
Moses repeatedly argues against God’s intention to destroy Israel.
David is outraged over what he sees as God’s unjust killing of one of his men,
and similar arguments with God appear in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Havakuk, Jonah and Job.

Nor do these biblical figures stop at just arguing with God. They also disobey God.

Abel disregards God’s instructions to go work the soil, while his brother Cain obeys—yet it is Abel whom God loves, not Cain.
Moses, too, directly disobeys God’s command to lead the people up to Canaan after the sin of the golden calf.
Aaron refuses to conduct the sacrificial service as commanded after God kills his two sons.
The daughters of Tzelofhad even demand that Moses alter God’s law because they deem it unjust.

And in all these cases, the biblical narrative endorses such resistance.

The Bible acknowledges this pattern explicitly when God gives the name “Israel” to Jacob and his descendants, saying:

“Your name will no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have contended with God and with men and have prevailed.”

Reread that last sentence. It says that the God of Israel so cherishes independent-minded men and women that he himself names them Israel, meaning “will contend with God,” as a sign of his love and esteem.

The claim that the Hebrew Bible seeks to suppress inquiry and argument can be maintained only by way of colossal ignorance or willful distortion. In fact, no literary tradition of the pre-modern world—including Greek philosophy—was so effortlessly radical in its endorsement of human questioning, seeking and argument. And few have rivaled it in modernity either.

Perhaps it is time for the participants in the great “religion wars” of our day to give the Hebrew Bible another read.

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NSB@S6K: Amen to giving the Hebrew Bible another read!

We like the phrase, “the God of independent minds” . . . that is YHWH, the God of Israel, the God Sinaites have chosen to embrace, hear and heed, obey and worship, but only after we did our homework, a lot of it in fact, nonstop until we were convinced to change direction after over half a century of being . . . well . . . blind followers of our former religion. The turtle doesn’t progress further if it chooses to remain within the comfort zone of its very limited shell.

Image from izquotes.com

Source: Exodus/Shemoth 24 – "the sight of the Glory of YHVH (was) like a consuming fire" -- We gentiles living in this 21st century are able to experience that climactic moment [God appearing on Sinai] by reading and studying this portion of the TORAH. Indeed, we see YHWH not quite as dramatically as the mixed multitude did, but perhaps even better through these accounts recorded in Exodus. There is a saying that hindsight is 20/20 vision, i.e., we begin to see and understand the question marks in our past only later in our lives, as we mature and hopefully become wiser and more introspective about the meaning or seeming meaninglessness of happenings in history, whether personal, national, or universal. Søren Kierkegaard adds a twist to this: “Only 20:20 vision is hindsight. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” As we endeavor to understand each portion in the TORAH of YHWH, much of it will seem irrelevant to our current situation but if we see beyond the time-bound cultural and religious situations and begin to understand what truly has not change—human nature and the Great Revelator who designed the perfect blueprint for living in peace, happily and contentedly with family, community, country and the nations, the unquestionable conclusion is: TORAH is relevant to ALL humankind, not just to Israel, to this very day.

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