For the past few months, my wife and I have been watching reruns of Star Trek Voyager on Netflix with my son. I make no apologies for trying to get him hooked on science fiction. I think science fiction teaches us a lot about what it means to be living in an ever changing world(s).
We have gotten to the later seasons where one where they introduce my favorite bad guys, the Borg.
For those unfortunate souls that are unfamiliar with the Borg, they are rigidly inflexible crew of cybernetic humanoids all connected to the “Hive Mind.” Any individual can get sucked into their “collective” by “assimilation.” Basically a Borg injects you with a bunch of “Nanoprobes” that connect you to the collective consciousness and your own personality is sublimated by the will of the “hive mind.” You surrender all of you individuality to become part of a greater being.
In case you were wondering, this entry is NOT a science fiction fan entry. Actually what I want to address is Religion. I know; you are shocked.
I had coffee with a new friend today. The discussion centered on disillusionment with the church and trying to find spirituality in the absence of organized religion. As I was driving away to get to work, it occurred to me, there are a lot of parallels between religion and my favorite SciFi villains.
With few exceptions, people (me included), are pack animals. We thrive in community. We like to contribute to the greater good. We want to think we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We want connection. We fear dying alone. We want to think that our lives matter and that part of us will in some fashion continue after we die.
Now given that lofty list you might conclude that the perfect prescription is religion. Sadly in many cases what you get from organized religion is something more like the Borg. And before you know it, BAM, you have been assimilated. You are injected with something called theology. The purpose of these little buggers is to string a library full of inspirational tales into a historical narrative. The end result, if taught properly, is group think, conformity, orthodoxy. If you stray too far from the orthodoxy, the collective will come down hard on you. In extreme cases, a person can be shunned.
Now of course this is a gross exaggeration. Most churches mean well. It is just that to varying degrees, religion does not want you to “think outside the box.” There is very little flexibility especially in Christianity which believes their holy book, The Bible, to be inerrant. Inerrant basically means that when taken in context, the Bible is the actual word of God. There is no room for argument. Even though in my opinion, it is impossible to flawlessly know what the authors meant. Heck I doubt any of you reading this blog will know exactly what I am trying to convey. Every denomination/sect, of which there are hundreds, was formed because someone disagreed with their church so strongly that they felt they could no longer worship with others that did not agree with them.
My point is this: community has nothing to do with conformity. I can only speak for myself. But what I want from religion is the recognition that while our experiences are different we have both share common feelings. I want appreciation of my uniqueness and simultaneous recognition that you and I are exactly the same. It is a beautiful paradox.
Resistance is futile. Christians will be assimilated.
Interesting post. Though I disagree with your thought on community. Community is very much about conformity. Neighborhoods exist around a certain culture – the schools, businesses, the arts, and of course, the laws that keep us in check. The level of total conformity depends on the neighborhood and it’s neighbors. There are tacit rules about coexisting together.
I hear where you’re coming from. However, I don’t think it’s viewing the Bible as inerrant that is the problem. It’s viewing the Bible as fact that is. Jesus said He IS the Truth. That means that the Bible is a limitless series of invitations into the experiential knowledge of a Man who is God. The word of God is living and active, but not because it has the “answers,” but because it points to the Answer. Religion breeds conformity, but Jesus creates relationships. To sacrifice our identity in the name of religion is to go against His very goal. He wants YOU, not a dumbed-down-conformed-folllow-the-rules-don’t-ask-questions-live-like-a-robot subhuman. He didn’t die for conformists, and He wasn’t interested in removing the personality from His followers, otherwise he would have chosen pharisees, not fishermen.
The Bible is meant to be the greatest invitation to freedom that the world has ever experienced. Yet, we often turn it into a morally upstanding form of mass slavery.
the bible is a series of re-told myths/parables/stories dating back to the Sumerian and Babylonian culture. I suggest a modest diet of every theological text you can find (ie every religion) -including the Aramaic to Greek to English translation of the bible -( which is filled with more incorrect translations and personally biased re-writes than can be counted) along with a liberal splash of Hitchens and Dawkins.
It’s funny, Rachel. Last summer I wrote a blog about gay-bashing (literally–physical abuse of homosexuals), after a few acquaintances got a little too heavy with their joyous self-congratulating tone on the issue. They took that in stride, even though I angrily called them hypocrites (to summarize a thousand word blog in five words), the thing that REALLY angered them is the fact that, in passing, I called the Bible “musty.” Really? Human rights violations based on sexual preference can be damned–but you don’t Go around call the Bible MUSTY. That really get’s Jesus’s dander up.
I like your comments. Keep ’em up.
B.
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich ~Napoleon
Some flavors of Buddhism accomplish what you seek with out the weighty conforming belief requirements of Christianity.
Funny you should mention Buddhism. I have recently (in the last year) started reading a lot of books on Buddhism.
Oooops, for got to follow.