Thanks for writing Mary. You did get all my viewpoints:)
I lived in a big family that many wonder about religion and such things. So I had an environment to search and ask, unlike most Chinese children. But as you said, I'm still searching; maybe I'll never see the true light... that doesn't matter though, the process is as important as the result, so seeing some of bundles of thin light make me happy enough.
About science and religion.
I agree that "there is no contradiction between true religion and science". However, during the history, especially since 15th, 16th century, religion and science have been like enemies against each other most times. There are two reasons to it.
First, the religion itself goes astray a lot. The religions were being passed by God to our world a long time ago, by the Saints. As time passes, human made amendments to , tried to fit the human society, and even sometimes for their own profits. This makes the religion view somewhat different from the truth. We could only follow the religions we have now...but there is no way we could find out what the original ones look like.
Second, our science has improved a lot, but at any given time, it only has seen a part of the truth, not the whole truth. For example, for what substances are made of, the ancient Greek people made a good point that they are made of things called "atoms", they were wrong about the kinds of atoms, they thought that there were only four or five kinds, but now we know that there are more a hundred. As time passed, recent scientists first thought that the smallest particle is atom, they cannot be broken down, as science progressed again, however, we know that this is not true. Science explains things enough at that specific time period, but it only says part of the truth. Although we acknowledge it, but it could never be absolutely true.
Therefore, science and religion are always against each other, for neither of them is the “true science” or “true religion”.
About religion law, spiritual and practical.
This is just my opinion. I disagree with almost all things called “religion laws”. I think that those are only made by human to fit the need of the society, which is unnecessarily. I think that in the recent history the separation between government and religion control is a really wise move. Religion should be a “private” thing, instead of “forced laws”.
Maybe I misunderstood you; probably you meant laws such as what we should obey from God? Then it would be a different thing. I do agree with that. The spiritual part you said is necessary. Since there is only one truth, it is always the same, and that all the great teachers should have taught the same thing---only through different view points. It is the heart of a religion.
But I don’t agree with the practical part. In my opinion they are unnecessary. Well maybe this is not true, but at least the laws for the offense and punishments are unnecessary. Probably we do need some practical ways to worship through designed ceremonies. But let me just talk about the punishment part here. I doubt that whether the punishment laws are designed by God or by human. I do not think that they are designed by God because I don’t think that God would force someone to believe in his religion. He would be happy if someone does, but He would not care if someone does not. (This would be based on the multi-Gods hypothesis. If there is only one God, then maybe He would care.) Anyway, If the practical laws are designed by human to fit the society, then I would say they are… evil. Because it is designed for unite a place to one religion. And personally I think we should fight for free religion at any cost. Also every person in one religion has different situations. No two persons are the same. They may be at two different levels of closeness to God, or one may has greater sins. So those practical laws cannot direct everyone in this different group.
Maybe you could see my main point: only what was direct passed from God is true. All others that amended from human may have false part in it. And this changes the religion.
As one of your examples about Moses and Jesus’s different viewpoints, I do not agree with that the different viewpoints are to fit the society, but I think Moses was wrong, because forgiveness is one basic thing for any religion. I wonder that whether that was what God told him to say or that was just his opinion. God’s morality code should stay same forever, but not changed by the changing of society.
Uncle Ben, thanks a lot for writing. I don’t have today for another post, but I’ll do it tomorrow.
