Dear Mary, Neil and Ben,
Thank you very much for telling me so much about religion and spiritual life, especially Mary’s five levels of spiritual life. I’m very interested and have learned a lot, though I have a little difficulty catching some of your ideas. I’
ll be very appreciative to be able to read more from you.
But before that, I wonder if it is necessary for us to reach an agreement on the
word “God”. Forgive me for my ignorance but what or who is “God” indeed?
I got my idea of “God” only from my scarce reading. This is my “God”: He is
the creator of the world and the actual ruler of the world. Everything in the world goes according to his will. He exists somewhere though we can’t find and see him and he knows everything happening to us. He looks like us, because it is
said he has created human beings taking his own appearance as model.
And I’d also like to tell you what I think about religions in general. In my mind, 1) the main function of religions is to establish a set of moral rules in order to enable the co-existence of the believers, as well as to guide these believers to cope with their surroundings. Afterlife life is just what religions promise believers so that the believers will be willing to follow those rules. 2)
All religions are man made. All the related teachings have come from mortal men
instead of any immortal divinities. There’re no divinities that are immortal,
perfect, and know everything. 3) Followers of one religion tend to be hostile
to those of another because they follow different disciplines and thus become unpredictable and dangerous to each other. 4) Established religions are in essence summary of human wisdom accumulated during his long struggle to survive. 5) With the progress of globalization, there will appear a global religion that all
people around the world will follow. But it will be no longer necessary to preach it in the name of a supreme being, because then everyone will have become enlightened enough to accept it willingly and what’s more, nobody will believe in
the existence of such a being any more. He doesn’t exist, after all.
That’s my whole mind picture of religions. I’m eager to read your comments and learn from you. But, Mary, Neil and Ben, if you would like to take the trouble to write any, would you please put all your comments under this root article?
That will be more convenient for me to study. Posting your responses as new articles may attract more attention, but in fact there’re few on this forum that
would be interested in this kind of discussion, and still, some may not be efficient enough in English to read, even they are interested.
And my dear, dear, dearest and affectionate friends, the new term will start soon. Although I promise I’ll come and read all you posts on the topic, I may not
be able to write much response. It usually takes more time than I can afford to write. (sigh) It proves more and more often that I’m a man of weak capability. Often, if I want to pursuit this, I have to give up that. Mary save me!
With love
Charles
