On public television tonight was the Nova program, Judgement Day, pitting Intelligent Design against Evolution Theory in the interpretation of the First Amendment. As I watched the show I began to remember the evolution of my own beliefs about religion and science. Born and raised in Catholic Philippines I was even more religious than the typical child growing up in the 1950s. Religious church ritual was the one activity I looked forward to throughout the year. In adolescence, that faith began to shatter in the face of personal experience. Teachings in the Bible conflicted with what I was learning in high school and later in Pre-Med. By the time I left the Philippines to come to America I was still nominally a Christian but found myself substituting 80% of what I read in the Apostle's Creed with items I could believe. It was not until just 25 years ago that I confronted my own disbelief. I no longer believed in the God I learned in Sunday school and heard about every Sunday. But I held on to other components of theistic religion. I discovered Buddhism and that became my unacknowledged religion the next 20 years. I transferred what I believed about God to mystical experience. I used reason and common sense in interpreting what the Bible and other religious "scriptures" taught. Tonight I realized I could not hold on even to those anymore.
Judge John Jones who ruled that Intelligent Design was not science and that teaching it would set back the progress we have made in such crucial areas as cancer research was bombarded with death threats. No opponent of creationism was so threatened. This pointed out to me how highly emotional religious belief was and this was the final straw for me. I can find in many of the world's religions pieces of wisdom to apply in my life but none of them hold my complete allegiance anymore. The written records of religions and their founders were products of human intelligence and experience. Belief is more emotion than reason. I cannot hold as true any more statements in these records or scriptures like the sun standing still or going around the earth when experimental observations in science say something else.
If I no longer believe everything religions tell me, then I need to look at what now clearly are simply superstitious beliefs that still dominate the choices I make and expectations I have about life. I can look back fondly to the past but recognize that what I remember is idealized. Nostalgia is bitter sweet but like the animal that I am I need to learn to value the present. This is what tonight's program really means for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment