Entry: A new theory on religion

THE USUAL DISCLAIMER: I'm not here to offend anyone. The following is simply random discussion. If you feel like commenting, please do. If you feel like ranting like a religious zealot about what you are about to read and how I'm going to burn for my sins, then please don't even bother.

I was having a discussion at work yesterday regarding different ways of interpreting various teachings of various faiths and how it all seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Adding our discussion of the recent release of 'The Davinci Code' put an interesting spin on the state of faith (at least, for me). :)

It is now my opinion that people don't have as much faith in their deity(s) as they may think. (AGAIN....if you feel like going off on a rant, please feel free to go elsewhere). I think that people have faith in their church...not their god(s). Think about it. Christianity....so many different ways to worship a single god. That's why I think that there's all this hubub surrounding 'The Davinci Code'.

ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: I am, in no way, saying that there was any truth to 'The Davinci Code'. I simply use it as a good real-world example.

Let's say that I went out and made a movie....let's call it "God's Deception"....and the movie depicted the Christian god as an evil deity who has fooled everyone and Lucifer was simply one of the angels who didn't agree with God's evil treatment of mankind and was expelled for it. I then went on to say that God and Lucifer play poker twice a week for the souls of men and how women were evil pawns who were sent to earth to spy on men and to torment them. My question to you...would there be an picketing or protesting of my film? Doubtful.....VERY doubtful. Why? Because it's completely incredible and it's much more likely to be laughed at than protested.

Ok. So, a month later, 'Davinci Code' is released and all of the religious folks come out of the woodwork to throw their $0.02 in about the evils of the movie and how all the people who go to see it will know perditions flames.

What's the difference between these two movies? Why would mine be scoffed and the other would be hotly debated to the point where endless articles, books, websites, and TV documentaries would be made to cry foul? I'll tell you.

Mine is hardly credible. It screams of BS! It sounds like something that would come to me in a dream. Therefore...nobody feels threatened! Nobody's faiths are challenged! But then, along comes Mr. Dan Brown with his book and all Hades breaks loose. Simple explanation....his story SOUNDS credible. The story is supported by facts (and many pseudo-facts) that coroborate (sp?) the premise of the story.

This is where I get to make my point. What if Dan Brown were actually right? What if his fiction was actually truth? What would happen? I'll tell you what would happen....NOTHING. I really do believe that people are more interested in maintaining what their shephards preach in church and at mosque (and so on) than they are about actually hearing new supporting facts that may reveal new truths about their deity(s). People are threatended by things that they hear that don't mesh with what they learn at worship.

So, I say again...I really do think that a person's faith lies in their church (or mosque or synagogue or whatever) and that they would almost expect that institution to worship god for them by proxy. I think that that faith is misplaced in a lot of instances and that people are VERY closed to the posibility that things may be different.

Anyway...I'm getting off on a tangent. Faith in church or God? Good question. :)