I have been involved in several discussions recently regarding faith vs religion vs spirituality with a group of guys I hangout with and wanted to share Fred’s thoughts in reference to the Rev Wright/Obama issue.
Money quote – “I believe in god but not in relgion [sic] organized by man. And I think the men (and women) who have cloaked themselves in the name of god have often done great harm. Religion is not the root of all evil but the people who traffic in it sure can be..”
Fred Wilson is a VC in NYC and I have been reading his blog for awhile now. He blogs about politics, the venture capital business, music, and whatever else strikes his fancy.
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Being one of the participants of those discussions, I wanted to chime in on this post. I continue to think that “religion” is perhaps not THE but A root of “evil”. It’s, at a minimum, akin to sticking one’s head in the sand at the insistence of an authoritarian leadership. And “Spirituality”…. well, how can we talk about that without a clear definition as well? Spirituality to you, to me, to a hard core fundamentalist Christian, to a Buddhist monk, to BL, to a new age hippie and to pilots that hijack and fly planes into buildings are very different things. I think the term is as diluted or maligned as is the term God. So one has to have a pretty uniform agreement in place as to what spirituality means.
I recently heard the following rant on a podcast, and i’ll embed the video here for your consideration and enjoyment. [BTW, the money quote in this is the Woody Allen reference :-)]
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But it is NOT simply “sticking one’s head in the sand”, and to claim so is disingenuous at best, and showing a great deal of misunderstanding (or intentional ignorance) at worst. Many of the arguments which have been presented against “religion” have often been simply ‘Non causa pro causa’ logic fallacies (“That priest was convicted of raping a young boy; the priest is a member of the Catholic church; therefore, Catholicism is evil”).
“Religion” is no more a root of evil than any other form of conscious thought. Humans have the ability to choose to believe what they wish, and many base their beliefs on a lifetime of careful study and analysis. To claim all who have “faith”, or even all who practice “religion”, are simply ignorant of “reality”, is completely incorrect.
The post by Fred Wilson is a great one; thanks for posting it, Jess. I only wish that those who have already made up their minds – based on their study and analysis, I recognize – could nonetheless open their minds to considering the other side of the argument.
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