Is Religion Ridiculous?

You must note that I did not title this "Is God Ridiculous". That is where your mind may have gone to first. That would be the ego getting in the way of this discussion. I thought that I would use the following trailer, for Bill Maher's new movie "Religulous", to augment my discussion a few days back entitled "I'm conCERNed about Religious Dogma". I simply wish to elaborate the idea a bit through humor as the topic can be very touchy for so many people throughout the world.

Again, as we discussed in yesterdays entry "Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, on my..., of the great book and recent winner of the GetAbstract Book Award, by Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva, I used the famed F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

This is what we need in order to have a reasonable discussion on religion. As religion still holds such a powerful force in how politicians throughout the world act and react with one another, either together in conversation or through each owns policy decisions, it is time that we all must take a closer look at ourselves and our part in how we react to religion. Even though many may not know much about, not only other religions of the world, but even the finer details of our own structured dogmatic beliefs we follow, we must separate our ego from those discussions to lead us to a more enlightened and educated place.

Since it is such a personal issue for billions of people throughout the world, who can have very radical differences in the dynamics of their individual beliefs on the same topic, it must go without saying that we need to be able to transcend a singular mindset in order to create the necessary discourse over such a delicate topic to reach educated decisions based on doctrines of faith, to which there is no defined validated truth to substantiate any dogmatic belief structure, of any religious sect throughout the world.

For those that may not be familiar with Bill Maher, he is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, actor, and author. He hosted the late-night television talk show "Politically Incorrect" on Comedy Central and ABC, and is currently the host of "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. He is one of the current leading political and social observational satirists. As for as his religious beliefs, he is not an atheist. Bill was raised in his Irish American father's Catholic religion, and did not find out that his mother was Jewish until his teenage years; his family stopped attending church when he was thirteen, because of his father's disagreement with the Pope's position on birth control.


*




*


(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs