Happy Holidays

I often have a discussion with a friend of mine about religion and specifically he questions the rationality of my recognition and praying to an entity up there somewhere who is watching what I am doing, what I am eating and even what I am thinking. Of course this is a very difficult challenge to answer and ultimately comes down to faith. Our relationship with god, or lack thereof, is one aspect of religion but I think the equally or more important aspect of religion is the improvement/perfection of one's self and one's relations to others. One should come away from a house of worship with introspection. How can one be a better spouse, parent, or child? How can one improve in their place of business with honesty and integrity? How can one improve in their community by donating their time, visiting the sick or by giving charity? There is no doubt that we all have room to improve in at least one of these area and spending time in a house of worship challenges each one of us to ponder where we stand as individuals and how we can improve.

By being a part of a faith based community, the individual should be constantly challenged to improve him or herself. In doing this, as each member perfects themselves, the community as a whole strengthens, a bottoms-up individualistic approach. This stands in stark contrast to government's top-down approach of imposed behaviors. Religion targets the individual to effect change within himself while government uses a one size fits all approach to effect behavior in the population. Certainly, the individualistic approach is ultimately more effective.

A corollary to this individualistic approach is that the faith based leader should be challenging his/ her congregants to change themselves as individuals in order to improve their communities and strive for perfection. They should not be proposing to change others to effect change within their community. Additionally, they should put the blame of any shortcomings on the members of the community not to blame outsiders for what is lacking. If the faith based leader is blaming others for whatever deficiencies may exist then this is a poisonous endeavor and leads to destruction rather than perfection. If the sermon is not about how you can improve yourself but about how you can improve by changing someone else you should get up, walk out, and find a different house of worship.

So my friend would respond that he doesn't need a preacher to instruct him on how to behave, he does the right thing anyway, and he may be correct. But the vast majority of us need to be challenged to constantly improve our behaviors towards others. Very few of us are perfect and we often behave badly to our loved ones, or justify our cheating on an exam or in business, or only think about ourselves and not those less fortunate. Religion comes to challenge each one of us as individuals that we can be better to our fellow man. Not only because there is some entity up there keeping score but because our survival with our soaring population depends on us always challenging ourselves to improve our attitudes towards others.