Oct 10 2008
Tension Tolerance
This is my own picture taken from my front yard.
Nimrod was a king in the bible who worshipped heavenly bodies. These he mistook for dieties, sun moon stars, which actually many people of the day were into. Abraham saw the wrong in worshipping things in the sky that were merely created by the one god. Now there’s a whole big fuss about how Abraham lectured both King Nimrod and his own father- both didn’t intend to give up their worship of idols and heavenly bodies. To start his monotheistic religion (the first on earth if I’m not mistaken??) Abraham sets of on his own- wherein we get ’Abraham’s adventures in Monotheism.’ One rebellious nut who would rather worship something invisible rather than follow the crowd gives the world the three major and most clashing religions. Abraham told Nimrod that there’s only one way to worship, and his children have been spreading that story ever since. That’s not cool.
I’m not saying that good things haven’t come from abandoning paganism, because Abraham also aboloshed things like human sacrifice; however, sometimes I watch a beautiful sunset with brilliant colors streaking across a pastel sky, and I wonder if it’s so bad to revere that kind of natural majesty.
Prompt:
After hearing that certain phrase so often, people widely accept that everyone percieves beauty for themselves, and all this percieved beauty is equal. The wide view of belief is not so open minded. Yet belief can be a beautiful thing- if it is allowed to be through concentrating on positive faith rather than guilt and discontent.
For yourself, why do you believe in what you believe in rather than what someone else believes in? Were you raised to believe it? Did you stumble across your own answers? And, most importantly, if someone with opposing beliefs were to confront you, how would you respind to that? Tolerance? Or counterattack?
I admit it, I’ve been studying monotheism for my own purposes. Can you tell?
What great questions? I tend towards Christianity, but most ways it is followed leave me distressed (judgment, animosity, prejudice against non-Christians or other Christians, etc.).
But I am also a definite pagan…nature is God for me, evidence that a spirit world exists all around me. And I’m a Taoist, going where the flow of life leads me. And a Buddhist, examining myself and my role in the world, the choices I make and how they lead to my development into a higher being.
And why can’t I be all these things? The same themes run through every major religion, the emphasis on responsibility, on helping others, on loving those around me, both friend and enemy. And the world outside–the natural world–is a symphony, far more beautiful than anything man-made.