Faith means not wanting to know what is true.
--Friedrich Nietzsche
--Friedrich Nietzsche
There has been a lot of discussion, some of it recent, about Religion causing people to stop thinking. The famed UK scientist, Richard Dawkins, talks about the, "process of non-thinking called faith." The celebrity atheist, Bill Maher, claims that Religion encourages people to switch of their brains and accept the worst sort of nonsense without thought or reflection.
https://paulitics.wordpress.com/2007/04/05/proof-that-organized-religion-stops-critical-thinking/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x89646
Robert Ingersoll, author of the book, "The Gods", posits the following:
For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said "Think" The many have said "Believe!"
For almost as long as there has been human civilization, Religion has been used by those in power to legitimize their position and to paint a picture of the world where their exploitation is seen as the natural course and where resistance to their authority is to defy the Order of the Universe. Christianity began as a subversive non-authoritarian movement that encouraged a perception of reality that was the antithesis of those in power. It wasn't "civilized" into the capacity of legitimizing the ideologies of authority until after Constantine issued the Edit of Milan in 313 and the later conversion of the Roman Empire into the Holy Roman Empire.
In the Dark Ages, Christianity became further linked to a tenet recognizing knowledge through authority and tradition above that gained through observation, experimentation and reason. During this lull in civilization, much in the way of knowledge was lost and there was little resource to regain it except through what had been preserved in writing. The rediscovery of the knowledge left by the Greek philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, architects, and physicians was a treasure trove far beyond the science of the time. Why try to re-invent the wheel when the ancients offered blueprints if you only looked to find them. Why would you practice science yourself when the masters had already done it to a degree you couldn't imagine yourself capable of.
This validation of the knowledge of past authorities and what had been written and preserved over new investigation and thought extended to Christianity. The Scriptures of Christianity and writings by the Church Fathers all became, "Gospel Truth", not to be questioned, doubted or tainted with rational inquiry.
At the same time the Christian Monarchs of Europe and Britain continued to follow the precedent of the Holy Roman Empire and reinterpreted Christianity as an ideology to reinforce their legitimacy and political control. This is best seen in the doctrine of, "the divine right of kings". This creed held that those in power have Divine sanction and to question or oppose them is to question or oppose God Himself. The reasoning was that if God controls and directs the activity of man, then anyone who comes to power must have been put there at the will of God and have His authority. So, anyone who applied reason, doubt and scientific inquiry in a manner that might seem to contradict their interpretation of the Scriptures and Christianity was dangerous and a threat to that authority.
As I mentioned earlier, this was not the original intention or point of Christianity. The teaching and "Way" of Jesus as presented by the Gospel writers was a subversive and alternate vision to that of the authority of the time. In response to Julius Caesar's title, "the son of a god", the Gospel writers named a backwoods teacher of small standing in a minor religion, "The Son of God". In the same way the title, "Prince of Peace", was also expropriated and subverted. Even the title of their books, the "Gospel", "εὐαγγέλιον, euangelion" is a subversion of a word used in local Roman propaganda monuments extolling the "good news of military victory" attributed to Caesar.
Jesus' vision of the world was the opposite of that of Empire. The philosophy of Empire is one where might equals right and where wealth and power are the reward and legitimisation God gives those he considers superior with the corollary being that those who are poor and marginalised are seen as being punished because they are inferior, impure, and evil.
In contrast, the vision of the world in Jesus' teachings is one where love, compassion, and generosity are what is legitimate. A world where God's blessing is on the meek and the poor, and where leadership is the outcome of being the servant of all.
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
-Paul Tillich
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Jesus was no fan of accepting the authority of past knowledge as truth over reason and inquiry. In the seventh chapter of Matthew the crowds were, "amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law." (Matthew 7:28-29).
He offered an alternative to the common understanding of his time based on past knowledge, often beginning his teaching with the words, "You have heard that it was said...But I tell you". (Matthew 5)
He was also against the idea of people allowing laws and rules do their thinking for them and chastised them for not understanding the broader principles. He soundly criticized the Pharisees and other teachers of the law for an emphasis on dictating ever more specific practices in the compliance of laws and rules instead of a focus on the spirit of the matter.
"They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." (Matthew 23:23)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness." (Matthew 5:23)
"And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”(Matthew 22:39-40)
Dictating to people what their actions are to be through laws and rules was not Jesus' style of teaching. He only gave one, "commandment", "Love one another. As I have loved you" (John 13-34). His method was mainly to share his vision of a universe ruled by love and compassion through crazy stories and parables where, instead of telling them what to think or believe, he encouraged his listeners to view the world from a different perspective. Crazy world turned upside down stories like a father who shows favor to a son who insults him by asking for his share of the inheritance before the father dies, a farmer sowing his seed in rocky places, a landowner who pays the workers he hired at the end of the day the same as ones who worked all day, parables about mustard seeds and yeast. These stories and parables were designed to encourage people to think for themselves, to view their values, culture, and customs critically in light of a new perspective.
I would argue that the Way of Jesus intrinsically involves critical thought and reason, and that you can not follow Jesus by merely pursuing religious rules and practices and their interpretation by religious authorities. You can't be a Christian by letting someone else do your thinking for you and you can't do it by turning off your brain.
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