Can Religion be credible today to mainstream society? - Does Religion matter?

I have a growing concern that we are in today's mess partly because religion did not witness effectively over an extended period of time.

I see little hope of improvement, unless there are more folk ready to put forward a meaningful faith for today.

This personal discussion paper below may well be full of faults, but we need committed Christians to think it through - helping to identify what has real merit and what should be ignored.

If we can arrive at an agreed form of thinking and words - maybe we could try to involve various religious leaders?

Is there any chance that you might share your thoughts with me? If you think much of it is rubbish and can support your view - that is still helpful.

If you think it could, with tuning, become a basis that may help improve our culture - then that may be very positive too.

Some of what I have written below is likely to cause you serious concern, but it contains questions that need to be asked - as together we seek the Truth.

Very happy to try to answer any questions raised

Does Religion Matter?
Currently, we all have to face up to the consequences of a self-seeking, "I want it now", debt-ridden age. The consequences are like to be far more serious than we thought - not just belt tightening, but the very stability of some communities - as they learn the hard way that protest marches and worse are not only futile, but make this critical situation even worse.

It is sad to note, that Religion had a role and could have helped to avoid this - but it had long lost credibility and become regarded as little better than the myths like Father Christmas - told to children.

For years Religion had dodged important issues and had failed to embrace truth identified by both Science and modern Historical Research.

It gave no meaningful answers to questions like Does God exist? Where was God during devastating tsunamis, Floods, Earthquakes and tornados?

Religion was disregarded almost completely by much of mainstream society, its teaching on meaningful life goals no longer taught in many homes and if taught in state schools it was more often in an ineffective way.

To be credible, Religion, like Science and modern Research, must be seen to be trying to deliver truth that stands up to modern scrutiny.

If Religion is telling us about an all-powerful inclusive, loving God who wants us all to:

Realize our full potential,

Share this love with others

Live and enjoy a heavenly kingdom

• then Religion, made up of a multitude of exclusive Faiths, further fractured into many exclusive, sometimes warring Denominations, has hardly been "fit for purpose" in the last forty years or so.

Despite this, it is important to note that a very large number of folk have found a meaningful relationship with God through Religion and lived lives that have benefitted many more. Religion provides the facility for corporate worship and for many this is really helpful.

The unifying pattern of selfless living can encompass many faiths including some of those that do not appear to worship a single living Deity. It would not be at all surprising to find that God's love includes them in heaven as well. It’s worth noting that many Atheists subscribe to this too and their reasoning for not believing God is honestly held.

This way of living can also stand up to modern scrutiny - providing the inclusion activities do not make the original issue worse, lead to a total long lasting dependence on benefits, become a locally accepted way of living and be totally unsustainable.

Here one should also be aware that there is a lot of much loved religious dogma and practices that do not stand up to modern scrutiny and should have been revised long ago. This will seriously affect the number of believers who can allow themselves to think along the lines below.

For them, this search for truth will be a step too far; many long held beliefs and much loved practices are too hard to part with. Some of those with open minds - genuinely searching for an even more meaningful living faith for today - may find parts of the following helpful.

If for you your God is "The way, the Truth and the Life" then surely we should welcome truth wherever it can be found, because it tells us more about the God we love?

Evidence based Evolution has stood up to modern scrutiny for 150 years and the probability that it is true is so high we should accept it as such and see what it tells us about God and the Universe?

Those who believe in God usually believe that the Universe did not just happen, but has a purpose. In our physical lives we are all subjected to time - we are in just one place at any point in time and we grow older with time. This is probably one of the biggest differences between physical and spiritual life.

Some scientists claim that while it may be possible that there is some incredible powerful Spirit behind the Universe, they cannot conceive that this Spirit could in any way be omnipresent. Is a Religious answer to this visibly to you? If not, the following may be helpful.

The question in some ways is surprising, because it is well known that man has invented the "Intelligent multiplexer" and built the WWW on it! In the old analogue days, a pair of wires would support only one phone number. By digitizing, all forms of data and using intelligent multiplexers a pair of wires can support more than one phone line and also support Broadband working! Yet each user feels as though they have exclusive access to the full bandwidth!

As one moves into the WWW network, the bandwidths get wider and the multiplexers more powerful. A substantial population can be served by a single wide bandwidth - all feeling that they have exclusive access to remote services or even another person across the globe.

With time the processors get faster, smaller packets of data can be processed and the population the same bandwidth can serve gets larger. An infinitely powerful God taking zero time, can be anywhere in the universe - let alone conduct a relationship with each of us on earth in all circumstances. This concept may help to give us a glimpse of Heaven - in our new Spiritual life - we may well have the whole Universe to explore. If we can conceive that a scenario like this might be possible, the truth may well be even more dramatic.

What kind of spirits would God like to see in his Heaven? - One would not be too surprised if it turned out to be based on intelligent beings that of their own free-will chose to share God's love with others and lived responsible positive selfless lives.

What about Hell - I think we have seen for ourselves that folk often create their own hell and make life more difficult for everyone else.

No need for Evolution if God had decided to fill heaven with a multitude of worshipping "Zombies". Perhaps the end game for evolution is the generation of intelligent caring beings that of the own free-will choose to live in a certain way to demonstrate their love for the author of the Universe?

Where was God when disastrous tragedies occurred? Firstly, if God intervened in any one - it follows that God would need to intervene in all of them. The interesting thing is that the question was first posed by scientists familiar with Evolution! They know that "necessity is the mother of invention" - the rate of evolution increases as life has to find new solutions in order to survive.

In pockets round the globe today - where for thousands of years these catastrophes have been few - we find man is still in the Stone Age! Unfortunately, it seems that it takes numerous disastrous events like these to trigger the adrenaline needed to generate significant evolutionary progress towards intelligent life. Where God was in these events - well God was there, but it was up to us to act as God's hands and to help as best we can.

There seems to be two kinds of Science - Western Science based on sound scientific theory, but Eastern Science is more empirical. If it works - then note the fact and carry on experimenting. It has discovered solutions that Western Science would be unlikely to find for many years yet - one being "Acupuncture" which can help cure ailments western science cannot and enable operations to take place where the patient could not take an anaesthetic.

Unfortunately, not all of this Eastern science is found to be sound. Tigers, Rhinos, elephants and many other species have paid a high price and some are threatened with extinction.

However on the Religious side, empirical experience of God has served many folk well - one does not have to be a brain surgeon to experience the love of God!

If modern scientific findings have thrown Religion, then the boat is rocked even more by some of the conclusions of modern Historical Research. As far as ancient scripts are concerned they take into account when it was written, attempt to find out who wrote it and why, who was it intended for. What was the prevailing environment, - the politics and beliefs of the day, its opportunities and threats.

What documents were included, censored, what were rejected and what record is there of scrolls being destroyed at that time. What were early Christian beliefs, what persecution took place.

Rome was keen to show that not just their leaders became Gods and it seems probable that documents had to support this in some way. Most ancient religions involved some form of sacrifice of innocent life - it was in the psyche of Roman Citizens.

There are those who find sacrificial forms of religion completely incompatible with an inclusive loving God. They would argue that if a mother can understand why her wilful child is repeatedly naughty and forgive - perhaps understanding some mental learning issues involved, then surely God who loves us so much more is more than capable of forgiving without the need for sacrifice of innocent life. It could further explain the frustration of Jesus as he overturned the money changers tables in the temple - it may be it was not just their greed, but the nonsense of sacrifice - putting yet another barrier between the poor and loving their God. Jesus may have been disappointed further if this was one of the topics of conversation that he had raised so long ago with the leaders in the temple as a boy of twelve!

They further claim that with this removed, religions tolerance, respect for other people's beliefs is not just a discipline that we learn, they claim that it is a unifying concept and believers from many different faiths find that they have reached the same faith. It is one of the inconsistencies that the Atheists have identified and maybe on this they are right.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray and this includes the concept that if we forgive, then we will be forgiven. He even sent his disciples out two by two and they too performed miracles in his name - all before he was crucified.

There was no way that the Good News that "God loves us so much that there is a place for us in heaven" was going to take off in his time - let alone ours - from a few disparate disciples operating out of Galilee. Jesus had to take his message to Jerusalem - where he knew there would be there were onerous consequences. However, after his death he had the power to materialize anywhere he wanted to (In locked room, on the road to Emmaus, by the Sea Shore etc.) and so confirm his earthly messages. This really was powerful stuff and Christianity took off soon afterwards.
Like today, Religion was ineffective 2000 years ago. It was so prescriptive with "Traditions of the Elders" that even vital good performed on the Sabbath was frowned upon and Jesus told us the parable of the "Good Samaritan" and later asserted that the Sabbath was made for man - not man for the Sabbath.

Jesus brought a new message, but once again Religion has in general turned it into something far too complicated. Too often, they are not focusing on the central message. If Jesus materialized today and we spoke to him in plane terms - What would Jesus have to say about Christian worship today? Did he really come to create a church that spends most of its time worshipping him? Or did he come to tell us how to worship God and is this not what he intended? Using the rather convoluted Trinity concept, the Church would claim that Jesus is God. Not too surprising because Jesus uniquely reflected God perfectly in both his teaching and life. His life was very special and may well have a unique beginning. Scripture sees him as the Son of God and records that Jesus wanted us all to become sons of God.

Does the Trinity concept still have any meaning or purpose today? - Perhaps it does in the sense that it reminds us that we experience the same God in nature and the Universe, in the life and teaching of Jesus and the living God in our lives today.

Is the Communion still important? If we see the communion as an invitation to the Lord's Table where we join him in an agape feast to remember Jesus who died to show us how to live - not just on earth, but more important - in heaven too, then it really is a party too important to miss!

Can one accept these new concepts that embrace modern scientific and historical research findings and still be a Christian - does it matter?

Firstly if a Christian is a person who has found God through the life and teaching of Jesus, is trusting in him as Savoir and serving him as Lord, then Yes.

The basis of this paper is intended to be based on the fundamental teaching of Jesus. He is Savoir because his message saves us from a self cantered life that cannot be satisfied and has a negative effect on the community. He is Lord as God's son and we worship God with him.

Does it matter? The inclusive love of God indicates that as long as we find God and if this results in a selfless life of helping others, then the process probably doesn’t matter too much. Conclusions similar to this are being reached by some religious leaders from a broad spectrum of different faiths.

Here are some more of the arguments put forward by those who believe that God does not exist and suggestions as to how they might be debated:

"Science scrutiny has shown that paranormal events do not happen, their claims are not substantiated". This may be true, but it is also true that if, for instance, that if they were to survey all those who "learned that someone had died in circumstances and at a time when communication of this knowledge cannot be explained by any means known to science" - the population of reliable witness would be far too large to ignore. So their claim that "paranormal events do not happen and that any worship, praise or prayer to an all-powerful Spiritual Being is nonsense" does not stand.

The non visible acceptance of Evolution and Historical Research truths is further evidence that Religion is not real and is really afraid of the truth. They have a real point here. It needs to be addressed in earnest and quickly - and this paper is intended to help.

Historical Research appears to favour the very human side of Jesus. Mary Magdalene may have had a closer relationship that is generally believed today. They claim that she was vilified by the Romans and point out that she, Martha and Lazarus were special friends of Jesus. It is significant that Mary was at the foot of the cross with the mother of Jesus and was the first person recorded that Jesus spoke to after he had been crucified. She was certainly special, may have been "the Disciple that Jesus loved". Certainly there was a massive tradition that believed something like this in Northern Spain and Southern France for centuries until it was cruelly put down by the Catholic Church in Spanish Inquisition.

"Western Science" has been advancing exponentially for some considerable time. In the not too distant future it will know the truth about everything. While it is true that Science has been making exponential progress in many areas it is also true that in some key areas:

This advancement shows us that there is a great deal more to learn than was previously known. In terms of knowing all there is to know, one finds that that end keeps moving away even faster.

Progress is hardly visible in some of these areas.

Explaining the Anomalous expansion of water - vital to evolution on this planet.

How mass generates gravitational Force - the cement that holds the Universe together and stops us sliding off into space!

How electromagnetic waves can traverse atom-less space for billions of years and still be detected. What determines its speed and why does it change by the amount it does in different transparent media? The different wavelengths of this radiating energy can be exploited in so many ways and it is vital to life and growth So is Science going to be a comprehensive source of all knowledge in the foreseeable future? Really seems unlikely.

Is there any possibility that Science, Historical Research and Religion will one day converge? This paper tries to show that we should all be working together for the benefit of life on this world and the next.

Does Religion matter? Those parts of religion that help us have a meaningful relationship with God and lead responsible care lives – Yes. What title your religion has, its exclusivity, dogma - surely NO!