Religion, Reality, or Both
Created 9/22/2003; Revised 9/22/2003 �David E. Epperly, http://www.kingsmission.org/

I have a friend who often asserts that religion is a way that people exert control and influence over a population. In part, I agree, but I do not think that is a complete or fair assessment of religion. I believe that adults, like children, need positive environmental influences so that the entire population benefits. Most religions provide influence through a loose codification of ethics and morals of 'holy' writings that are ascribed to be the work of either a deity or 'unusually good' person. As a community of people, there is a certain level of interpersonal reinforcement of those writings. And, while this can have a good effect on the population, I think there is still more.

It is interesting that we often find a good correlation between religious thought and the laws that govern most of society, again, with the hope of being a benefit to the whole and appealing to the sensibilities of those subject to the law. And, at a deeper level, most of us appreciate the meaning of a law even though we may be subject to a penalty under it; for example, the way we process the event of receiving a traffic citation for unsafely 'running a red light'.

I am convinced that the correlation between religious thought and 'the definition of good/lawful behavior' is not a random association. I think that both are an attempt on our part to codify and describe something that is designed into our beings; a sort of a-priori knowledge that we all hold to varying levels of clarity. Yes, certainly we have learned that many of our rules somehow ensure our survival, but I think there is more, there is a sense of emotional �goodness� associated with certain ideas that transcends an environmentally produced learning � a �goodness� that, for some, becomes more important than life itself � the �principle�.

And I believe that this 'designed-in' knowledge is placed 'within' us by the Entity that reified our existence and the context in which we operate. It might be obvious, and self-evident to most, that we experience great difficulty in our ability to express and codify the notions that we all grasp in much greater abstraction deep within our 'being'.

I believe most religious writings and expression are genuine attempts to describe that a-priori connection we have with our Creator; though some are obvious, or not, counterfeits.

And this leads us to the idea of trying to classify these writings and expressions into categories of 'accuracy', 'usefulness', �motivation', etc. One method that can be helpful is a 'pragmatic limits/extremes test': we take an idea or behavior and consider the extremes of it being non-existent (0%), on the one side, and fully pervasive (100%), on the other side, and then consider the implications of that scenario. This process can help us see potential societal benefits and/or faults within the idea or behavior - asking the questions: "does this scale well within society? How will society benefit or be harmed by the widespread existence or non-existence of this idea or behavior?�

Another method is by observing how closely/significantly secular societal legislation mirrors and/or addresses the idea or behavioral issue. Where there is good correlation, it is clear that the society values having a 'ruling' on that issue.

As we evaluate an idea, we should further attempt to identify whether the idea is true on an absolute scale or merely situational. I think that, ideas that have only situational or relative significance are not yet abstracted sufficiently to properly analyze; an idea that is perfectly abstracted and constructed will be either absolutely true or absolutely false. Since our abstractions tend to be incomplete, we often must rely on 'best-effort' abstractions and approximations in our evaluations.

Once we have personally assessed an idea and found it 'worthy' or 'accurate', we then face a potentially difficult inner struggle to reconcile our myriad of other beliefs and our behavior with that idea.

And in this one place, I find the Christian writings rather unique; they tell us that we should make unrelenting efforts toward personal growth to achieve the 'good' behavior, that no matter how hard we try - we will fail, and that our willingness to admit our short-coming will bring us a reward of a restored relationship with our Creator and, adjunctly, our society. From my viewpoint, the Christian writings correlate all too well with reality. And I�ll bet there�s something deep within you, resigned to human limitation as it may be, that desires and drives a more perfect you.