Organized religions are like other corporations but they have a huge competitive advantage. Their product includes the threat that you will burn in hell for all eternity if you don’t buy it (and, of course, financially support it). Isn’t it incredible that churches pay adults to frighten children (and adults) with such horror stories about hell and the devil?
Why do people prize the virtue of faith over the virtue of curiosity? Isn’t seeking truth more noble than having faith? Faith can ruin lives and deaths. On her deathbed, my mother was terrified of going to “that burning place.”
Hope, according to Buddha, is precisely what ruins our lives.
Lenin maintained that religion is the opium of the masses. Hope makes our lives in this vale of tears bearable because, if we just do what we’re told, we’ll enjoy a wonderful life after death — whether that means 76 virgins (do they come with a warranty?), a blissful Garden of Eden, nirvana (being absorbed into the universal godhead) or the happy hunting ground. Apparently people will bear any burden, meet any hardship, fulfill any command or oppose any foe if they have hope of an eternal reward.
Is it possible that we are living our eternal reward right now? Is this moment part of our eternal life? Do we manufacture our own heaven or hell? Is the virtue of hope really productive? Might the virtues of a purposeful life or the virtue of courage be greater than the virtue of hope?
Charity, in various forms, is considered a virtue by all religions. Most Pharisees got a bum rap in the New Testament, much as most congressmen and senators do today. Rabbi Hillel was one of the greatest Pharisees who lived around the time of Christ. He was once challenged by a gentile who said he would convert to Judaism if the Rabbi could teach him all of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) while he stood on one leg. Rabbi Hillel said: “What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go learn it.” Some years later, Jesus of Nazarath rephrased it to a more positive message, but the lesson is the same.
Mozi, a Chinese philosopher, maintained that charity must be toward all men equally, and that by putting family, friends or tribe above others was the root of wars and most other evils. If we did not differentiate our love to those closest to us, we would live in a just, peaceful world.
Courage — in my estimation — is an important virtue undervalued by most religions. If people are courageous, they are less likely to be obedient to their religious leaders or act on their curiosity.
People who have had near-death experiences and come back to life universally tell us that God does not care about dogma or doctrine or Scriptures. God only cares how we have loved and been loved. Dr. Michael Newton discovered the same truth by different means.
As an older and wiser man, I now think that the world would be a better place if universal love, seeking truth, courage and integrity were the virtues that should replace faith, hope and charity. What do you think?
Thomas J. Donahue, who lives in Grand Haven, Mich., is an educator and entrepreneur.