From Essays After Montaigne
...we must judge of this infinite power of nature, with more reverence, and with more acknowledgement of our owne ignorance and weaknesse. How many things of small likelihood are there, witnessed by men, worthie of credit, whereof if we cannot be perswaded, we should at least leave them in suspence? For to deeme them impossible, is by rash presumption to presume and know how farre possibilitie reacheth.
It is a dangerous fond hardinesse, and of consequence, besides the absurd temerity it drawes with it, to despise what we conceive not. For, after that according to your best understanding, you have established the limits of truth and bounds of falsehood, and that it is found you must necessarily beleeve things wherein is more strangenesse, than in those you deny; you have alreadie bound your selfe to abandon them. Now that which me thinkes brings as much disorder in our consciences, namely in these troubles of religion wherein we are, is the dispensation Catholikes make of their beliefe. They suppose to shew themselves very moderate and skilfull, when they yeeld their adversaries any of those articles now in question. But besides that, they perceive not what an advantage it is for him that chargeth you, if you but once begin to yeeld and give them ground; and how much that encorageth him to pursue his point: those articles which they chuse for the lightest, are often times most important. Either a man must wholy submit himselfe to the authoritie of our Ecelesiasticall policie, or altogether dispence himselfe from it: It is not for us to determine what part of obedience we owe unto it.
I was born and raised outside of the realm of religion, beyond the comfort of spirituality. I don't mean that I was raised in an unobservant family--I mean that I was raised in a family that dogmatically believed that God, if He exists, doesn't have anything to do with our lives and that religion is nothing but a destructive force in our society. I simplistically carried those beliefs out into the world, and they've eroded in the face of reality. I find myself in need of new, more sufficient beliefs, and I'm inclined to look to religion for those beliefs. I long for the community, confidence, and humility--the access to the ineffable--that religion offers. But how does one decide to commit to a religion?
Being an absolute outsider, I'm at a loss as to how to go about deciding on a religion. That may sound foolish, but it's not a decision to be made lightly. If I'm to commit my salvation to a set of beliefs, I should choose it based on more than the meager decision-making tools that I have at my disposal. I can't evaluate religions against each other rationally--religious belief cannot be empirically derived--and I can't rely on any inherited tradition. For me, choosing a religion means rejecting all of those religions that I don't choose, but which are just as plausible. People born into a rich religious tradition are really faced only with accepting or rejecting that religion. Their religion would have to fail them before they would choose to reject it. No religion has failed me, yet I must reject many. And yes, I do believe that I must choose one and reject the others. I try not to be judgmental, but I can feel nothing but disdain for the New Age approach of choosing beliefs and practices from various religious traditions based on fancy or convenience, that is, based on the judgment of the seeker. It strikes me as the height of spiritual vanity.
So, for instance, to choose one of the two religions that are most prevalent in my corner of society--Judaism or Christianity--I would have to decide to believe that: ten billion or so years into the life of the universe and a million or so years into the life of humankind, God decided to make a special deal with the descendants of one man on one infinitely tiny speck of dust, leaving the souls of the overwhelming majority of humankind in an undetermined state; or just a few thousand years later, God decided to revoke that covenant, incarnate Himself on that tiny speck, allow Himself to be killed, and by that single death (the degree of sacrifice that entails for an immortal divinity being unclear), erase the debt owed to Himself by humankind for all of its evil thereafter, leaving the souls of all those who had already lived and died in an undetermined state.
I don't mean to belittle either religion, both of which offer profundities that I'm only beginning to discover. But with only the inadequate lenses of my rationality and my personal experiences, that's how those religions look from the outside. It's not for me, in my ignorance and weakness, to deny God His due reverence and deem any of his potential acts impossible. If you've placed your faith in one of those religions, I can see no good reason not to accept the plausibility of either of those descriptions of God's will. Yet the acts attributed to God by the many religious traditions with which I'm familiar can't all be true. Christ can't have been both Messiah (as Christianity would have it) and merely God's greatest prophet prior to his final prophet Muhammad (as Islam would have it). And those examples aren't mere technicalities or matters of interpretation--they're among the central tenets of those religions.
This brings me to another question: How do the faithful of various religions reject central tenets of those religions while still maintaining their faith? Catholics still seek more liberal guidance from their Church on the grounds that such interpretations are more realistic or more in keeping with the times. They seek to bend the timeless wisdom of God and His Church to the temporal judgment of man. In what sense can people call themselves Catholic if, as is increasingly true for Catholics in this country, they don't follow the basic pronouncements of the Church? In what sense can people call themselves Jews if, as is increasingly true for Jews in this country, they don't honor the commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy? I don't ask these questions ironically or rhetorically. I just want to understand what it means to commit to a religion. How much of this is negotiable to accommodate my flawed judgment? To what extent must I recognize the fallibility of my judgment and commit myself to obedience to that which I don't understand, or perhaps even agree with? How responsible am I for my own salvation?
7:52:28 AM 
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