Religions And Their Source/3. Present Day Religions/1. Some Major Religions/Endnotes

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1. See Noss, Man’s Religions.

2. According to the World Christian Encyclopaedia, there are nineteen major world religions. These can be subdivided into 270 groups, which can be further subdivided into many others. (For instance, there are some 34,000 different Christian subgroups.) David Barrett et al, Eds., World Christian Encyclopaedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions – AD 30 to 2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

3. See Toby Lester, “Oh, Gods!” in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 289, No. 2, February, 2002, 37-45.

4. A number of sources have been invaluable in researching this chapter: Microsoft Encarta DVD-ROM Reference Suite 99. Microsoft Corporation; Noss, Man’s Religions; Chris Richards, general editor, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of World Religions (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element Books Limited, 1997), and a variety of web sites. The statistics were taken from the World Christian Encyclopaedia. Another source for statistics is globalchristianity.org.

5. See the Jesus Seminars (http://virtualreligion.net/forum). Over two hundred biblical and religious scholars have met twice yearly for nearly two decades to discuss the accuracy of the words and deeds attributed to Jesus in the New Testament. In The Five Gospels, published in 1994, they state that Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah, and that he did not say at the Last Supper that the bread and wine represented his body and blood. In all, they reject over eighty percent of the words attributed to him. In The Acts of Jesus, published in 1998, these scholars further state that the resurrection did not happen, that Jesus did not change water into wine, did not raise Lazarus from the dead, did not feed the multitude with loaves and fishes, nor perform many other acts commonly ascribed to him. Indeed, little beyond the fact that Jesus was a first–century Jew who preached and was crucified by the Romans, is accepted to be historically accurate by these experts.
The strongest argument used by critics to refute such findings has been that the stories attributed to Jesus must be taken on faith and are not subject to rational debate such as that conducted by the members of the Jesus Seminars.
Akenson, an eminent scholar and Christian, rejects the Jesus Seminars’ findings on the grounds that they frequently ignore Saul’s letters. He points out that Saul's memoirs, written by a man who knew Jesus’ brother Yacov (now called James the Less), are likely to be much more accurate than the writings attributed to the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Gospels, he shows, were actually written by anonymous authors following the Roman-Jewish war of 66-73 AD, and were intended to show Jesus not as a Jew, but as a Christian. However, Akenson too rejects the idea that Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth was anything more than a man of intense holiness. See Donald Harman Akenson, Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus (McGill-Queens University Press, 2000).
Akenson’s findings echo those of David Flausser. (Flausser, together with Robert Lindsey, was instrumental in the founding of the Jerusalem School of Synoptic research.) Flausser's research indicates that Jesus was actually the leader of a messianic Jewish cult, and that this cult did not break away from Judaism (to become Christianity) until many years after Jesus died. The tales of Jesus' divinity began during those times.
Doubts about the veracity of all religious records exist. History is constantly being rewritten (by the victor, as the saying goes) and what really transpired in many ancient situations will never be known. An objective person might suggest that it is usually best to “take a grain of salt” with anything that seems completely at variance with common sense.

6. A total of 124,000 prophets, starting with Adam, see The Illustrated Encyclopedia of World Religions, 154.

7. Ibid. 151.

8. Now considered to have lived from 448-368 BCE (formerly thought to be 563-483 BC).

9. One should bear in mind that archaeological findings to date fail to support, and often contradict, biblical accounts of the establishment of the Jewish people.

10. The descriptions of Moses’ exploits were written some 500 years after his death. Modern scholars consider the books of Moses to have had multiple authors, that their stories and the laws have been reworked and polished over many generations, and that Moses may not in fact have been a real person at all.
(Since so many learned scholars and theologians conclude that most bible stories are invented, one wonders why they do not revise the Bible. Surely using an inaccurate source only perpetuates misunderstandings.)

11. Deists believe that a god was necessary to start the world, but afterwards does not intervene. Theists believe that God oversees and knows everything we do. (Theism is not a necessary part of religion, as Buddhism, with its many, non-divine gods, demonstrates.)

12. Lucretius (circa 99-55 BC) sought to show in his poem, On the Nature of Things, that gods have no interest or intervention in human affairs, that what is observed is always due to natural causes, and that therefore gods and death should not be feared.

13. These theological arguments are as follows. Ontological: God, to be the greatest Being that can exist, must exist, for not to exist lessens His greatness. Cosmological: only a God could bring the universe into existence from nothing. Teleological: the universe and life seem intelligent in design and therefore must have been designed to some purpose. Moral: virtue, the highest duty, must be attainable, therefore God must exist to have made it so.

14. There are many reasons why more people prefer to believe a god exists rather than to not believe. First, our mind's rationality requires us to aim our decisions at accomplishing some purpose; for many, a belief that God demands certain behaviours provides all the purpose they need. Second, believing that “God is responsible for all” supplies a plausible explanation for everything unknown. For example, before our current understanding of nuclear physics (to trace the evolution of stars), or genetics (to draft an accurate depiction of life's evolution), or pathogens (to account for certain illnesses), a conceivable interpretation was that God was the creator of stars and people, or was driving out evil. “Explaining” significant unknowns by attributing them to the behaviour of a god is still the simplest, most readily understood, and in many cases, the most convenient, answer for the world’s poorly educated majority. A third reason is that prominent and persuasive personalities, who may have a vested interest in the continuation of such beliefs, foster them. (Claiming to believe in God is considered to convey an image of being a caring, honest and respectable person in many societies—an image sometimes negated by the facts, but one which is nonetheless useful when seeking re-election, and vital when one's career lies within the church.)
Belief that God created all we see around us settles the question of how everything came into being, but it does not address the question of why the universe was created. This remains a mystery, to religions and to science.
To say that there was a creator is to make a statement purported to be factual. Any statement claiming to be factual opens itself up to scientific investigation. (This is the rationale for conducting the Jesus Seminars, see http://virtualreligion.net/forum.) And science is valuable precisely because it rejects any supposition that has no way of being disproved. Beliefs, by definition, cannot be disproved in the minds of those who believe, and therefore cannot be scientific. (This is why Creationism is not a science.)
Religions are based upon beliefs—or upon faith when belief is non-existent—rather than facts. Rational arguments can never deconstruct a believer’s mind, and there is nothing to be gained by embarking upon such an endeavour. However, rational arguments can shake faith (see Chapter Five, endnote 30). And knowledge, particularly scientific understanding, can reduce or destroy an individual’s faith. Therein lies both danger (for purposeless minds are unhappy minds) and hope (for rationality’s future).

15. Turk al-Farabi, a tenth century Islamic philosopher, pointed out that philosophical truth was universal and must be superior to religious truth which varies. The following century, a Persian Islamic philosopher furthered this by stating that religion is philosophy made simple for the masses to understand. (This conflicts with my view. While believing in a god makes things simpler, religions seem excessively complex. I find their theologies impossible to unravel.)

16. For what it’s worth (given there are few true measures of “ethicality”), the following data on divorce rates might be interpreted to bear on the morality (if any) of this practice as carried out by members of different churches.
A 1999 survey conducted by the Barna Research Group in Ventura, California, interviewing close to four thousand adults in 48 American states, found that 30% of Jews, 29% of Baptists, 27% of born-again Christians, 25% of mainstream Protestants, 24% of Mormons, and 21% each of Catholics, Lutherans, atheists and agnostics, have been through a divorce. (Data source, The Dallas Morning News, 15 January, 2000, G4. This information may also be found at www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm).
Of course, one can conclude that data in this form is meaningless. On the other hand, one can think that, in as much as many religions promote the family unit, it may indicate something about the relative “morality” of followers of various religions compared to non-believers.

17. Hinduism, being a compilation of ideas and beliefs, many of which are thousands of years old, cannot be traced back to one founder.

18. Xenophanes, Herodotus, Julius Caesar, and Cornelius Tacitus all noted differences in religious beliefs, traditions and practices as they travelled from one country to another.

19. See Benedict, Patterns of Culture, 254.

20. Durkheim insisted that society itself makes religion important; that religion is neither a revelation from on high, nor the consequences of some misguided individual’s beliefs and actions (see Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, first published in 1915).

21. Moral standards vary from culture to culture. Practices such as polygamy, infanticide, suicide, genocide, male dominance (including the power of life or death over wives), killing ancient parents, genital mutilation, and torture, all formed part of past (and some current) cultures. A concept known as ethical relativism (see almost any text on anthropology) warns us against judging another culture’s morality using standards drawn from our own.
Most ethicists argue that there must be some underlying moral principles that are universally “right.” The trouble with this, as we now know, is that no one has found any such values, although some contend they have. The only single underlying principle, of any possible relevance, that I can think of, is the universe’s causality. Perhaps we will be able to use this, some day, to determine moral righteousness.

22. About three billion people (including Christians, Muslims, and Jews) can be said to be unified by their worship of one theistic God. Another billion people (Hindus) identify Brahman as the one eternal, absolute reality that is the universe, with all else being manifestations. And Buddhists endorse the impersonal cosmic order as being the ultimate reality. Thus, religions generally focus on the idea of one entity, God or otherwise, being of dominant importance.

23. "Occam's Razor" is the name this rule is known by, because it has been adopted from William of Occam's twelfth century guiding principle, "what can be done with fewer (assumptions) is done in vain with more."

24. Mary's immaculate conception, for instance, wasn't proclaimed Catholic dogma until 1854.

25. See this chapter, endnote 5.

26. Such behavioural differences between religions, whether western or eastern, have been the cause of many a war in the past, and remain so today. Does the God of each faith, or the one God of all, sanction such behaviour in His name? How can this be? And, how long must we continue to behave in this manner?

27. This is so, simply because everything changes. Nothing is absolute; no entity remains the same for ever. This dictum holds true for the physical universe, and it also holds true for the metaphysical universe (an invention of minds constructed from, and manipulating data drawn from, the physical universe, and thus subject to the constraints that govern that universe). Everything is relative to its time and circumstance. If truth is the accurate description of what is, then truth, also, must be relative. So, too, are our morals. But this is precisely why we may change them—and why we should change them—when an improved awareness, changing times or circumstances, demand.

28. The Vatican in 1992 apologized for arresting Galileo (359 years earlier), and in 1996 Pope John Paul II stated that evolution is “more than a hypothesis” (formerly the church spoke out against Darwin's thesis).
At this millennium’s beginning, the Pope sought forgiveness for the Catholic Church's many past errors. In doing this, he seemed to be implying that the church propagated mistakes. This leaves us wondering which of today’s required behaviours may also be mistakes, and would therefore be best ignored.

29. See General Systems Theory, a postscript to Chapter Seven, for an explanation of this term.

30. Thus, I argue, we do not need a god to obtain a list of moral injunctions. Humans can determine "right" behaviour by valuing the achievement of any “right” purpose. However, to guard against those purposes which mentally deranged individuals might call "right", our guiding purpose must be chosen with care and with the involvement of many. Part Four investigates how this might be done.

31. A few years ago, we were told by the Vatican that heaven and hell do not actually exist—that their existence is best thought of as an afterlife state of existence, one within or without God’s presence. I can only assume that this will become the normative belief for Catholics some time in the future. Nevertheless, the Devil must still exist, at least in the Vatican mind, for two priests, Father Gabriele Amorth and Father Giancarlo Gramolazzo attempted exorcism on a deranged girl early in September, 2000. Some state that Pope John Paul II, who had twice previously performed this rite, also participated. (Reported in Il Messaggero, and copied in The Daily Telegraph, then The National Post of September 11, 2000.)
The Anglican Church of England has recently published conflicting statements about hell. A report, “The Mystery of Salvation,” approved by the General Synod in 1996, criticized the traditional notion that Hell was a place of eternal sulphurous fires. However, a 140-page report, “The Nature of Hell,” released by the same institution in March, 2000, emphasizes that hell is punitive in nature, with torment and punishment awaiting those who reject the teachings of Christ. (Will this, I wonder, occasion mass conversions of Anglicans aware of alternative, more-lenient Catholic teachings?)

32. I am not a vegetarian, nor am I against using animals to human benefit, but, surely, institutions that seek to provide moral guidance should have something to say about the indignities inflicted upon animals in some modern intensive-farming and animal-testing practices.

33. The Bible, Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 27 and 28:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

34. See Chapter Seven.

35. See Chapter One, endnote 4.

36. See Creationism, endnote 33 to Chapter Eight.

37. And because, in the past, education used to be restricted to an elite few who could use the authority and commandments derived from a religion to subdue “the masses.” (This is still a significant factor in the less developed regions of the world.)

38. However, it may be that these statistics tell us more about the effect various social forces have on the assertions people make. There are many influences that might cause an individual to conceal their actual beliefs. Writing this chapter reminds me that I not infrequently feel like the child in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, must have felt—different from most other people, and wondering what all the fuss is about. I see none of the colourful raiments that others claim adorn the flesh of the religions that parade our world. Am I blind? How many others see as little of significance as I? (And, how many others also think that much of religion is simply wishful make-believe?)
But, worst of all, I sometimes think that we are all being deliberately misled by people in positions of influence who realize that the truth is not as they speak, but who gain by perpetuating falsehoods. What an evil that would be!