When religion meets human nature, does the gravitational pull of me, me, me
tend to encompass the journey downward in an all too comfortable direction? In
his Natural History of Religion, David Hume proposes his
theory that any religion begins with a focus on something akin to divine
simplicity, but then becomes increasingly robed with anthropomorphic artifacts
until the sheer weight of which brings down the tree whose inherently
upward-looking striving succumbs to the increasing weight of the human.
In
other words, is religion too weak to withstand the human, all too human
ornaments that we conveniently adorn of our religions? The ornaments ultimate
reflect ourselves, and thus are so convenient. So too is surrounding ourselves
with others of like beliefs a matter of convenience. That is, religion can unwittingly
become all about the self. Such religions or sects thereof can get sucked into
a regular orbit of convenience without any of the congregants noticing the
gradual and subtle slide.
The full essay is at "Transcending Limited Notions of the Divine."
