Brance, Lauren & Haddie

My beautiful, sweet mommy turned 50 years old on Valentine’s Day. We had the best time celebrating her birthday together as a family. Brance prepared his famous salmon recipe (which was delicious). Although as yummy as the dinner was (and boy was it good), the best part was that the men cleaned up after dinner and the girls didn’t have to lift a finger! We all had a good laugh when Grandma Ethel was passing out candy. She had given Haddie a book earlier and wasn’t planning on giving her a bag of candy with her being so small. But Haddie doesn’t miss a thing. She looked up at Grandma Ethel with her big blue eyes, put out her hand and said “Haddie”. She saw that everyone else was getting candy and she wanted some too . She is growing up SO fast! Here are a few pictures from the night.

Oh my, I’ve really neglected this little blog. Here are some cute pictures taken of Haddie on Halloween. My friend and neighbor Deepa and I took Haddie on the trick-or-treat trail in town. I think she had a lot of fun, even though she wasn’t exactly sure of what was going on .

Again in the chapters on Hinduism and Buddhism, like that of Oral/Native Religions, we are made aware of the timeless acknowledgment of humanity in regards to our own frailty and the need or desire for a reality larger than ourselves – a purpose or meaning to life, an ultimate truth. Such a purpose that the author of our text in chapter 1 speculates, by citing various sources, wells up in us as a result of human mental insecurity or weakness, at worst, and noble effort (but misguided, none-the-less), at best – but all biological in essence.

Like I mention in my previous discussion board post, it seems this compelling driving force of all humanity, for all times (as far as archeologist have been able to discern), to uphold this intrinsic moral parameter, so often repeating itself even in isolated people groups, is fascinating, at least, and miraculous, at most. For example, the issue of good and bad kharma (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism), light and darkness (referred to in early Chinese religions as yin and yang), sickness and health/ good and evil spirits (Oral Religions), desire and suffering (Buddhism), good and evil (Islam, Juddaism, Christianity)… ultimately, salvation and an final relief.

Is there an ultimate truth to be found in the claims of these various religions? Is there even a truth to be found at all? Darwinistic evolution, which I believe influenced the opinions in regard to the origin of religion in the the first chapter, taken to its final conclusion tells its adherents and faithful that the only truth that exists is the cold biological truth – matter is all there really is, nature doesn’t care, and any other “truth” outside of that is a fanciful coping mechanism.

Even though unlike other religions, Buddhism rejects the idea of god, even in their founder Gautama (though in recent years, a certain renown Hollywood actor made claims to the sinlessness of the Dahli Lama, which the Dahli Lama so humorously dismissed as false), they like the Hindus appear to be guided by an internal compass in regards to what is right and what is wrong. This seemingly intrinsic code of morality that reminds us of the value of all life, compassion, the importance of refraining from selfish behavior, and a recognition of the spiritual reminds us that there may be more to life than the physical – that there may be a good and satisfying ultimate truth to be found after all.

Here are some recent pictures of Haddie.  A few days back I was busy cleaning and noticed I hadn’t heard Haddie in a while.   Curious about where she was and what she was doing, I walked through our small apartment to find her sitting in a pile of socks on my bedroom floor.  She had taken them off the couch where I had neatly folded laundry and carried them back to my bedroom.  I’m not exactly sure what she was doing with them, but she was pretty intently focused on whatever that was.  I was able to sneak away and get the camera.  The other pictures are from this evening.  I made a no-bake cheesecake (no eggs) for dessert, so Brance decided it was time to teach Haddie how to lick batter off of mixer beaters.  Here are some cute pictures I captured of the two of them!

I was folding laundry and turned around to find Haddie like this …

In case your wondering, Haddie has six, let’s just say , articles of clothing around her neck.  When I helped her get them off her little neck was sweaty.

For those of you who don’t know and are interested, I am taking two college classes this semester to maintain my teaching certification – a Survey of World Religions and Western Civ. to 1715.  I was excited to be able to take two classes of interest, especially one covering world religions.  Over the course of the semester I will be required to write short responses to each of the various chapters in the book.  I thought it might be fun to share those with our readers!  I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments too.  I’m sorry that you won’t have access to the text when reading my response, but I will give you the title(s) of the chapter(s) I’m responding to.  For this week I’m responding to both chapter 1 and 2,  ”Why is There Religion” and “Oral Religions” combined.

What I find most intriguing after reading chapters 1 and 2, are the stunning parallels and similarities that can be drawn between the various world religions.  I found these similarities especially striking while reading about the indigenous religions in chapter 2. Amazingly, or miraculously (depending on you beliefs about the origins of religion), these indigenous peoples “found in every climate” and “developed in isolation from each other” realize and incorporate many of the same religious truths and practices, so similar that the author of the text refers to them collectively as “sacred paths.”  These oral religions that “sprung from tribal and small-scale cultures” all over planet earth believe in a supernatural realm, share similar beliefs about nature, time, and space and hold in high regard their ancestors and origins.  And though there were and are variances among these religions, it is obvious that there is something at work more than coincidence or chance that would result in these astonishingly similar religions establishing in isolation from one another,  something that would suggest that religion is part of the human DNA, so to speak.

The author began this discussion in chapter 1 by offering an explanation for the phenomenon of religion and religious parallels (ones clearly seen amongst the indigenous religions that developed in isolation studied in chapter 2 ).  His explanation is one of origins. That,  religion finds its origin in man’s effort to answer difficult questions about life and the universe we find ourselves in, ultimately to cope.  The only problem with this explanation is that it is a presupposition that removes the possibility of ultimate truth being found in any religion, by inferring that rather than being created for religion or ultimate truth, man is the creator of religion and his own truth – that the desire for religion is biological or physiological, at best.  If this is the case then religion becomes nothing more than a pathetically weak misinformed attempt to make sense of the world through a bunch of fairy stories.  One might assert that there is some historical and anthropological value in religion, there is some beauty and intrigue, there are some “truths” to be discovered about nature and our relationship with it (which I would argue is debatable, because now we are swimming in the murky waters of relativism).  This might all be true, but if religions find their origin in man and man’s attempt “to deal with our mortality”, then it would seem our deepest questions continue to go unanswered and truth is up for grabs.  The only alternative is to believe that man was created for religion and the phenomenon observed is evidence of that.