Belief

I was reading Marilynne Robinson’s article and I have to say that I really did not understand any of it.   I think what she was trying to say was that religion needs to be focused back to it’s purest form of being religion and not being about anything else.  Robinson says, “Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.”  I really like and dislike this quote for two reasons; one, it think that it’s true that religion can get muddled in nonsense and distraction.  It can be deformed from what it really means and gets stuck in ideas that have nothing to do with belief, or in just belief based on nonsense.  What I dislike about that quote is that it says science cannot bring us wisdom. Now I don’t understand the context that the quote was in so I could be taking it out of context but it seems like she is saying that only religion can bring us true understanding, which is the definition of wisdom.  I believe that science can be a way to understand the world better and bring you closer to knowing there is a God.   Though I do believe it can be difficult to get a true understanding of the world, or yourself, or of other people through science I don’t believe it to be impossible.  That’s just nonsense.

Back to the topic of belief, I think that when we want to express our beliefs we should in a way that shows we are passionate about it but we aren’t looking for people to force our beliefs on.  I think that many times we are taught about belief or religion, or doctrine in a way that we are shown what to think and why we should think it.  It’s not always yelled at you that you should believe this and believe now, but there have been times when I’ve felt taught at rather than told about.  Everyone should be allowed to share their beliefs but you shouldn’t do it in a way that makes people feel like you know better and they are stupid.  Because often times when I’m being taught at I don’t want to learn or believe what I’m being told even when it’s in Sunday school.  I want to be shown a belief in a way that I want to go out and decide whether I believe too.