Love it or hate it , the world ’s religions are in no danger of disappear any time soon . But that does n’t mean spiritual and spiritual sensibilities are n’t go to develop . To discover more about religion ’s hereafter , we talked to Michael LaTorra . By 24-hour interval , he ’s a balmy - mannered Assistant Professor of English at New Mexico State University , and by Nox he ’s a black - garmented Zen priest at the Zen Center of Las Cruces .
He is also the writer ofA Warrior Blends with Life : A Modern Tao , a Word of God about spiritualism in modern life .
LaTorra : The sure-enough ways are dying . The largest world organized religion , Christianity and Islam , preserve to grow in membership . But internally , they are riven with factionalism . People may become member of these religion because they are seeking God or perchance just community fellowship or simply because they were born into families associated with those religions . What some people recover , after a while , is that their organized religion has many dogmatic opinion and rules for living that sometimes do not fit with what seems like a good life , a fulfill life . Nevertheless , some citizenry remain attached with a faith due to social pressure that would make leave very difficult . The lesson to draw from this is that people belong to religion for passel of different intellect , and not always because they consider every tenet in it . Often times , people stay in a organized religion because leaving it would put them at odds with their families and friends .
Yet it is easier today toleave a religionthan ever before , especially in Europe and America , Japan and Australia and sure other countries . The cock-a-hoop exception here are Muslim countries . Perhaps the only way a Muslim can experience some freedom of religion is to link up a Sufi ordination , where there is much more emphasis on mystical practices and have Divine Love , and less on other aspect of religion . This has made Sufism reasonably suspect among the conventional exoteric branches of Islam , the Sunni and the Shia .
https://gizmodo.com/so-youre-ready-to-come-out-as-an-atheist-heres-how-to-5943285
Probably the most important religious growth over the decades since the closing of World War Two is the encounter of Westerners with Asiatic religions that instruct meditation , such as Buddhism , Hinduism and Taoism . As more Westerners have take up the practice session of speculation , scientists have become concerned in measuring the effects of meditation on the brain and the body . More and more studies have converged on the conclusion thatmeditation physically shift the brain . Some doctors have been recommend meditation to their patients . The current wave of interest in mindfulness speculation is grounds of this .
https://gizmodo.com/how-meditation-changes-your-brain-and-makes-you-feel-b-470030863
According to late resume , approximately 20 % of Americans declare themselves to be phantasmal but not religious . There is more than one mode to interpret the meaning of this , of course of instruction , and my perspective is only one among many . I represent this on different levels . First , I would fix being spiritual as being associated with an established religious institution . Being spiritual , on the other hand , is a more unfixed full term . It might intend feel drawn to , or associated with , something numinous without any requisite to be a member of a group . On a 2nd and deeper story , I signalize between types of religion ( and this would also entail spirituality ) as being either exoteric or esoteric . The exoteric is the outer or conventional degree . Exoteric faith is all about beliefs , doctrine , ceremony , and founding . The deeper , often enshroud esoteric layer is all about exercise that transform the practician . The esoteric also includes the residential district of those who engage these practices , and the guiding teacher who instructs and initiates these practician . All of the major ancient religious belief began as little esoteric radical , or what some people today might slightingly refer to as “ cults . ” The running joke has been that the difference between a cult and a religion is about 100 eld .
In very practical term , we could say that the difference between an exoteric religion and an esoteric spectral group ( or religion ) is that the exoteric religion focuses on consider certain things and behaving in approved ways , while the esoteric religion or group focuses on engaging certain transformative practices , such as meditation for representative . Belief versus practice is the split up billet then .
Many religious believers will argue for the importance of believe in God . They will also affirm that God has instruct humans to carry in certain ways , and not in others . In addition , they may claim that it is their tariff to persuade or even coerce others into postdate those program line .
Esoteric religious practitioners would say that what you believe is much less authoritative than what you do . particularly what you do with your attention . speculation and sure other practice engage both the body and the mind . When the great unwashed practice these disciplines of aid aright ( which anyone can learn to do with some educational activity ) they will have all sort of effects , admit corking mental clarity , less emotional responsiveness , more relaxation method , and so forth . And that ’s just the rootage . If you go deeper , you may feel extraordinary states of cognisance , and plumb big depths of your soul . That can be scary territory . But if you do this under the steering of a teacher who make out that territory , the practice results in positive transformations .
So , to answer the last part of your question : notion is always irrational . believe in God is not rational . However , apparitional pattern that open a soul into a smell of Divine Presence are neither rational nor irrational , just as it is neither rational nor irrational to fall in love . It ’s not a thing of belief then , but of personal experience and understood understanding . As the Sufis say “ He who savour , jazz . ”
Religions , specially the skin - bound religions that fight for domination at terrible monetary value in human life and distress , are clearly negative influences . However , they show no mansion of disappearing as of yet . On the other hand , the increase numbers of those who list “ none ” as their religious preference on surveys , as well as the part overlap category of those who consider themselves to be “ spiritual but not religious ” , represent the strongest grounds for a wan influence of the quondam , exoteric religions in many advanced industrial area .
The popularity in some quarter of the so - call New Atheists — Daniel Dennett , Richard Dawkins , Sam Harris and the belated Christopher Hitchens — comprise the strongest evidence for wax secularism . I should point out , however , that one of those atheists , Sam Harris , practices meditation , has had undecomposed things to say about the ghostly school of thought of non - dualism , and has written approvingly of the workplace of paranormal research worker Dean Radin . So even some atheists have opinion more commonly associated with people who identify themselves as being religious if not needs spiritual .
I think and I hope that we will see a decrease of religious stridency . The three world religions that originated in the Middle East , the so - call Abrahamic religions of Judaism , Christianity , and Islam , have been draw parentage for many centuries , and it ’s only gotten worse in recent years . This has got to stop . The notion that all of these religions are pray to the same God , and yet this same God told each of these religions singly that it is supposed to decree the macrocosm , is dangerous meaninglessness . It is a prescription for tragedy .
It ’s hard to say how today ’s major religions will fare in the future . That really bet on how well they adapt to the real indigence of human being . The chronicle of religion is replete mutual borrowings , the deemphasizing of some erstwhile ideas and the introduction of raw once , and so forth . Of naturally , the religious hierarchies minimise all this . They like to claim that they have only made small registration , but never changed the faith at its core . This is simply not so .
In the case of Christianity , for instance , all that we knew of the variety of notion among early Christian group in the first two century after the decease of Jesus fall from the writings of the group that gain out over all others and became the single Christian Church ( before the tear between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy ) . The losers were the Gnostics who were condemned by the hierarchy of the Church . There were no extant Gnostic texts to give their side of thing . Then , quite out of the blue , a cache of Gnostic texts was discovered in Nag Hammadi , Egypt in 1945 . Suddenly , the voice of Gnosticism was heard unfiltered . The political party line of conventional , rife Christianity now had a twin in the shape of texts that portray Jesus and his commandment in a dissimilar spark .
The ancient root word of the major religion of today are quite different from what the with child , bureaucratic religious institutions represent now . scholar of archeology and ancient texts recognize this , but for the most part the world does not .
In my view , the worst off religious belief as this C unfolds will be those that advocate exclusiveness , hell - flak and damnation . There is a clientele for such doctrines , of course , based on the item-by-item psychological orientation of adult members . People run to seek out religions that agree with their own predispositions . Some people want to try mean doctrine proclaimed from the pulpit . But their number is small . Most people prefer love over hate , and happiness over hellishness . So I think the next prospects for religions that preach against same - sex marriage ceremony , for example , is dull .
Most citizenry are not attend for a religion that expect much of them . They want solace opinion within a community of people who will behave nicely towards one another . Few people are concerned in undertake serious unearthly discipline such as speculation and self - enquiry . That ’s why most multitude favour an exoteric religion over an esoteric spectral exercise . This will likely remain the case for a prospicient time to come . Nevertheless , an increasing number of people are seek out esoteric spectral instruction , instructor , and communities . Even though they represent only a small percentage of the total universe , their influence on the global evolution of human race will be disproportionately magnanimous over the long streamlet .
Science is an first-class putz . It ’s well - suited to discovering how nature mapping , in terms of physics , chemistry , biology and so onward . I am in favour of taking skill as far as it can go in those full term . As a philosophy for survive , however , science is bereft . It has no answers for question such as “ What is a good life ? ” The dogmatic belief thatscience is the only pathto any and all kinds of knowledge has been called “ scientism . ” There ’s a public of difference between skill and scientism . Science is a o.k. instrument , but scientism is a cruel captain ; it disparages the life of tactile sensation and persecute those who would enjoy the numinous , unspeakable side of realness .
https://gizmodo.com/dalai-lama-tells-his-facebook-friends-that-religion-is-5942616
https://gizmodo.com/are-popular-scientists-becoming-modern-day-preachers-5987942
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein aver “ We sense that even if all possible scientific questions be answered , the problem of life have still not been concern at all . ” I would agree .
At the same time , I am very mad by scientific research into the neurological correlative of meditation and mystic experience . Functional magnetised imaging ( fMRI ) machines are revealing which parts of the brainpower are affected by speculation . Studies are showing permanent changes in the mentality of prospicient - term meditation practitioner . This enquiry is still in its babyhood . So we can look to watch a lot more about this in years to come .
We may be quite surprised by future religion . I think it will be slightly different in 50 years , even more different in 100 years , and extremely dissimilar in , say , 300 years . What will make religion so different is the combined result of two very dissimilar drive force . One force is the speedy growth of skill and engineering that will give us greater agreement of , and control over , the human organism and has the potential to also cater us with a more abundant yet less stressful animation . The other force is the rediscovery , or renewal , of the most ancient spiritual practice session that existed as the root author of all nifty organized religion .
next science might show us how biological life arises and how it can be created anew . We will evolve technology that enables us to create semisynthetic life - forms . Science may show that we live in a multiverse , or a universe of macrocosm , with an unfathomably immense number of inhabited worlds in each one . We might discover that witting minds with a level of intelligence equal to or dandy than ours can exist in many unlike forms , include artificial ones we create ourselves , in computers and robots . We may also recrudesce way to conflate our minds with these simple machine , thus becoming cyborgs . Or we may transfer our conscious intelligence information into these machine as new substrates for living . Every one of these growing would make major challenges for the old - time exoteric religions , in terms of their cosmologies or their morality .
Esoteric faith would have a much easier time allot with all of these . The esoteric organized religion , or apparitional paths , are rooted in an ancient worldview that always include many existence , and featured many flesh of conscious life be in them . The transfer of cognizance between different class of shape is a heart commandment of all esoteric spirituality .
The inquiry of experiential risks , including climate change , is of much more contiguous concern . The total earth - world is in crisis . We have literally been destroying our own home through befoulment , overpopulation , and other depredations . There is no “ silver-tongued bullet ” engineering that can undo the damage we have done and continue to do . Humankind must change its ways of living . We ingest too much , and we pine away too much . We deal non - human sprightliness forms as if they live solely for our consumption , not as fellow inhabitant of this planet who have as much right to last here as we do . Our insult of the earth can not go on much longer without severe upshot for our own continued existence .
I believe we can interchange in time , though . We already have the technology necessary to subsist ordinary , pleasurable life of consolation and security , if we but have the will to alter the current systems by which we move human affairs . As the saying die , there is enough to go around for everyone ’s need , but not for everyone ’s greed . We must tilt by from the fight and reasonless wasting disease patterns that characterise our current economical epitome toward a more concerted social and economic order . Market forces should not be the only factor determining how we live . We need cooperative human community , where human relationship can be enjoyed on the human - scale , in grimace - to - aspect living circumstance . This is how we lived during more than 90 % of our evolutionary story . informal residential district is required to keep us sane . Moreover , living in such communities forms an inbuilt part of real spiritual practice .
What I am describing here is a combination of the yesteryear and the future . Call it our ancient futurity , where high applied science and ancient forms of ghostly pattern in community are combined . The other essential component of esoteric spiritual practice in gain to having a community of practitioner is to have a highly spiritually evolve Teacher . modernistic people do not wish this demand . They want to do it all themselves , as single self striving to achieve some overwhelming triumph . The self can not attain any such victory , because the self itself is the job . That ’s why spiritual practitioners need to be in a community of practitioners in relationship with a instructor of some real level of Awakening . Such a Teacher can show people to themselves and point the path out of the quandary that ego produce for itself .
We can use engineering to aid in some ways . technology that scan brain and body can reveal the neurological and physiological correlates of the blissful states . These commonwealth exist in a complex pecking order that was mapped hundred ago by maestro of speculation . I think that we might make grow technologies one day that can also induce these state . But bliss is not the same as self - understanding , transformation , and Awakening . The latter achievements require active participation by the single consciousness . Blissful states might be induced electromagnetically in a manner similar to how euphoric states are produced by drug . ego - understanding can not be induced that way , however . Awakened consciousness take conscious participation .
There are more canonical facial expression of the animation of ghostlike practice have to do with maintaining a healthy body in a benign living consideration that would by all odds benefit from technical assistance . The human specie is capable to numerous disease that either stem direct from genetic cause or are made more likely due to familial predispositions . Once we have it away exactly how these genetic disease arise , and how to edit our DNA to secure disease genes , then I believe we are morally obliged to do so .
Automation that can reduce the amount of human labor needed to nourish a comfortable lifestyle would also be a boon . Right now we are suffer from a rising unemployment due to mechanization and this trend seems likely to accelerate . We postulate to deepen our political and economical arrangement so that some of the profits produced by mechanization are given over to the population as a whole in the form of a Basic Income Guarantee . That would put a story of economical safety under everyone ’s feet .
brainpower and body implants might also be used to enhance our life . I do not believe these are necessary for spiritual practice at all , and they might even bear witness detrimental if incorrectly used . So , again , we need to move carefully down this way of life . But it might prove worthful to develop bio - technical hybrids , otherwise know as cyborg , so that we and our pull ahead computer engineering never diverge too far from an evolutionary path of common interests .
In the long run , our spiritual circumstances lies beyond Man and beyond the Earth . engineering and spiritism will merge when we move out into the solar system of rules and beyond . From the perspective of our far future descendant , whose corporal form and modes of consciousness would be inconceivable to us today , our emergence into the cosmea will strike out the beginning of the longest span of human history .
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