Power, Legitimacy, and Founders of Religion

Power, Legitimacy, and Founders of Religion.

The following are my own observations. They could be original as I have yet encountered similar thoughts expressed anywhere. On the other hand, they may not be original since they could be already expressed but have not got to my attention. I am not well-read. The observations are simple and anybody could come up with them. A disclaimer is warranted. The observations are psychological and philosophical in nature and done with a desire to get to the bottom of things and to the marrow of issues, and not to be an attack/glorification of any religious figures.

Let me say at the outset that I regard all founders of religion as mortal men, not special agents (prophets) of God. Let me also state my belief that very, very few men are able to resist the temptations of power, the ability to make others follow their commands. Perhaps because I am a person who is not into power trips and who does not relish the gratification of "controlling" others, I could come up with the observations which are crudely expressed as follows:

The belief in a personal God has been part of the human intellectual landscape for a long time. Only a minority of humans don't subscribe to this belief. Religious founders seize upon this belief to claim legitimacy of their religious claims. Jesus said only through him that humans could get to the Father (read: God), Joseph Smith (founder of Mormon Church) claimed some angel revealed to him the existence of some golden tablets and he was chosen as the latest prophet to lead the Christian Church on a right path. Muhammad said that the angel Gabriel revealed to him God's teachings and he was God's last prophet and there would be nobody else after him and God spoke Arabic! Millions (in the case of Mormon Church) and billions (in the case of Christianity and Islam) believed in the tales told to them by these founders. These founders also spoke of rewards and punishments by God for obeying or disobeying the religious claims contained in the tales told by these founders which do not stand up to the scrutiny of logic and scientific principles of verification and validation.

There was a singular exception among founders of religion with respect to power and legitimacy of religious authority. That exception was Buddha. Buddha was born in position of privilege. He was a crown prince of a kingdom in Northeastern India nearly 2,600 years ago. He was presumably educated. Apparently worldly power didn't attract him because he left the royal palace to seek answers to existential questions that nagged him. Over time he gained some insights which are passed on to us. These insights are:

1. All life is interconnected. Individual Self is an illusion. Almost all the ills in this world stem from harboring an illusion that in essence we humans are not the same, but different from one another.

2. There is no personal God. Such a notion is useless in having a life free of sufferings.

3. To be free of sufferings requires an awareness of the notion of attachment, including the attachment that each of us possesses a distinct self different from others.

4. Each individual must work out his own salvation (liberation from ignorance and darkness) with diligence. The teacher is merely a tool, a raft to get to the other shore. It's ridiculous to keep carrying the raft on one's head wherever one goes, even after one gets on land. Don't accept the teacher as the voice of authority. Question his teachings. Only accept the teachings if they make sense to you. Precisely this refusal of Buddha to insist on blind obedience to and acceptance of his teachings reveals his distaste for power, for exerting authority over fellow humans. A great majority of humans don't have this quiet self-confidence and have to rely on the crutch of power to feel good about themselves.