Religion is the quest for the truth. Now, if religion were not the quest for the truth, then it would something other than true religion. Any activity that is categorized as a religion that is not the quest for the truth is a false religion; a distorted concept wrongly perceived to be religion.
Unfortunately, most people are intellectually lazy. Tragically, those who suffer from an overactive intellect are not satisfied with seeking the truth; they feel they have to make up assumptions and be creative, otherwise, they believe it is futile having a faculty that is capable of imagination and not unleashing this to create fantasy to deceive the gullible, by encapsulating it with the appearance of truth.
When the Apostle Paul was in Athens (sometime in the middle of the first century), when speaking to the learned people of the day, who loved to discuss philosophy and metaphysics, he stated that “we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man (Acts 17:29).
Many overactive intellectuals like to think that human imagination expresses the height of human achievement. This is why there are many novel philosophies that are nothing but nonsense and novel variations of theology that likewise are nothing but nonsense. These are the creation of an overactive imagination. Many doctor of philosophy candidates in the humanities create novel nonsense to investigate and supposedly contribute new information to the knowledge base of humanity, rather than seek the truth. In their case, the thesis becomes their deity; the creation of their imagination.
When it comes to what is right, if we understand that this means what is true, what is real, and what life is about, then seeking this is what religion entails. Many like to claim that seeking truth is the prerogative of science, not religion; but science and religion are really the same, if they are both methodologies for seeking the truth, just that one is recognizably subjective and the other falsely purports to be exclusively objective and devoid of subjectivity of any kind.
The reason religion is more a subjective recognition of what is true rather than objective is that the Creator is infinite and we are finite. Just as when we are inside a building we cannot see the outside, likewise, we are unable to see the limits of the Lord God. Those who like to think they are greater than God ought to learn a little about basic geometry: shapes, size, space, volume, area and length. These inform us about infinity and eternity, as well as what it means to be finite and have our lives cut short.
Many people do not realize that relationship is a mathematical expression of our position in relation to God and our surrounds. When we use prepositions, we are using geometrical language unknowingly, as we express relational concepts, such as being above, below, beside, near, into, in, through, from, out, throughout, towards, etc. When we draw near to God, we are like a small object situated within a large expanse that has a magnetic pull towards its central point.
- Neither shall they say, ‘Lo, it is here!’ or ‘Lo, it is there!’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20-22).
- God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)
When we have a distorted concept of existence, we ignore the truth that we are finite beings that exist within the Infinite One. When we realize that not only are we finite beings within the Infinite One but we are also on a trajectory towards eternity that is cut short, because the length of our life can be measured by the orbit of the moon or the cycle of the seasons, we are being scientific. We are not making assumptions but making observations about reality.
Nonsense is making an assumption that cannot be proven within real time and then stating that this is a fact and whoever does not agree is in denial. Nonsense occurs when asserting claims of actuality about historical events that we cannot prove really happened. For instance, it is impossible for a person to prove something happened at a particular time on a certain day without absolute evidence that cannot be disputed. Yet people do this all the time and declare that they are being scientific.
However, if a historical event was said to have taken place and there is archaeological artifacts that support what was described in a book, then to deny that it happened is to disregard reason. Being specific as to time of day and date may not be possible though. If the event has no import for the current time or is going to provide any value to us as individuals, then it does not really matter, because what really matters is finding out why we are born to die and how justice is provided to us when we did not ask to be born just to die, but must suffer for the privilege of existing on this planet.
Religion is finding out the truth of why we are here on Earth: why we are born to die; why we suffer in this life: why people have an inclination towards evil; why we have the knowledge of love, but fail to experience and enjoy it all the time. In this respect, religion is really the science of being.
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