Questioning Scripture

I just read about a dead man.

Or at least a man who will no doubt be marked for death, as the Muslims don’t take kindly to authors or newspapers blaspheming their prophet. The man in question is Abbas Sadeghian, author of Sword and Seizure: Muhammad’s Epilepsy & Creation of Islam, which I first read about in this article.

Yeah, Muslims are going to warm right up to that idea.

It got me thinking, too, about dogma. I understand faith and spirituality, but dogma is one of the many problems I have with religion (and yes, there’s a BIG difference between religion and spirituality). Why shouldn’t we examine the foundations of our religions? Opponents of doing so never seem to think there’s a chance we’ll come away stronger in our convictions, they only fear our (their?) faith will crumble. At best they fear for our soul and theirs, at worst they fear a loss of control (in the case of religious rule) or that it will all be revealed as a thin filament of lies.

That goes for all religions, by the way. Pick your scripture. The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible analyzes the Book of Mormon and the Quran in addition to the Old and New Testaments. It’s interesting reading if you got a few hours to kill, even if you do decide it’s incorrect, unfair, or contextually inaccurate.

In recent months I’ve found myself watching a lot of shows on the various educational channels about religion and the Bible. Just tonight I was glued to the National Geographic Channel, which had a show about what may really have happened with Jesus’s body after his death, followed by a show about Revelations. The former poked holes in the Shroud of Turin, the latter posited the Book of Revelations may have been John the Divine lashing out at the Roman Empire. Both shows had religious scholars, not just secular scientists and archaeologists, and a surprising lack of conspiracy chasers. Right now the DVR is grabbing a two-hour show about the Gospel of Judas.

The show about Revelations had a great example of why we need to examine our faith: the Rapture. I know several people who follow this tenet, who believe that the saved will be brought up to Heaven while the rest of the world burns in torment. It never dawned on me this didn’t come from the Bible.

That’s right, a 15-year-old girl came up with that one in a vision in 1830, it ultimately found its way into the Scofield Reference Bible, and now there are people who live for the day Jesus will come back and bring them to Heaven.

I won’t play the “what if they’re right?”/”what if they’re wrong?” game. I will just say again that it’s important we examine the sources of our faith. If you study up and decide a given scripture makes sense and your faith is stronger for it, more power to you. If you decide you’ve been duped, then welcome to your own search for answers.

It’s what makes philosophy so much fun.