JUST A THOUGHT ON - IF I WERE A MAN, OR, INDEED, WOMAN OF THE CLOTH, HOW WOULD I BE ABLE ...? PART.3

 

..to live with myself, if I were to find, or admit that have misled 'the flock'?  

It cannot be that they take the simplistic and rather unenlightened approach or position of not questioning, not interrogating their religion, and are therefore oblivious to the contradictions and the 'this makes no sense aspects' of them. 

It cannot be that they all take the 'it is all true, it is just that people misunderstand and misinterpret it approach.' 

The 'there is no contradiction, it is all divinely inspired approach.' That, again, I believe, I think, is only a small part of this dilemma. 

The bigger part of the answer, I think, is that of the people of the faith, the clergy, not wanting to give up on something which has been around for many hundreds, if not a few thousand years. 

It is about numbers and longevity; the belief that, with 'our religions' having been around, survived for all these thousands if years, then we have a duty to protect and keep them going. 

'We' being especially the clergies or leadership of these religious faiths.

And to do so at nearly any cost, according to what we can get away with, contemporarily.  And yes, this is not really an indefensible position. 

It is one which the proverbial or actual woman and man of the cloth could argue with some credibility. 

To assert that 'we are defending the customs, the traditions and cultures of our ancestors.' 

It is a position that could, I believe, find some favour in the eyes of that inimitable late writer, Chinua Achebe, as demonstrated in his exquisite crafting of the importance of culture and traditions in his Nigerian homeland, in Things Fall Apart.

So, yes, I can understand how a woman or man of the cloth might argue for the continuation of beliefs which now appear to have little or no credibility.  

When they are subjected to the objective or neutral scrutiny of contemporary technological and academically tools.  

Which are able to thoroughly strip away the centuries old embellishments which have been used to give religious faiths their appeal. 

To be continued!