This history is a
witness to the process, one of many variations, but also one of
dedication to the permanency of faith and the word through which
it is reified.
Replications of all kinds mark the memetic sequence, and so
religion appears in retrospect as propagation of a special kind
of information, generated in the human mind as it started
labeling what we know, as well as what is beyond our direct
understanding. What did not change, although it was rendered
relative, is the acknowledgment and acceptance of a supreme
authority, known as God, or described through other names such
as Allah and Myo-Ho-Ren-Ge, and the nature of the practical
experience of self- constitution as believer. If Abraham, Moses,
Jesus, Mohammed, Confucius, and the Japanese and Indian
religious leaders were alive today, they would probably realize
that if religion had any chance, it could no longer be founded on
the written text of the Book or books, but in the practical
experiences of the civilization of illiteracy. By no accident,
the first category on one of the Web sites dedicated to religion
is entitled Finding God in Cyberspace.
The educated faithful-a contradiction in terms?
The pragmatic requirement of optimally transmitting experience
essential to a group's permanency was recognized as one of the
main functions of language. It should come as no surprise that
education was carried out, if not exclusively then at least to a
high degree, in religion.
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