Why is your religion and/or religious belief powerless to change you?

Powerless to change the world?

This might explain it…

In Voice of Reason, a book shared with me by my Facebook friend, Bill Butler, author Bryant McGill writes: “Take any concept you believe in deeply and say out loud, and with full conviction, that your dearest belief may be totally flawed. Say, “There is no doubt that I could be wrong.” If you cannot do this, then you do not possess the idea, the idea possesses you.”

I’ve reworked this a bit. I’d like you to weigh in, should you be brave enough to do so.

Take the religion you believe in deeply — mine is Christianity — as well as every belief taught by your denomination (Catholic, Evangelical, Protestant notwithstanding) about that religion, and say out loud, and with full conviction, that your dearest belief may be totally flawed. Say, “There is no doubt that I (we) could be wrong.”

If you cannot do this, then you yourself do not possess the beliefs about your religion, those beliefs possess you.

My own feeling is, if you want an authentic faith, you’d better know the difference between your beliefs and the ineffable Reality toward which those beliefs point.

There is an eternal space of difference between them.

The Buddha said, “My finger points to the moon, but my finger is not the moon.”