Dogma Or Mystery, Part One

The problem I have with religions is that they forget themselves. All of the great religions start out from a MYSTERY. Something or someone happens that is unique, remarkable, almost incomprehensible in terms of everyday life. A man of status learns he is actually one of the oppressed, and somehow manages to convince the dictator of the most powerful nation in the world to let his people go with the help of unbelievable events we call (alas, with some derision) miracles. On the other side of the world a prince renounces his wealth and power and develops a way of life, a faith, that billions will strive to emulate over the millennia. An uneducated man in only 3 years as a teacher changes history and the thought patterns of billions of lives to come in the next 2,000 years. About 5 centuries later an illiterate man dictates a book with language of such power and beauty that billions more change their lives because of it over the next 1500 years. Something truly ineffable came into and then through these men into a harsh, brutal world. More important even than the miracles that were done (which we smug moderns discount, saying it is impossible to bring the dead back to life, at least without a machine--but how do we know?) is that something intangible came from somewhere into this world. We can say it is an 'idea', but millions of ideas are born and die every day. So why did these handful of men change the world? I think it's a mystery, not in the cliched sense today of a puzzle but in the ancient sense of something beyond this world acting on, 'visiting' this world. We could call it God or Allah or the Great Spirit-- whatever it is, IT is far beyond our comprehension---yet not beyond our hearts-- our souls if you will. Of course today many consider themselves too smart to 'believe' in the immortal soul, a consciousness that survives death (and predates birth). They discount as folly almost untold thousands-millions?-of testimonial accounts of near-death and out of body experiences. Ironically they tend to be as rigid in their nihilistic materialism (nothing exists but matter) as those, say, who take Genesis literally, with God turning out the Universe in six 24 hour days (though it was taken as a metaphor by those who wrote the Bible and had an acute sense that Divinity could never be 'pinned down'-- even God's name was not pronounceable). Today we have largely lost our sense of the profound mystery behind ALL existence. The reasons why later....