Religion: Is it based on our Superstitions.

I have never been afraid to go on an intellectual exploration and I invite the readers to come along with me on this one. Before I go on though, here is a disclaimer. I am a Catholic. I have no qualms with my faith. I do not question the Pope. I am just a happy camper in my faith. I will not in a million years ask anyone to question his or her faith, but considering that there has been many self proclaimed Ministers, Reverends, and Bishops who have preyed on the faith of many, I think it is rather appropriate to look at how we got to where we are in our faith. And boy would I love to see what others think of these thoughts especially clerics.

Is religion an institution that we have built over many, many years based on our superstitions? Our religious leaders have sold religion to us as something we believe. It is our faith; based on the fact that we believe and because we believe, we do not question. Crazy as it may sound, my reasoning that led to this question, I believe, is sound. Bear with me.

It is very reasonable to believe that we will have a Saint John Paul some day. (The Pope has one more step before being canonized a Saint.) How many of the people of future years (say 2000 years from today) will believe that Saint John Paul was a living, breathing person who walked this earth. Even though today we have video tapes and pictures to leave behind as our legacy, how many people of the future will believe that Saint John Paul sat and watched "Break Dancers" spinning on their heads while twirling his walking stick? How many people will believe that Saint John Paul is anything but a celestial creation?

All Christianity, having been handed to us by Jews, came out of the Catholic Church. All Christian Churches came out of the Catholic Church, thus the Catholic Church is the first Christian Church. Our faith then comes from the teachings of the Catholic Church.

"60 Minutes", a CBS Television magazine show (CBS being an American Television network) reported on one of their shows on the Vatican that the remains of Pope Peter, Saint Peter, yes Simon Peter, is still at the Vatican. Simon Peter had always been an "element" of the bible to me. Saint Peter was a celestial being. Though we have paintings of our Popes and religious leaders of those days, the paintings themselves are saintly. Their garbs in the paintings are celestial. To think that Saint Peter is a man of this earth is beyond me. I can see someone of the future, 2000 years from now thinking that it is unconscionable that Saint John Paul ever walked this earth.

People of the future will have a lot to work with thanks to our legacy of video and so on as I have mentioned. What did they have 2000 years ago? 2000 years ago if you said the earth was round, you had death coming to you. If it didn't rain, the gods were angry and it was time to make a human sacrifice. If your child was sick, it was because of your sins. Superstition was alive and very wide spread. Could our religion be a well organized institution based on our superstitions of those years?

Could it be that Pope Peter was not supposed to die because he was so saintly and so the faithful of those days hung on to his remains? Could it be that the faithful believed that Pope Peter would rise and go to heaven just like Jesus Christ, a figment of our superstition; our faith; our belief and that's why they hung on to his remains? Could it be that the faithful were not going to die until they did and so our belief was amended to be that our souls will not die? Ridiculous though they may sound, these are questions that I have.

Though I have focused on Christianity, I wonder if other faiths were organized based on superstitions just like Christianity. Well, how about Africa? We have "juju". "Juju" brought by Africans to Haiti became voodoo. Could it be our superstitions that weren't organized enough before the "White man" interrupted? I mean would Africans have our own "Jesus Christ" based on "juju" (voodoo) if we had organized our superstitions? Could we at least have our Joseph Smith if Africa had not been interrupted? Lastly, can we explore these thoughts without the wrath of the righteous coming down on us?

Tony Pobee-Mensah