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This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing psychological
building
family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness]
and
divorce. This intro-duction describes the Web
site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article
is part of a mosaic of ideas, so the more
you read, the more sense they'll all make. These articles augment, vs.
replace, other
professional help.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
+ + +
This article explores how spiritual and religious beliefs and church
organizations can promote or reduce the toxic [wounds + unawareness]
that is silently crippling our
society. This is written to people of any religious faith, including
atheists and agnostics.
The
article doesn't promote a particular spiritual belief or
religion. It aims to raise your interest in, and awareness of, a
vital aspect
of your personal and family health - specially if you're nurturing minor kids.
The article
offers...
This
article assumes you're familiar with these ideas:
To set the stage, reflect:
can you say how spirituality and religion differ?
Would you say whatever you believe
about spirituality and/or religion promotes or reduces your and any kids'
Can you define a belief to an average pre-teen?
Are you using someone else's beliefs (like childhood caregi-vers and
hero/ines and/or church officials), or have you evolved your own beliefs yet?
Perspective
|
Do
you believe that spirituality (as you define it) is an essential
ingredient in personal and family wholistic health? If not, this article
will probably have little meaning or value for you. |
Across their lives, all kids and adults in every Era and civilization have
pondered primal unknowns: the origin and nature of life, the Earth and
the universe; mysterious ecological events; good and evil; "fate,"
Paradise, Hell, death, and a possible afterlife.
Personal serenity, family health, and social order depend on finding
viable answers to these ques-tions. Lacking understandable, credible
scientific information, most (all?) people and societies have formed and
taught spiritual and religious beliefs ("faith") to answer these
primal questions well
enough.
Our
perceptions of the world, our decisions, and our actions are influenced by
our rich mix of beliefs - usually without conscious awareness. Some beliefs
and related behaviors promote our wholistic health and growth, and social
and ecological harmony and balance. Other beliefs hinder these things. Is
that your experience?
The
world-knowledge and
of the family and society you grew up in had a major ef-fect on the spiritual
and religious beliefs you live by and model for any kids in your life. One
factor that shaped this level is the spiritual and religious beliefs and
practices of your childhood caregivers and men-tors.
The beliefs about spirituality and
religion that minor kids acquire can significantly affect their life-long wholistic health,
relationships, and longevity. "Attitudes" range from...
-
atheism (there is no God,
angels, saints, heaven, Hell, Satan, demons, or afterlife"); to...
-
agnosticism
(I don't know
or care if these things exist or affect me); to...
-
religious and/or spiritual
faith [I accept without
question that (some form of) these exist and significantly affect me and
other people]; to...
-
(My
spiritual/religious beliefs and my religion's scriptures are right (the
absolute "truth"), and anyone who disagrees is
wrong and bad.
|
Premises -
healthy
spiritual and religious
beliefs, practices, and church communities
prevent and reduce
psychological
Toxic
religious beliefs, practices, and communities unintentionally
(a) promote the harmful ancestral [wounds + unawareness]
low-nurturance families, and resultant ignorances, psychological wounds,
and protective denials; and (b) inhibit true recovery
from them.
|
If you're
about
(or fearful of) normal personality subselves, or are in protective
of sig-nificant false-self wounds
and their effects, this article will probably be of
little value. Option - read this letter to
you, and try this safe, interesting exercise. Then
return here.
About Attitudes, Beliefs, and Faith
An
attitude is a learned
right-wrong judgment about someone or something ["Believers are better than
(morally superior to) non-believers."].
A belief is an intellectual concept that a person (like you) ac-cepts as
usually or always true - perhaps depending on some situational
factors ("I believe that ___ is true when ..."). For example, do you
believe
that the sun will rise tomorrow? That the Earth spins? That atoms exist? That you'll be alive
tomorrow? That lights will
come on if you flip the switch?
Across our years we (you)
automatically collect a stunningly complex array of attitudes and beliefs about
life on Earth from...
-
our sensory experiences and perceptions (water is always
wet),
-
demonstrable natural events and processes
(plants die without soil, water, and sunlight),
-
what trusted people tell us (eating some
mushrooms will make you really sick), and...
-
what we compute from credible and sacred sources (e.g.
"I
believe the Bible is God's revealed word, and in Darwinian evolution").
Most people (like you) also form
some beliefs on faith - i.e. without direct experience or
tangible "proof" - because we get some meaningful benefit - e.g. believing
(a) comforts us ("There is life after death!"), and/or (b)
provides security, and social acceptance and approval by adopting (or at least pro-fessing) the same beliefs
("We Mortons are staunch God-fearing Baptists.")
Many
people report "spiritual" experiences ("God / Mary / my
Invisible Guardian / an angel spoke to me!" / "It was a real miracle - she regained her full eyesight without medical treatment!").
Others don't have such experiences, or discount them as unexplainable, "a
fluke," or
"my imagination." Either way, most of us have beliefs based on faith
- do you agree?
Whether based on experience, intuition, or faith,
our beliefs can significantly affect
our hormones, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Example: seeing
a large spider crawling on your bare foot automa-tically causes
a surge of adrenaline and fear, and probably a reflex to brush the
spider off or kill it. This happens because we believe "large spiders
bite and may cause me hideous agony and even death!" (yes?)
|
If you accept these premises and value your health and life-quality, then (a) identify your main spiritual and/or religious beliefs,
and (b) assess how they're affecting your wholistic health. Have you ever
thought about that? Do you know anyone who has?
|
Let's say
a
spiritual belief is a personal conviction that there is some unseen higher
Power/s or Force/s in the universe that affects life on Earth, including
you and other people. Spiritual beliefs span...
-
the origins, traits, intentions, and
behaviors of spiritual beings (e.g. good or evil,
knowable or not, demanding or accepting,...), and...
-
if and how spiritual beings may affect you and others.
Some people include
learned beliefs about reincarnations, sequential lives, and spiritual advance-ment or
regression here. Pause and note what you believe - if anything -
about each of these items. Which do you feel the strongest about?
Do you agree that you have
"spiritual beliefs"?
Religion
A
religion is (a) a man-made system of ideas, rules, traditions, rituals,
goals, organizational roles, sacred icons and artifacts, physical and
financial assets, and (b) the people who accept and use this system to
satisfy some important personal and social needs.
A
religious belief...
-
causes actions and rituals like genuflecting, making the cross, stroking prayer wheels
and chan-ting, saying the rosary, praying to Mecca, baptisms, weddings, last
rites, excommunication, crusades, inquisitions, singing hymns, witnessing,
reciting credos, and saying confession;
and...
-
usually spans learned convictions about...
-
a Holy book or scripture,
-
one or more prophets or messiahs
proclaiming God's commandments ("the Word") and perhaps doing
"miracles;"
-
saints and martyrs;
-
worship-related groups and denominations,
-
evangelizing,
-
"spiritual
warfare,"
-
dis/obeying God's commandments as defined in a scripture,
-
spiritual growth,
-
atonement for sins, heresy and blasphemy, and perhaps
-
personal salvation ("I believe if I go to church and read the scriptures
regularly, I'll be saved and go to Heaven.")
The Christian
credo is a
set of religious beliefs promoted by original and modern church officials.
If
you have beliefs about religious topics like these, where did you get them?
Differences between religious and spiritual beliefs are illustrated by the
age-old conflict between ordained church officials and
"Gnostics." Christian clergy have traditionally insisted that obeying the
patriarchal, disciple-based hierarchy of ordained church officials is the only way
lay people can know God's will and reach "salvation." Gnostic "heretics"
insist that they learn God's will directly, and need no church dogma
or clergy to guide and interpret for them. I suspect most organized religions have a version of
this primal values conflict.
Accepting
that spiritual and religious beliefs can improve or diminish personal
wholistic health and family nurturance-levels raises the question
"How do I
distinguish nourishing beliefs from toxic ones - what criteria do I
use?" Do you have an answer for that?
Criteria: Toxic or Nourishing?
One
way of judging the impact of any beliefs is to use definitions of
and family
A broad premise from the first of these might sound like
"Any beliefs that promote...
-
steady present-moment
(vs. numbing, reality distortion, or denial); and...
-
balanced self-respect,
self-confidence, and self-nurturance; and...
-
harmony and cooperation among a person's
dynamic
and
promote...
-
consistently effective
and
and...
-
personal
hope, and
need-satisfactions, and...
-
bodily health and longevity, and...
-
optimal physical and spiritual growth and
...are
healthy and "nourishing." Any beliefs that hinder one or more of these is "toxic."
This definition (a) offers many possible sub-criteria, and (b) is almost too
broad to be useful. A way of refining the definition is to say "Any beliefs
that promote significant unawareness and personal or so-cial
and/or
are toxic, and any that produce awareness, unselfish love, serenity, social and
ecological harmony, comfort, and healing are nourishing.
The
second type of criteria uses the premise that some
are more nurturing (need-filling) than others. So
spiritual and/or religious beliefs
which raise or maintain a family's nurturance level can be judged as
nurturing, and any that decrease the level are toxic.
Option - use these two
criteria as illustrations of how to evaluate the personal and family
impact of beliefs, not as absolutes. Ultimately, we each must form and act
on our own criteria - or ignore weighing the impacts of
spiritual and religious beliefs. The latter choice promotes the [wounds +
unawareness]
that is crippling many families and our society.
A Toxic Prayer
Example: decide whether teaching
young kids this this traditional Western bedtime prayer is healthy or toxic:
"Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord
my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul
to take."
Do you think an average young child
(a) understands
who or what "the Lord" or what "my soul" is, and (b) is
psychologically affected by learning to say "I may die before I wake"?
Would an average child wonder "What if the Lord doesn't 'take' my
soul, whatever that is?"
Could a parent's endorsement of
this prayer promote an unconscious belief and fear of bedtime and sleeping - specially if the child has some perception of
death, heaven, and hell? If so, I propose that teaching a child to say prayers
like this
may make parents "feel good," but may be psychologically harmful. What do you think?
So
far, we've focused on possible effects of personal and family spiritual and
religious beliefs. A related focus is on...
Church and Denominational Impacts
Spiritual people may or may not attend some kind of church as part of their
worship and growth activities. Religious people may or may not be
spiritual. Were you raised in -
and/or do you or your family now participate in - a religious community
(church congregation)?
If
so, would you say your church has a net nurturing
or toxic effect on you and others? If the church belongs to a national or
global organization (denomination, like Episcopalian, Baptist, Mus-lim,
Buddhist, Baha'i, or Judaism), is the net social impact of that organization toxic
or nurturing, in your opinion?
Both
questions have practical long-term value.
If you participate in a church
and/or denomina-tion that is significantly toxic, then you're potentially
reducing your and your family's - and your descendents' - wholistic health,
serenity, and longevity.
Not participating in a nurturing church community and
denomination may also diminish your personal and family health. If you're
ruling subselves and key supporters are agnostic or atheistic, you'll
probably yawn or disagree.
|
Premise - a church and/or religious denomination's nurturance-level
can be assessed (low to high) by judging whether its faith + programs +
rituals + values + clergy + missionary programs pro-mote or
inhibit the silent [wounds + unawareness]
|
My
guess is that most busy, over-stimulated lay people (like you?) aren't vitally concerned with
their denomination's potential social toxicity, unless there's a major
scandal or public outcry. What may be more relevant to
you is the potential toxicity of your church and religious
community. If you and any dependent kids' other caregivers don't
participate in either of these, skip to the
basic question.
Is Your Religious Community
(Church) Toxic?
Let's apply the premises above about
religious denominations to your church, mosque, temple, or coven.
Here "church" means...
-
the professional clergy and volunteer staff
that create and administer programs like worship; reli-gious education;
marriage preparation, sanctification, and enrichment; spiritual,
personal, and family counseling and support; confessions; sacraments;
missionary work; and community out-reach programs; and ...
-
the denominational goals, priorities,
policies, and officials that shape the actions of these people;
and...
-
the persons, families, and local non-members
who have been significantly affected by these programs and people.
"Religious community" means the like-minded group of people you
socialize and/or worship with, whether you all attend a physical church,
mosque, or
temple or
not.
Sample Criteria
Choose an undistracted time and place, and thoughtfully
rate each of these items with "I Agree, I Disagree,
or ? (I'm not sure / It depends on (what?), / I don't care)."
Tailor these items as needed, and hilight or star any that have special meaning.
-
My
is
to these items
now.
-
Overall, I feel my church and/or
religious community enhances (vs. reduces) (a) my personal wholistic health and
(b) my family's
nurturance level.
-
My church
and/or religious community has - or is
developing - an
effective program to help educate and motivate...
adults to...
-
honestly
admit,
and patiently
false-self
-
guard
descendents and others' kids from inheriting them.
-
make thoughtful decisions about
spiritual realities, beliefs,
and growth, rather than rigidly following someone else's values and
opinions out of duty, anxiety, guilt, and shame - including
long-dead prophets, disciples, hero/ines, martyrs and saints, and
traditional scriptural "truths."
-
see people of other
races, cultures, beliefs, and ethnicities as different and equally
worthy, not good
or bad or better or worse, and to...
-
promote universal respect and tolerance
for healthy differences, vs. righteous bigotry and persecution.
couples to make informed, wise
divorce, and child-conception choices.
And my church
and/or religious community has - or is
developing - an
effective pro-gram to help educate and motivate...
parents to...
-
nurture (vs.
themselves,
each other, and their kids
effectively.
-
learn, practice, and model effective
communication basics and skills.
-
learn, practice, and model
healthy-grieving basics; and...
-
teach these basics to their descendents
(i.e. form
families),
society to learn about each of these vital topics and why they're
important personally, parentally, and socially. And...
our officials to upgrade or
expand our denomination's policies and programs to include and
promote each of these factors. And finally...
our clerical leader/s and governing board are...
-
clearly aware of each of these factors, and...
-
are unified in
wanting to implement each of them in our church community's work.
|
Premise: each factor that you
agree with is a nurturing influence
of your church and/or religious com-munity. Each factor you disagree
with is socially toxic (harmful), like not
educating and warning
peo-ple about AIDS, hurricanes, Ebola, killer bees, Lyme's
disease, or West Nile virus is.
|
Pause and reflect - what are you
aware of now? have you ever seen a list of religious nurturance factors like
this before? Would you tailor it in some way? What would others in your
religious community say about this list and what it means? What would your
church's spiritual and religious leaders say?
Rate Your Church
Combine your answers to these and
your own factors to estimate the nurturance level (very low > low >
average > high > very high) of your church or religious community. If you feel
the level is high enough, show this article to the people who create and
implement your church's policies and programs, and congratulate
them! If you feel the level is too low now, consider these...
Implications and Options
Belonging to
or supporting low-nurturance
organizations usually suggests a person (like you?) is unaware of
significant false-self
This is because - against "common
sense" - typical
(GWC's) protective
tend to unconsciously
choose environments and wounded
leaders that replicate their low-nurturance childhoods. To see if
that could apply to you, study
and its
unique
The absence of nurturing factors like those above
starts with
wounds +
+ ignorance
(lack of accurate knowledge) in church and religious-community leaders.
For practical ways to
reduce these, see these prevention articles, including this one for professional
clergy. How do your subselves
about the
proposal that "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."?
Another common false-self trait is
simplistic black-white (bipolar) thinking: reducing complex issues to good or bad,
right or wrong, healthy or toxic, and benign or evil. Religious organizations
and communi-ties have many traits and different social impacts ranging
from
nurturing to toxic. The practical question is one of degree: "Is
my/our religious organization or community nurturing enough?"
The Basic Question
Whether you're a spiritual person or not, and/or participate or support some religious
organization and community, you surely have a set of
semi-conscious (right / wrong, good / bad) attitudes and beliefs about spiritual and religious questions.
These may enhance or degrade your wholistic health, and/or
nourish or stress your family members and other living things. "Not caring" about
this suggests you're probably ruled by a narrow-visioned,
pro-tective false self.
If you're interested in identifying the impacts
of your spiritual and religious values and beliefs on yourself
and others, use criteria like those above to help you decide.
Your overarching question is - "Do I have significant
false-self
and if so, how are they
affecting my health, my
relationships - spe-cially with any kids - and how well I fill my
+ + +
Continue
with options
if your or someone else's spiritual and religious beliefs are
"too toxic."
Do you need a stretch break before continuing?
The Web address of this
two-page article is http://sfhelp.org/basics/religion.htm