Re: religion in America

Thor Cameron (my_colours@hotmail.com)
Tue, 13 Oct 1998 11:12:37 -0700 (PDT) 

"Give me something to believe in"

Well, the thing is, I've known people from many different religions, 
Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Agnostics, B'hai followers, I even lived 
next door to a Zoroastrian family back when I first went to college.  
The thing is, I've frequently known people who hold belifs without 
knowing why or examining their belief system, but I've never known 
anyone who simply didn't believe.  Even the athiests I've known, even 
when I considered myself an athiest, I still believed.  My god was 
nature, science, the miracles around us.  This is a comforting feeling, 
because I had proof of my god everyday when there was rain, sunshine, or 
even that my alarm clock worked.  No faith involved, just following 
proven paths.
I think the only problem here in Salinger's writing is not Salinger's 
particular religious slant.  I think that the only reason we are even 
taking note of the seemingly dychotomous religious comparison is through 
a prevailing mistrust of Christianity in the world today.
I myself am an ex-Christian, and am still working out my anger against 
Christianity.  I see that same anger and knee-jerk suspicion of 
Christianity everywhere.
Let's face it, over the centuries, the Christan church has brought this 
upon itself through it's staunch anti-every-other-religion stance.  
However, the truest souls I've known of each faith seem to share the 
idea that truth is truth, no matter who's book it is written in.  
Salinger just seems to know this also.
The fact that the postings here note a Christian/Zen comparison is, I 
belive, due to the fact that it is Christianity that we're talking 
about.  How many postings do you think we'd be seeing if he were drawing 
Zoroastrian/Tibettan Buddhist parallel lines?
Just a thought....

Namaste,

Thor

> Was Salinger actually advocating the Jesus prayer as a means to 
spiritual
> transcendence? Great God in heaven, I hope not, because that would 
really
> dumb down the story in my mind. I prefer to think this had to do with 
the
> despairing soul's craving for ritual, for meaning. 

  Dumb down? hmmmm. I think good ole JD is presenting the old dilemma of
the esoteric vs, the exoteric. The problem to paraphrase another of our
little ignorant God seekers,  is that if you're an American it's nearly
impossible to lead a spiritual life. One of the main ponts of all the 
Glass
stories, for me, is that Salinger presents the sacred as right here in
front of us rather than putting it off in some netherworld. This is a 
very
wise man, this JD.
   



> 
> It ought to be possible for a story to talk about religion without 
itself
> being religious. 

    Jung said that religion stands in the way of having a religious
experience. I can't help but get the feeling from the nature of your
comments that you are using the word " religion" as a near expletive. 
This
is unfortunate. Most of the religion I've seen practiced is 
discouraging,
but the religion I understand is beautiful. I wonder what you would
consider religion? I'm not sure that Salinger's entire point of these
stories is to break down all the walls of understanding concerning
"religion"  This twisted hagiography in Brooklyeese accomplishes this in
spades for me.


            Robert Morris
            winboog@gis.net




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