What's wrong with religion and how to fix it

There is an interesting statistic listed in the numbers section of a recent Time magazine - 85% of U.S. Roman Catholic dioceses that in a recent survey said they had learned church money had been embezzled in the past five years and 11% of those reported it was for 500,000 or more. Those of us that are students of history are not at all surprised by this statistic. Power corrupts absolutely and money is an absolute liquid form of power.

Yet money is not the only issue with religions. Religious power, that pious cocaine wielded by the highest members of each religion, appeals to those who wish to use power. Most religions are set up around the hierarchical system designed to funnel decisions to those at the top much like a business, but the philosophies of belief do not work well within such systems. Intellectual discourse needs freedom to maneuver and find its way to the truth. This is one reason that our education system uses tenure, so that our educators aren't tampered with by administrators or bureaucrats.

Religions at their core are a search for truth. We ask such questions as 'Why am I here?', 'What is my purpose?' and 'What should I do next?', and hope to get answers. To some in religion this search for truth is static and absolute. They hold the truth and expect others to come to them. Truth is a transit being, a shape in a dense fog, or slippery pig that slips from your grasp the harder you squeeze; however you want to see truth, its not easy to find. Truth is also not something that can be given or received, it must be found, shaped, sculpted or drawn out of the essence of our lives.

So my argument is this - that religions are corrupted by the very tools they wield, very ineptly, of influence and money, and are not actually set up to find the very things they should be finding. So what's next? If current religions are not able to facilitate the search for truth then what can we do to fix them? The easiest and least effective is just to say get the money out and reform the organization, but those would just be temporary solutions.

A different way might be to consider the very tools you would want on a search for truth and either find, use or make them. The first tool I would want is to be accessible to anyone regardless of location, economic status or any other polling statistic. The second tool I would want is a way to build consensus. We should not reach out to disagree or make bold statements, but make small incremental steps towards truth. Sometimes those small incremental steps come together to form one big Truth, but if not for the way we reach it, it cannot be seen.

If these tools seem familiar then the world is not so distant. These tools are the very innovations that are changing the world as we speak - the Internet and the wiki. While these tools are far from perfect and come with their own issues, they serve the search for truth much better than a hierarchical religion can serve. With these tools there are no leaders, no money or influence, only discussion, consensus and small steps towards Truth. Because it's the very act of seeking truth, of dirtying your hands in the potting soil of life, of being a participant rather than an observer, that brings one closer to the Truth. Truth is not an answer, it is a question, that must be asked every day of our lives.

Signed,

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