CHAPTER 2
GOD’S NAME AND DOCTRINE:
AN UNINTENDED BRIDGE TO WAR
I do not know its name—Identifying it, I call it Tao,
Forced to describe it, I call it Great. (Tao te Ching, translation Derek Lin)
I have often come across the phrase “spiritual but not religious.” Quite honestly, I find this term vague since every person, religious or otherwise, has their own personal idea of the cosmic universe, including a specific set of beliefs to which they adhere. Yet while a specific religion may adhere to strict rules, rituals, or dogma, the spiritual but not religious do not usually have a specific dogma and seem to have variations in practice or sometimes no practice at all. The definition of both spiritual and religious can have assorted meanings depending on an individual’s upbringing. I was raised believing that the purpose of religion is to help us experience our creator more deeply, yet those who are just spiritual may appear to have an aversion to religion. Perhaps this aversion can be attributed to the many religious wars and brutal acts caused by pious extremists often viewed through widely spread world news reports, or to something as simple as an annoying experience with an overzealous religious practitioner.
Doctrine, a distinct set of belief principles, was formed as trade became prominent and helped communities distinguish each another by their understandings of worship, principles of the universe, and right and wrong. Unfortunately, this opened the door for authority figures to use biblical doctrine to control the public by fitting laws to suit their selfish needs and establishing brutal consequences if laws were broken.
Conflicts can be further mapped to language barriers amongst the followers of the older traditions of foreign lands and the newly developing industrialized societies while general cultural language changes added to the difficulty. Eventually, scriptures, in whole or in part, were translated into foreign languages, often losing sight of their original meanings. Even when the written whole scriptures prevailed, modern dialects brought barriers to full understanding since contemporary individuals did not know the context in which the words were spoken or grasp the many aphorisms used by scribes. Misinterpretations conti
