"Religion's monopoly in the field of ethics has made it extremely difficult to communicate the emotional meaning and connotations of a rational view of life. Just as religion has preempted the field of ethics, turning morality against man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts of our language, placing them outside the earth and beyond man's reach. "Exaltation" is usually taken to mean an emotional state evoked by contemplating the supernatural. "Worship" means the emotional experience of loyalty and dedication to something higher than man. "Reverence" means the emotion of a sacred respect, to be experienced on one's knees. "Sacred" means superior to and not-to-be-touched-by any concerns of man or of this earth. Etc.
But such concepts do name actual emotions , even though no supernatural dimension exists; and these emotions are experienced as uplifting or ennobling, without the self-abasement required by religious definitions. What, then, is their source or referent in reality ? It is the entire emotional realm of man's dedication to a moral ideal. Yet apart from the man-degrading aspects introduced by religion, that emotional realm is left unidentified, without concepts, words or recognition.
It is this highest level of man's emotions that has to be re-deemed from the murk of mysticism and redirected at its proper object: Man."
~ One of the most rational excerpts from The Fountainhead.
I have always wondered, why does society/religion portray man as a helpless, contemptible being who is doomed unless he bows in front of the almighty. Whenever people sing hymns to praise the lord, I think to myself , why we picture God as a craven king, who would make his court write songs to glorify him. Man's virtues need not be endorsed by religion or for that matter, society. The laws of religion, I fear have given us more self-doubt instead of inner peace. The idea of the sacredness of austerity is so deep rooted, that little things we do that give us happiness seem sinful. The abstraction of a man's conscience is blurred with years of corruption. We no longer can tell the difference between the society/religion imposed 'right' and the righteousness of our own soul. Its unfortunate that religion/society has arrogated man's code of good or evil to itself. We seem to have forgotten that 'the noble soul has reverence for itself'.
20th July '15
But such concepts do name actual emotions , even though no supernatural dimension exists; and these emotions are experienced as uplifting or ennobling, without the self-abasement required by religious definitions. What, then, is their source or referent in reality ? It is the entire emotional realm of man's dedication to a moral ideal. Yet apart from the man-degrading aspects introduced by religion, that emotional realm is left unidentified, without concepts, words or recognition.
It is this highest level of man's emotions that has to be re-deemed from the murk of mysticism and redirected at its proper object: Man."
~ One of the most rational excerpts from The Fountainhead.
I have always wondered, why does society/religion portray man as a helpless, contemptible being who is doomed unless he bows in front of the almighty. Whenever people sing hymns to praise the lord, I think to myself , why we picture God as a craven king, who would make his court write songs to glorify him. Man's virtues need not be endorsed by religion or for that matter, society. The laws of religion, I fear have given us more self-doubt instead of inner peace. The idea of the sacredness of austerity is so deep rooted, that little things we do that give us happiness seem sinful. The abstraction of a man's conscience is blurred with years of corruption. We no longer can tell the difference between the society/religion imposed 'right' and the righteousness of our own soul. Its unfortunate that religion/society has arrogated man's code of good or evil to itself. We seem to have forgotten that 'the noble soul has reverence for itself'.
20th July '15
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