On Religion
As a child I was always very concerned with the idea of God. The notion that someone was always watching me did not make me feel secure, or like I was being looked out for so much as I was being spied on. I saw no evidence to suggest that there was an illimitable spirit that personally and directly interacted or influenced the lives of people around me. No matter how bad or good things were going for them. I was baptized before I knew what it meant, and was expected to take things like the bible, and Jesus very seriously. But even as a child the bible, and very idea of religion seemed drastically out of whack with what I observed in the world around me. While I found the metaphorical lessons that were taught in the Bible to be of some pragmatic value, I found none of the comfort, or security that everyone claimed made it so special.
Then there were the churches, hoards of people pressed and dressed in their Sunday's best, but always somehow feeling insincere, and vaguely arrogant to my innocent eyes. People always asking that familiar American question, "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?" When I was younger I'd always answer "Not yet, but I'm looking." which never seemed to be the answer anyone was looking for, but they were generally polite about it anyway.
My family was very poor for the fist eleven years or so of my life, we lived in a 70s era trailer park, in Largo Florida just a few miles from Tampa bay and spent a good portion of those years living on food stamps, and clothing that was donated to us. We were the kind of people you'd expect to be asking for divine assistance. But I knew of no other place, or any other way of live, so the trailer park was very much home to me. I saw no reason to pray for another way of life.
When good fortune happened upon us, my family moved to Peachtree City Georgia, and started living on eight or nine times the income we had previously. We lived in a house that couldn't be towed around by a truck for the first time, and being from poor Florida I had never seen a basement basement before. Suddenly my parents felt compelled to find God, and worship him as thanks for all the good things that were happening in their lives. But being that my mom worked as hard and as passionately as she did, I saw our transition from white trash to middle class, as merely my parents efforts paying off, thanks to a bit of good luck, although my mother in particular though not exceptionally religious, wanted to insist that divine intervention had something do with it.
The quality of the churches we attended improved with our transition, and the services were certainly more interesting with all the high tech stuff the churches could afford in our area, but my interest in real world applicability of the bible was short lived, and somehow the religious message still didn't seem sincere. Something still seemed slightly off about it. As a kid especially in my family you didn't dare question god, the bible, or Jesus, and even though no seemed to take the concepts as seriously as their implications seemed to suggest. This confused me, if so many people took this idea so seriously and were so dedicated to it, why aren't they living their lives more closely in accordance with the principles they all claim to stand for. It was around this time my ex-military staff Sargent father started drinking heavily, and becoming violent, unpredictable, and abusive.
But it didn't matter we were "blessed" again in 01, and my family moved to Marietta, and further up the income totem pole. We started attending a church in Alpharetta called North Point, with pastor Andy Stanley, and while it was certainly a far cry from the southern Baptist craziness I had grown up with, and in some cases I came away actually having learned something, about human nature, but I was still not interested in the literal belief of religion. As I progressed through high school and began to get more exposure to other beliefs people took literally, I started to find myself very turned off by idea as a whole, admittedly I felt very guilty about this, and thought that there was something wrong with me for thinking such a thing. Surely I was going to hell for thinking of something so sacred as mostly silly and misinterpreted.
Just before my junior year in high school within a period of a year or so, myself, and three of my closest friends all lost our fathers. All within the same neighborhood, and all well before we had known how to say goodbye. It was my last attempt to take religion seriously. After this I started researching the darker side of the worlds religions, something I didn't really want to know about until I decided I could careless about being labeled a heretic. I started to notice how people who really have an interest in God, are the ones who know they're about to meet him, or the ones who have suffered such a tragic loss they need the hope of being reunited with their loved ones. But looking back I find it amazing how much it took for me to have the courage to question, and denounce my faith.
Has it ever occurred to you that the very things a majority of us hold to be sacred are quickly becoming outdated, and obsolete? While the argument is often made that religions teach a sort of implied morality, this argument is merely subjective when taken out of sociological context, or applied to another religion held by a group of people with a different worldview. Case in point would be the vastly different definitions of morality held by Islam, and Christianity. While Christianity seems relatively benign to those brought up as it’s followers, and much less barbaric when held in comparison with a religion like Islam they are both guilty of the same trait that seems to make religion so dangerous; A sort of irrational self-righteous arrogance, that believers often mistake for enlightenment, or intangible salvation. When a person sincerely believes that another individual will be sentenced to eternal damnation, and torture for not following sharing the same beliefs, to an extent they effectively remove some of their humanity.
Do you really think you'd still believe the way you do if it wasn't something you were born into, or brought up with? Few people seem to be able to distinguish the difference between choice and acceptance, and regional religious upbringing. However some people have no desire to subscribe to any oppressive dogma, no matter the sales pitch. Some people believe religion has plagued, and hindered man kind for long enough, and that it's time to reconsider the way we view one another, devoid of any religious distinction. Think of all the awful things that have happened to people over the course of history, in the name of something no human being can prove. What makes your religion any more sacred than anyone elses? And what makes you think religion is a prerequisite for leading a good life? to Ask a holy man what exactly is to be gained by proselytization. Is god's existence contingent upon popular consensus? Have all the atrocities committed against human life by organized religion over the course of history, been worth their weight in advancing morality, and human society? Is religion the only path to spirituality, or is it the cognitive baggage we inherit from the birth of our intelligence as means making us comfortable in the face of the unknown, or uncomfortable?
Beyond that which cannot be proved, there is no state of being a religious person can claim that an atheist cannot achieve.
"The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired."
–Stephen Hawking
"Religion is the human response to being alive, and having to die."
-F. Forrester Church
I was working on this earlier intending to keep it amongst all my other word files, but I figured it'd be worth posting here, to see how people respond to it. I finished A Brief History of Time yesterday, and felt compelled to put down some of my thoughts.
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Originally Posted by Ran
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