religious_bullshit [2]

Round and round and round we go...

I have a love/hate kind of relationship with conversations about religion between different parties of varying faiths. I hate getting drawn into them because I know I’m going to get ugly…but I do so love to watch the carnage ensue when it begins between two OTHER people. Partially because I'm not a very social animal, I guess. Sociopathic, maybe, but I don’t qualify myself as social.

So when my conversation with someone else was interupted by a blazing, neon-cross-bearing, bible clutching, Jesus peddler saying that my views on things were wrong...I was a lot less social and a lot more sociopath...


And it’s when someone says “because Jesus said in the Bible”, that’s what causes me to cringe - that all will be well and right with the world and that we can all leave here peacefully knowing that we are forever saved if we just believe in Jesus.

Statements like that preclude the Jews, the Hindus, the Muslims (and don't anyone start about how the Muslim religion is something that we're currently at war with - that's NOT the case) and a host of over religious belief systems that don't use Jesus within their doctrine.

Look - the original premise of my conversation (my PERSONAL conversation among friends) was whether or not there is a God, not whether or not you have to prescribe to one set of beliefs or another. When one says "we need to believe", it literally means that "you and I" need to believe, and I beg to differ. I don't have any issues with someone else believing in Jesus - pick your poison. But please allow me to pick my own.

Aside from the number of other religions on the face of this planet, some of the FAR predating Christianity, that are immediately excluded by the all encompassing thought processes of the dogma of religion (and this also conversely holds true of most alternate religions - they're all pretty good at saying the others are wrong), I won't even begin to touch on the fact that there are several THOUSAND divisions within the Christian church in and of itself, each saying that THEIR particular breed of dogma and ritual is the only correct and true way to Christ and to the afterlife as described and promised by Christianity. And to that end, we use such differences as an excuse to visit some of the most inhuman acts on one another in an effort to spread our beliefs, sometimes on the tip of a sword.

I'm sorry - but the biggest differences between all religions are the manmade rhetoric, pomp and circumstance that surround them. And they are the one criterion that inevitably leads to bitter conversations between people that, in any other context, I would consider to be wholesome, good hearted people. But interject the differences of belief and suddenly the polarity of such a conversation is such that one either has to feel sorry for or offended by the views of the person on the opposite side of the argument, or in this case, one of the multitude of facets behind such conversations.

And before anyone asks, it's certainly that I don't believe that there is a God. I do. I'm much to humble to believe that I (humankind, I mean) am the summit of all intelligence and life as we know it...although I suppose that's as good a way to put it as any since that falls within the confines of what we know of life. But I expect and have always believed that we're not even close to that measure. We're thinking and reasoning beings, yes, by our standards. But I can almost promise you that there is not just one almighty that is far and above our capability of understanding - and that much I do believe to be true, but I'd go further to bet that we're probably not even the top dog within actual living entities out there...and to think that we are the single most intelligent life in the universe?? Ummm, yeah, well, that's a nice thought and all, but I don't think we're nearly as rare as one might like to believe, so let's not break our arms patting ourselves on the back just yet, shall we?

Again, it's not that I don't believe in God or "a God" - I do, honestly, I do. But for me to quantifiably say that I understand that entity, especially in reading a book that was written largely from the views of people - I say again, PEOPLE, whom I wouldn't consider to be of any greater understanding than I am of the universe or religion as my sole basis by which I can say that I understand God better than someone else?? That's a stretch.

I've been Christian in various forms. I've studied modern Wicca, sometimes known as "neo-paganism" (which is a terribly oxymoron and does a disservice to the original spiritual concept) and I have studied various religions outside of the mainstream religions of America...strictly as a measure of personal interest, I might add. I am no scholar, so I cannot say that my knowledge of any particular religion is complete or even completely correct. But I can probably say that I've looked at religion and, at least, spirituality a lot more closely and from a lot more angles than probably most have. And for my part, I cannot quantifiable say to the affirmation or declination of the existence of God in any of the definitions provided by modern religions.

What I *can* say is this:

A relationship between an individual and their God is just that - individual. And it's a personal relationship. Its bounds are known only to those two and no other. There is no one person that can more categorically say that they know their God any better than any other person. We can FEEL as though we have a closer connection to our God (or lack thereof for those that believe strongly that there is no God), but none of us can say without subjectivity being an issue that they are conclusively more knowledgeable of God as a whole than the person who shares a very personal and spiritual relationship between themselves and THEIR God, not YOUR God, not MY God, but THEIR God. And given our limited understandings of even our own bodies, our own lives, the world in which we live in from the microscopic to the macroscopic, given how little we understand about science, the universe and even our own bodies in the face of "modern medicine", how can we say with any definition that we understand God?

And please spare me the quotes from the Bible. That's fine that that works for you. But it doesn't necessarily work for me and may not work for anyone else...even putting aside the fact that even God himself has said that you shall never know his true name. That, to me, speaks to our fundamentally limited understanding of "God" as a whole to begin with. I don't think, inasmuch as the Christian God is concerned, that this is necessarily a deliberate part of God's plan to obscure any kind of understanding of him - it speaks to a greater fact of a lack of comprehension on our part to begin to fathom the length and breadth of that which makes up such an entity. It is in keeping with how perhaps a common mouse may view a human...or an earthworm, or lower species of life, take your pick.

But now to the next fundamental question, if there IS a God (or if there isn't), is there an afterlife?

Well, that's a matter that is difficult to answer. Since nobody has come back with a piece of paper in hand that is signed by someone we knew went before with definitive DNA tracings on it that say, yep, that was my granddad that died last summer, there is little evidence that speaks to an afterlife aside from personal testimony of those who have had near death experiences or a system of inhereted beliefs. However, faith is a strong motivator in believing whether or not you are going anywhere further than in the ground when you cease to breath.

For myself, yes, I do believe that there is something greater than this. Yes, I do believe that we are each simply a vessel for a "soul" or spirit or essense. And true to the laws of physics, energy cannot be destroyed. It can be changed, but not destroyed. And under that premise, as our essense, our "soul" is a refined form of energy, it cannot be destroyed. It can be redistributed, changed, modified, given some other purpose or manifestation, but it is still our energy, our essense. And by that token, it must transgress this body, which I believe to be nothing more than a living shell, so that it might move forward and either collectively or by itself continue to grow and evolve.

So long story short, yes, I do believe that there is an afterlife. What it is, I couldn't say with any amount of certainty, and I don't honestly believe anyone else can either.

In all honesty, I'm what one might call a militant agnostic. I don't know what comes next and NEITHER does anyone else, in my humble opinion. I don't discount the teachings of any religion, or the general precepts that govern how one believes. But to say with any measure of certainty that any one particular venue of spiritual pursuit is the only and true way to understand our life here, both now and thereafter, is a fallacy and we are smitten with delusions of granduer if we believe that we alone in our own personal beliefs think we can even begin to wrap our minds around the vastness of such a matter as God or the universe.