I’m not religious
The crops failed, grandma dropped dead suddenly, and your daughter is in love with the wrong man. I mean in love with a woman.
Tell me why? Why is this happening??
Before scientific inquiry, the best story won. A story that really sweeps you up, makes you believe. A story so enduring that eventually, when writing systems are invented, it gets written down.
The crop clearly failed because you were supposed to bring your BEST sheep to be sacrificed to Ares, and he knew! He knew that you were holding out on him. He either came down and zapped your crops hisself, or he maybe influenced some other gods or monsters to do his dirty work for him.
You do know that grandma dropped dead pretty much within a week of defying her husband. Allah heard her backtalk one too many times, and look at her now! She dead.
The daughter issue is a little bit different. Everyone knows that the female is the weaker sex, easily influenced by Satan into lustful thoughts. She’s clearly lusting after the flesh, goaded on by the hoofed head honcho of hell Himself. She must be cleansed! Purified! Made to repent!
In some ways we’re not quite as superstitious a species as once we were, and thank heaven, or praise Zeus, or whatever. Actually, thank you science. But religion is still with us, a whole set of beliefs, values, practices, and a view of our place in the cosmos that simply won’t die.
This post won’t be a scholarly work. It’s just a few words about why I personally don’t like religion. Maybe one day I’ll revisit this and add more evidence and detail. Probably not.
- No religion is wholly unique
- Religions cause ‘othering’ over beliefs that are arbitrary and unprovable
- People remain exactly who they are regardless of religion
- The mind adapted to religious belief becomes more compatible with other unseen, unproven, and disproven realities.
Preface
Had I had a good support system from the people I went to church with, I may not have been looking for an exit. I could have continued in my willful ignorance, juggling or putting on hold all the inconsistencies, leaving it in God’s hands, to sort out in His good time. But I had very little in common with my fellow flock-mates, which isn’t necessarily a deal breaker when you have God’s word in common. I can only count maybe one or two, in decades of me faithfully attending, that ever gave more than a passing hello, on Sunday, and only if they couldn’t avoid it.
I’m not entirely sure why this was the case, but my best guess is two fold. Humans generally look for some kind of engagement before they make effort to engage. I can’t say that I’m always approachable, and I’m certainly very awkward in many instances. I have to ‘switch on’ my extroverted side. The other issue might be my personality, and my neuro-divergence. Religious people are not known for thinking outside the box, they like structure and certainty. My understanding of the world, and my tendency to remix concepts and make interesting observations could have been difficult to deal with. Whenever I taught Sunday school I often went off book, and made challenging points that people hadn’t thought of before. This is not necessarily how religion works. Well tread sayings and consistent messages are the norm.
So anyway, I’m out, not my problem any more, and they can live in their tidy predictable well-worn grooves.
One True Church
I was raised Mormon, and one of the tenets of the church is that it is the one true faith, handed down directly from God to the founder and first prophet. Heaven is an exclusive kingdom, and only those who have the correct passwords, handshakes, rituals and ceremonies will be allowed to enter. Other churches don’t have it quite right you see, but don’t worry, the good and well intentioned people will get something nice too, just not the penthouse heaven. But um, yeah, if you want the heaven that keeps your family around you, gives you all the knowledge that God has, and lets you become a God yourself, you’ll have to be a Mormon in good standing.
I don’t have much experience with other religions, but I do get the sense that religions offer some form of wish fulfillment in the next life, and as such, have to be able to say they are the ones holding the golden tickets. How else do they convince people to stay with them, and not go wandering off?
But here’s the thing.
Every religion sprang from the religions that went before it. Belief in gods and monsters led to pantheistic worship, Judaism is a radical form of pantheistic worship, Christianity is a radical form of Judaism, and Christianity further ‘reformed’ as it travelled through the Mediterranean and Europe.
Through the 17th and 18th centuries, in England, puritans like John Pym spread sober, democratic, capitalistic, and opportunistic morals and values. Colonies like the United States have been from day one a hotbed of Puritans, preachers, pastors, evangelicals, and all sorts of snake oil salesmen who maintained and improved upon the mainstream religiousness.
From this pedigree sprang the church of which I am familiar. Mormon church services are subdued like the Methodists or the Presbyterians. Mormon doctrines are a patchwork of beliefs from other churches of the day, including racism and manifest destiny, with a good measure of science fiction thrown in. The additional scripture that was ‘translated’ from ancient text borrowed ideas from the prophet’s father, from the Bible, from folklore and legend of the time. It presented a version of Christianity that was far too modern to have originated from the time period that it claimed. Many hymns are adopted from previous hymnbooks, and new hymns are in the same style. Secret rituals in the Mormon temples were largely ripped off from the Masons. Throw in a very creative founder, and decades of smoothing rough edges, and you have the church that exists today.
I am not a religious scholar, nor do I have interest in becoming one, but I am happy to become more educated. What I won’t stomach is religious argument that is unprovable and/or hasn’t been disproven (wink wink).
In my mind, all religions are like the others, so accusations of heresy, blasphemy, and immorality simply cannot hold water. The moral superiority of being joined to a particular church or religion is wrong and unnecessary.
Othering
When a religion claims higher moral ground than everyone else, this creates an ‘us’ and ‘them’ situation between human beings. Non-members are ‘othered’ and placed in a category that can hardly be understood by a believer. The best explanations include, that many of ‘those people’ might be trying their best, but sadly they can’t actually hope to be truly happy. When ‘those people’ act immorally, they are being influenced by Satan or his followers.
From the cocoon of being one with the flock, this attitude has seemingly little effect on the faithful member, since most if not all of their close associations are also members, and when they must be part of the world, they just know to have their guard up.
But there is damage that comes from believing that deviation from the strict moral and religious code is led by the Devil and his evil minions. A slightly milder form of this belief is the idea that ‘the world’ and its temptations cause people to chase false happiness and stray from true happiness.
People raised in religion can even other themselves. There are countless stories of self-loathing and the endless search to be acceptable in God’s eyes. This too is damaging, and the opposite of being true to oneself. Teens and adults sent to conversion therapy, for example.
Othering is horrible. To be human is surprisingly similar no matter the skin, hair, cultural heritage, education, hopes, and dreams. Of course there are evil people among us, but this evil does not come from failing to adhere to a set of archaic, disproven, arbitrary superstitions. Take those superstitions away and suddenly we are, almost all of us, simply human beings doing our best to be good people. Suddenly it becomes more difficult to look down on people because of who they are, or because of their choices, particularly when those choices have nothing whatsoever to do with our own lives.
Pixie dust isn’t real
Carrying from the point just made, that most people are simply doing their best to get along in this world, I would argue that religion contains no magical power (or powder) to make someone better than they would have been without it.
Baptism and other religious rituals are sold as a way to leave your old life behind, and take up a new life following Jesus or God. This is a great concept, since many of us have made heinous mistakes, innocent mistakes, or lived embarrassingly, and would love never to speak of such things again. The promise of eternal sunshine with a spotless mind can be a tempting one indeed.
In Mormonism, members are taught that after baptism and a special blessing, there is an invisible being, following you around whispering advice and giving comfort; a kindly ghost doing his best to make you not just a good person, but a Godly one. It’s a religious mystery of course, since everyone gets the same gift, and the gift is a singular ghost person, simultaneously following every recipient at the same time everywhere.
Catholics have a wonderful word for unknowable religious mystery, in fact there are lots of wonderful words in Catholic dogma and religious writings. I just can’t think what they are at the moment.
From inside the faith, gullible members spend a lot of time asking themselves if they are pure and holy enough, and whether they have to try even harder. Not getting answers to big questions, and not feeling better when tragedy strikes must be the result of evil thoughts, unrepented sin, or some other slip up. More time on one’s knees in prayer, more time reading nonsensical drivel, and more time among hypocrites at church somehow breaks the barrier between them and God, or the Spirit, or Jesus, or Mary, or Whoever The Fuck. The truth is, the breakthrough doesn’t come because Jesus was waiting for you to be patient or good enough, and can now attend to your needs. People get answers, personal development, comfort, support, and all the good things, whether they pray or not.
I believe there is a large swathe of less-gullible church goers who see the game, and they only pretend to play it. They talk the talk, but in daily life they walk their own walk, living as they would have anyway, and hiding their unacceptable proclivities.
What’s the harm in this one, you may ask.
Aside from the hypocrisy? Those who lie in order to appear good and righteous? Not only are people fooled by the hypocrite, but also being a hypocrite is corrosive to the psyche.
I think that the promise of a new life through spiritual purity is a false one, and misleading. Religion is unable to deliver on its promises, and leaves the convert wondering why results vary.
But my larger point is that there is no pixie dust that transforms people from what they would have been. Assholes are still assholes, gossips are still gossips, moochers are still moochers, jokesters are still jokesters, helpers are still helpers, eggheads are still eggheads, and leaders are still leaders. You can’t trust someone just because they are of the same faith as you. Every organization has a similar collection of people. And to me this means that religion is worthless in that regard, and there is no need for it.
Hook, line and sinker
The gullible have another problem. Believing in actual unseen forces make them more susceptible to other similar messages. Conspiracy theories, shadowy figures both good (such as Q) and bad (such as Bill Gates, for some reason), and secret cabals of slavering sinners intent on converting the innocent into confused perverts, are just a few of the concepts that religious folks glom easily onto.
Being sucked into these stories, this battleground of good versus evil, may eventually have real consequences, and my heart hurts to contemplate it. Many people are fearful of a civil war, and again, over what? Over superstition, over values that were established in a primitive time. Values that no child asked for, but eventually adopted because of the way they were raised.
I can only imagine a good Christian thinking like this: Love your neighbor, unless of course they’re a freakin’ (well I like to say fuckin behind closed doors, parton mah French) lib-tard well then they get what’s comin’ to em. And if they’re a pervert or a homo or a lesbian or worse, well that’s just unnatural and God might one day smite them who knows. I wish they would leave our goodly town in peace instead of making so much trouble. And the government.
There are much more talented writers than I, in poems, novels, stage plays and screenplays that expose this mentality and the horrible consequences of it.
Conclusion
The struggle against evil has little to do with devils, phantoms, or conspiracy. The struggle is against ignorance first and foremost, and closely following, against racism, prejudice, and abuse.
Stepping down from one’s moral superiority, seeing humans as they are, simply humans; ceasing the hypocrisy and self-loathing, and stepping back from the mystical world will help us parse what is provable, factual, and real. It will help us understand ourselves as we are, and deal with our weaknesses and foibles, and discover and promote our strengths. As we do this we see more clearly those around us, their struggles and their triumphs.
As we do this we might develop patience and compassion for ourselves and for others.
