In the Name of Love

I've waffled about actually posting this passionate, disjointed entry for a few weeks now. I want to be transparent about my opinions, yet I know I will be judged by people I care for. I wrote it because I feel judged by the people I care for. Think wisely, critique wisely, read with an open mind, and forgive my ignorance.

I despise the concept of religious belief systems in conflict with each other. I can't think of an analogy that even palely encompasses the wrongness of it.

I uphold much of what Christ stands for and find a large portion of the Christian religious text to be insightful, truthful and beautiful... But I feel the same way about other religious tenets, texts and belief systems. The fact that some people take religious texts at face value is astounding and absurd to me. Much of it is irrelevant, written for a different age, a different set of traditions and cultural norms - but that's part of its appeal - its age, formal language, distant and mythical origins. Humans are impressed by stuff like that. My short lifetime of observing these behaviors have led me to the [open to discussion] conclusion that "religions" [i.e. standardized spiritual belief systems and their requisite attitudes, mores, etc.] are but sets of human-made "regulations" that govern spirituality (which I have no business defining), primarily to:

Allow a person or group of people to overpower others.

Comfort those who require rules and rituals.

Provide fellowship, community, connection.

Arm the prejudiced.

Give those who do not want to own their actions an external source of righteousness.

Comfort those who fear what comes (or doesn't come) after life.

Incite fear in the ethically simple to prevent harm to others.

Prevent people from questioning authority; refer to previous statement.

Explain the inexplicable.

If people need comfort, if believing in a religion makes them happier, more helpful, more compassionate, loving people, religion is a good thing. It's a tool that we created that in turn uses us, for good and for ill. It gives some of us the misguided motivation to commit horrible deeds. It is often misused. I fear that sometimes it turns our own violent, divisive tendencies against us.

My ethical standards are high, even when viewed through a variety of love-founded religious lenses, but I refuse, absolutely, to uphold or support a belief system that furthers inequality between the sexes in any way, that condemns lifestyle choices, that excludes, or that reveres humanity above other forms of life. Life is precious, but in an infinite universe, there are infinite versions of all of us, and of other forms of life beyond our reckoning. There is just too much going on on so many levels, in so many dimensions, for us to be so conceited as to believe that we are the stars of this magnificent show.

Sometimes I'm absolutely sure that we're all lurking, insignificant, self-serving villains. The generic bad guys that get shot at the beginning of the movie.

Some people are so quick to reckon the motivations of gods and demons on a human scale.

Smarter, more thoughtful people than I are extremely devout. Perhaps they've realized something I haven't. Maybe they fall under the "needing ritual" or "requiring comfort" categories. Could be tradition, or have something to do with familial acceptance. Perhaps it's something I can't fathom. Religions are fascinating and almost all of them are appealing to me in particular ways. Even though I may MOSTLY agree with something... I just find it so hard to further something that I MOSTLY agree with while I completely disagree with parts of, even if to benefit it would be to feed the hungry, bring medical assistance to the sick, comfort the suffering and the lost and the hopeless... I can't find the boundary that separates the followers of religion who use it to promote understanding from those who use it to divide. The same religion produced both behaviors. Maybe the boundaries are extant within ourselves, and that only we can make them reality. Terrifying, and empowering.

The definition of Christianity, for example, appears to be conveniently mutable. People bend it and twist it as necessary to prove their points. Some definitions I have encountered are so diaphanous, circumscribed and vague that achieving Christianhood seems like an unattainable task, the domain of martyrs... or something more reminiscent of an LSD trip. Other definitions indicate that I just sort of AM Christian, somehow. Some Christians SAY it's one way, and the actions of other Christians "say" otherwise. If being a Christian means that I value life, love, faithfulness, honesty, understanding, acceptance, that's one thing. But if it means "allowing Christ to work through my actions and deeds, to invite Him into my being, to trust that His sacrifice results in the forgiveness of my sins, to be changed from the inside by the acceptance of the Holy Spirit so that all of my actions are pleasing to God and I lack all motive to do things contrary to His will," I'm not so sure. This rhetoric is familiar and empty to me. It's the same old divine control, on the rocks with a twist. Rather than being controlled from the outside, Thou Shalt Not and all that, one is being controlled from within, preferably without any conscious thought. You don't need conscious thought to be a Christian. In fact, better to not have any. Just listen and absorb.

I doubt my ability to be so sure of myself, and I would be suspicious of anybody who claimed to be. I am suspicious of anybody with the gall to judge me or condemn me before God judges me, or doesn't. I doubt the existence of "sin," even while I refuse to accept murder, betrayal, deceit, harm, etc. - not because these deeds mean estrangement from God, but because these things result in unhappiness, fear and suffering - here, now. That's what we have. It's what we KNOW we have, the here and the now, and we should do everything in our power to make the heres and nows of all living creatures as comfortable and joyful as possible.

The quatrains of Nostradamus are a good example of how words can be twisted to mean anything. My old statistics book is another example. Words mean different things to the same person at different times. Human motivation is extremely complex. It's also extremely human.

If Christ came down again and wrote the Word of God in a blog post, in Spanish... Would we heed it? Would He have to be a world-famous leader to incite change, to convince us of His power? Would He be a superhero? Would He be a starving child by a dingy riverside? Or, alternately, would anyone pay attention to the holy utterances of Christ, the son of an overworked programmer in Toyko? Is this profession less humble than that of carpenter? Would American Christians accept Christ if he were born in, say, Iran? Will there be a gay Christ, and a black Christ, and a chauvinist Christ and a mother Christ? Would "Christians" disbelieve the word of the new Christ for hundreds and hundreds of years because of their prejudice? In this case, would Christians have enough time to correct the error before humanity kills its planet?

These are all rhetorical questions based in common prejudices and ignorances, designed to make me think about the various perspectives of Christianity. I ponder just how prejudiced we all are, and sometimes I despair.

I am particularly appalled by a certain brand of Christianity that I've often encountered - the fear-driven brand. Fear God. Fear hell. Fear death. Fear what you don't understand, fear people who don't believe what you believe. Fear is the basest of emotions. I'm not surprised that in many cases, fearful people mistrust others that subscribe to completely different belief systems; fear leads to mistrust, and then to anger, which leads to prejudice and hate and worse. Fear is an excellent foundation for an effective dictatorship, but a terrible basis for spirituality.

Does ignorance come at the price of heaven? Here's an interesting exercise: What if, when we die, we'll all sit down in a vast room and take a Spirituality exam - all of us, the creationists and the atheists and the gurus, the uncontacted tribeswomen of the Amazon, the Buddhas, babies, suicide bombers, rapists, teachers, priests. I think a lot of people would get a lot of answers wrong, in the name of religion. Love is the answer. Can one rape in the name of love? Hate in the name of love? Divide or exclude in the name of love?

People hate in the name of God every day.

People love in the name of God every day.

A tool is "an entity used to interface between two or more domains that facilitates more effective action of one domain upon the other" (Wikipedia), or a device intended to make a task easier. At best, religion is an elaborate device intended to make it easier for our sentient, sapient, spiritual species to thrive in a mysterious universe.

What do you and I have, right here, right now? What do you and I think about it? Do we spend our time allowing the things we want to make us unhappy, here and now? It's all we know we have. We must use it wisely.