Holy Crap! Or is it?

Looks Like A Lesson but Isn’t

Today’s article is not so much a lesson, instructional, pep talk or philosophical discussion, as it is me thinking out loud and sharing some of my ideas, experiences and thoughts on a subject that I’ve purposely avoided for three and half years (the time this site has been in existence). Scaredy Cat, I know. I am regularly asked why I never explore or discuss religion (in general terms) here at me-dot-com. Now before you panic, don’t. There’s no need. This will not be a religious article (as such) and I have no bombshell to drop on you or religious agenda to push. So breathe easy kids.

If anything, these days I’m decidedly un-religious. If that’s a word.

This post is lengthy, so you might want to get comfortable.

Why Bother?

For the most part, I guess I’ve avoided this subject because I consider most religious discussions to be a waste of time and energy as the majority of us are relatively hard-wired when it comes to our religious beliefs. Or lack of religious beliefs, as the case may be. That is, we’re not particularly open to ‘learning’ new things, genuinely considering another theological perspective or exploring anything which might contradict, or conflict with, our current religious paradigm or world view. And, let’s be honest, most religious discussions aren’t really discussions at all – unless the participants are already batting for the same team. So to speak. And in that case, it’s probably more of a pep rally than it is a meaningful exploratory dialogue.

Excuse me, Can I try on your Kaftan?

Could you imagine a devout Christian genuinely considering the theology of his Muslim neighbour as a viable alternative, or vice-versa? Me either. Or maybe a life-long orthodox Jew weighing it all up and concluding that Catholicism is a better eternal option? What about a Jehovah’s Witness deciding that orange is his preferred colour and becoming a Hare Krishna? Of course there are always exceptions, but they are definitely not the norm.

No, as a rule, it seems that once we learn that “we’re right and all the others are wrong” (as most religions teach), it’s almost impossible to have a logical, rational and unemotional discussion or to learn another truth. After all, there’s only one truth – and we’re the proud owners of it.

Common Ground

Sarcasm aside, if there is one universal belief among the various religions of the world I guess it’s that they each believe they have the only hot-line to God. Or whatever they choose to call Him. Or Her. “Sure the others might think they are God’s chosen people, but we know we’re the real deal.”

Religious Ego

For me to believe that only I (and those in my religious group) have a monopoly on the Creator of the Universe (if there is one) and the afterlife (if there is one), would be the epitome of religious arrogance, intolerance and self-righteousness. In my opinion anyway. The more questions I ask and the more investigating I do in this area, the more I realise how little I know and what a huge role programming, conditioning, upbringing and environment play in determining our religious beliefs. Our internal reality. Did for me anyway.

If you want to see some emotion, verbal jousting, irrational behaviour and occasional violence, simply introduce religion into any group discussion next time you’re in a social setting.

The Disclaimer

Now before anyone gets defensive, reactive, angry or weird on me, let me be clear that it’s not my intention to talk anyone into, or out of, any particular theological school of thought with this post. It’s my objective to simply share a little of my history, a few ideas and to ask some relevant questions.

Growing Up

I have always been fascinated by religion. I grew up in it. I went to school in it. I was taught it from a young age. Even as a youngster, I was always asking complex and deep theological questions. I drove my folks nuts. I was curious and wanted to know what the grown-ups knew. As a member of my family, I had no choice in the matter; religion and church were simply components of the world I inhabited. Like many of you, I was told how ‘things’ worked. You know: the God thing. The heaven and hell thing. Good and bad. Punishment. Life after death. Salvation. Miracles. Eternity. Angels. Saints. Sinners. Forgiveness. Redemption.

As a youngster, I was taught that the man behind the curtain (the priest) had the ability to absolve me from my (numerous) sins. He could clear my sinful slate on God’s behalf because he was God’s chosen representative on earth. Lucky me. At the time, that was my truth. My reality. It was all I knew. I had no reason to question it.

Can You Smell Smoke?

The idea of a world beyond the one I could see, feel, touch and smell excited me, intrigued me, confused me and periodically, scared the crap out of me; especially when it came to the stuff about burning in hell for not complying with the team rules. I remember going through a stage when I would have regular nightmares about being burned to a crisp because of, among other things, my teenage-boy thoughts. Damn those pubescent hormones. Apparently when it comes to the eternal score sheet (you know, the one God keeps) thinking is the same as doing, so I was doomed for sure. Or so I believed. It’s like, one day I wasn’t interested in girls, the next day they were all I could think about.

Bloody testosterone.

I often wondered why God would give me testosterone and make girls look and smell so good and then tell me not to entertain impure thoughts. Talk about making it hard for a kid. If He had made girls look and smell like a Dugong then that phase of my development would certainly have been a lot less stressful.

Thank goodness for sport. 

The Chosen

Early on I learned that I had been born into the one true religion; the only one that would give me an express ticket to heaven. If I followed the rules of course. How lucky for me. And how sad for everyone else: the deluded and misinformed majority. Oh well, I could always pray for their sinful souls. But the one who really needed the prayer was, of course, me. While my mind wanted to comply with the getting-to-heaven rules, my teenage body had an agenda of its own. Fair to say, I struggled with one or two rules in particular.

Don’t over-think that.

What Options?

As a kid, it never occurred to me that there may have been other viable options when it came to the whole spiritual journey. Or maybe that there was another truth; one that was more… er, right… for me. Or maybe that I didn’t need to have it all figured out by the time I was fifteen. Or fifty even. Or that maybe it was all rubbish. Perhaps I could even bypass religion all together. Nobody told me it was optional. It also never occurred to me that perhaps the grown-ups in my world were wrong. Why would it? Or what if – horror of horrors – there was no God? No eternal resting place? No, that just couldn’t be. There must be a heaven; it was simply too confronting and uncomfortable to consider otherwise. 

Eternity 101

When they (the grown-ups) told me how the whole getting-to-heaven thing worked (what I was most interested in; it did seem like the perfect post-life destination) they didn’t add “I’m pretty sure about that” at the end of each sentence. And of course, grown-ups know more than kids and of course, they are to be trusted. Aren’t they? They know how stuff works because another grown-up taught them when they were young. And someone taught their teacher… and so on… and so on. And then I was born and it was my turn to learn the truth.

In almost a thousand articles on this site, I have never really explored or discussed religion – even though it plays such a large part in so many of our lives. And for good reason. For the most part, as a writer, I can’t win with this discussion. No matter what I write, think or believe, I will alienate a percentage of my readers because it is such an emotive and divisive topic and we’ll never all be on the same page. Yet stupidly, here I am typing.

We Believe What We Believe

Generally speaking, religion is one of the few discussions where logic, reason and objectivity are almost irrelevant; we believe what we believe because we believe what we believe. Think about it objectively and unemotionally for a moment. Try to anyway. If you were raised in a different family with totally different beliefs and culture, is it likely that you would have different beliefs to what you currently consider your non-negotiable and absolute faith? Is it likely that you might be just as certain about a completely different truth? My whole family is (insert religion of choice), therefore, so am I.

A Need to Believe

The reality is that most of us want to believe in a caring, loving, all-knowing supernatural something. Or someone. Most of us (in Western culture) call that being God. Having a ‘relationship with our creator’ (let’s not get started on the evolution versus creation debate – we’ll leave that for another day) makes us feel more comfortable, safe and secure. In our head anyway. The idea of a God-less life is unthinkable to many of us. Am I suggesting that God is not real? No, I wouldn’t dare. I am suggesting that most of us won’t consider a life without God, so we leave that option off our list. Is that okay? Yep.

The idea of considering another truth – or perhaps that what we currently believe might be wrong (or partially wrong) – makes us so uncomfortable and so defensive that we’ll do almost anything to protect our emotional investment – that is, all the time and energy we’ve spent living in our current paradigm. People who already have certain spiritual and/or religious beliefs (no, they’re not the same) don’t want to consider that maybe they’ve been misinformed, misled or scammed. It would be too painful, so they ignore the doubt (some might say logic) and continue on their way. Which is why we find many people to be critical of philosophies and/or theologies that they’ve never even explored. They are defiantly against things they know nothing about. I spoke to someone recently who told me that one of my favourite spiritual teachers is a well-meaning, but misguided fool. No surprise to learn that this particular critic has never read one single page of the “fool’s” writing. When I asked why, I was informed that he “didn’t need to”.

Of course.

Faith and Knowledge

Let’s be honest, when it comes to the God-eternity-life-death-salvation-heaven-hell thing, none of us can prove anything. Sure, we can think, believe and espouse whatever we choose – we can even quote scripture and get all self-righteous and angry about it – but we can’t actually prove anything. If we could prove it (whatever it is), then we wouldn’t need faith because we’d have knowledge. Neither would it be called religion; it would be called science.

Can you imagine approaching medicine the way we approach religion? Imagine making life-impacting decisions about the various medical treatments, drugs and life-threatening operations based purely on what we feel could be true. And imagine talking to ten medical experts who all tell you something totally different about your condition. And not only that, they also tell you that their medicine is the only medicine that can heal you and save your life. Yep, you and I live in a time when we won’t even treat an infected finger without involving science, knowledge and logic in the decision making process, but we’ll go to war and kill people if we think that’s what God wants. Well, some of us will.

Sigh.

Imagine if I was a doctor and I took the “current medical thinking and understanding” of, say, five hundred years ago and I applied it to treat people today. I’d be considered an idiot – among other things – and banned from practicing medicine. Of course, when it comes to the various fields of science, we’re expected to be open-minded. To learn new things. To ask questions. To explore. To research. To disagree. To use our intelligence and logic. And to challenge existing beliefs.

But not when it comes to religion.

Boat Rockers

When someone within a particular religious group challenges or questions the doctrine (thinking, beliefs, rules) of that particular religion (I can speak with some authority here), it’s not uncommon for them to be criticised, labelled a back-slider, marginalised, ex-communicated and sadly, in some (rare) instances, physically harmed. Questioning doctrine and independent thought are generally not things which are encouraged and supported in most religious groups – no matter what they might tell you. Unless of course, your independent thinking and searching results in your realignment with the group’s theology and rules. “Yes Brother Craig, you’re unconditionally welcome and loved here – as long as you believe what we believe.”

“Er… but wouldn’t that make it conditional?”

Where to Worship?

For some people, their place of worship will have a cross on the roof. For others, the Star of David might identify their meeting place. Some might know they’re in the right building by the statue of the Buddha in the corner and for others, their church will be defined by a sign above the front door that says Fitness First.

I have friends who are Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Evangelical Christian, Atheist and Agnostic – just to name a few. To be honest, I’m not nearly as interested in their religious beliefs as I am interested in them as people: their personality, their attitudes, their behaviours, their nature and the way they treat others. I don’t like people more or less because they do or don’t share my philosophical and theological perspectives. In fact, quite often I’m drawn to people who are nothing like me at all.

Life in the Catholic Zone

I grew up in a Catholic family, went to Catholic schools, attended a Catholic University, taught at a Catholic University, have Catholic parents (of course) and a bunch of great Catholic friends. For the most part, I enjoyed my Catholic upbringing. So, am I a Catholic now? No. I haven’t been to mass for twenty-eight years. Am I anti-Catholic? Not at all. Anti-Religion? No. Anti-church? No. Do I still ask questions and look to the sky and wonder? Sometimes.

Do I still search for meaning beyond my understanding and knowledge? Yep. Is it possible I’m totally wrong in all of this? Of course. Am I open to learn new things? Yep. Have I explored other philosophies and theologies? Plenty. Do I have it figured out yet? No. Is that okay? Yep. Is it okay that I question, doubt and disagree? Or maybe agree? Or even change my mind? Yep. Is it okay that my parents and I have different views, beliefs and philosophies? Yes, healthy even. Does it affect our relationship? Only if we allow it to.

The moment religion becomes a problem is when we try to force our opinions, ideas, beliefs, standards and behaviours onto others. Like all man-made institutions, religion can be a positive or a negative – depending on what we do with it, what it represents to us and how it impacts on our choices, behaviours and treatment of others.

Well done for making it this far.

I need to lie down.

And go to confession.

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