05/22/2013

after reading about the meat cleaver incident in london, i can’t help but feel overwhelmed and frustrated that one of the biggest, if not the biggest, thing that divides us as humans has absolutely no proof.

i was never raised in the church. i couldn’t tell you the ten commandments off the top of my head. i don’t have favorite bible verses. i’m not baptized. at one point i went to church camp but i always felt weird because people at church camp who found out i wasn’t baptized freaked out. my counselors at church camp repeatedly told us that if we knew someone who didn’t believe in god we should try to teach that person to see the light otherwise that person wouldn’t go to heaven. it didn’t matter if that person was the greatest, kindest, most selfless person. it only mattered that you believed in god and asked for forgiveness.

why?

i think religion has a place. that place was thousands of years ago before science and space exploration and the ability to know what caused simple things like weather patterns and disease. ancient greeks created gods to explain things they couldn’t understand. it makes the world a smaller, safer place if you can attempt to explain big, scary things that are sometimes impossible to conceive.

i think there probably was some magnificent man named jesus who showed the sick some love.

immaculate conception? nah. healing the blind? probably not. noah’s ark? no. creating the world in a few days? definitely not.

i’m focusing on christianity because i’m most familiar with it. i studied islamic history in college and i can tell you that for as much as radical christians and radical muslims fight, the two religions have incredibly similar back stories.

it’s about money and power and greed. religion is just a pretty face that disguises all of those terrible things.

i think it’s even worse in civilized countries. we have the education and the ability to understand things. we have options and books and knowledge and freedoms that third world countries don’t have.

i think faith is a beautiful and stupid thing. sometimes i wish i could have blind faith. sometimes i wish death wasn’t actually death. when i paint the picture of death in my head, it’s dark and empty and unfathomably forever. on my best days i like to imagine my next life as a tree, but there is no next life. there’s only right now. i only have sixty or so more years (if i’m lucky) to be kind and smile and give all of myself to the world because after that, there’s nothing else.

even if i look past the violence and greed, religion still sucks. it’s a safety net that allows people to do shitty, cruel things because at the end of the day, god forgives believers.

i am not a believer. it would kill my mom to know that. i’m not damning myself for saying that; i’m not scared of a judgement day. every single day that i wake up in good health with all of my fingers and toes is judgement day. will i smile at strangers? will i hold the door for the person coming in behind me? will i tell the people i care about that i love them? will i be selfless? how will i impact everyone around me? am i kind? am i good? am i doing everything i possibly can to make sure that i am being a moral, responsible person?

religion divides us more than it brings us together and because of that, it ultimately defeats itself.

i don’t need to get into the logistics about how people in power have twisted the words of the bible to hold minorities and women down for centuries. i don’t need to talk about crusades and current wars that are fueled by religion. i don’t even need to talk about the people who will view me differently or feel sorry for me because i don’t believe in god. that’s the whole point.

open your eyes! open your minds! open your hearts and be kind and accepting. change your perspective! use your logic! study things like science and history without any blinders! stop arguing about marriage laws and whether  we can use the word "christmas" and bake some cookies for your neighbors. we have such a short time here and you can’t do it over.