Alright everyone. It's time. I apologize in advance. I'm going to use poo-poo words to talk about religion. If you give a shit, please don't read this. I'm pretty surprised I stayed away from this topic for this long. Let's talk religion (sorry Jeebus).
To get a good feel for what religion is, we need to talk about what people are and what people need. Many people need to feel like there's order in their life. People need to feel continuity in things that they don't understand and at the same time people need to feel important and unique. Ratinoally, it's tough to square this desire of uniqueness with the thought that you're just one of untold billions of pieces of crap, circling space, waiting to be flushed down the toilet of eternity. In revealing that cosmic truth to someone, many people think you're insulting them. A child can look into the night and imagine, even viscerally feel, a world full of unseen and unimaginable horrors, that is unless a spiderman nightlight gives them a bit of reassurance. Lots of people shit their pants because of the always present spectre of bad things happening, that is unless they have the adult nightlight "religion". If we just say that bad things like Dave Coullier, Dancing with the stars, and puppies getting explosive diarrhea is all part of God's plan, well people feel better because at least we're not being tortured by these awful things arbitrarily.
Why do we think that in the year 2008 we are any more intelligent that all the golden calf worshiping heathens 2000 years ago.
Present Day Religious Person: "Worshiping Thor is stupid and unintelligent, but let me tell you about Scientology and how Xenu imprisoned billions of souls via a giant electro-magnetic cage."
Sure, it's incredible what we have at hand with technology now-a-days, but you have to remember that individual intellect is no more advanced than those living a thousand years ago. Scientific advances have brought society light-years ahead of where we were, but we're still reverting to that desire to say that someone in the clouds is pulling the strings. Many say this invisible cop is why the sun comes up every morning, and why I don't murder people for fun.
Why, though, did God get off his lazy-ass 2000 years ago, and not 3000 years ago? He could have "saved" untolds millions more people. Why weren't Asians, or African cultures in on this little secret called salvation? Why does God love Jews so much?
Why didn't God start saving people in pre-historic times? What happened to cavemen souls after they got done selling auto insurance? It's no fault of their own that God hated them, and forced them to live in a world of sleeping on rocks and eating wooly-mammoth turds to stay alive. Why the hell are certain people chosen to receive the word of God? I thought He loved everyone equally. What about other religions/people? Is their form of worship kosher just as long as they're mono-theistic? Saying only mono-theism is alright pretty much fucks native americans, tribal societies, Greeks, and environmentalists who simultaneously worship Al Gore and Obama.
For the sake of argument let's accept that it's perfectly fine for anyone to worship in their own way. Everyone should be able to get to heaven so long as they're a good person, right? That is, unless, you agree that God chose caucasians and says, "Fuck the yellows/darkies! I like BMW's and bratwursts. Europe! Fuck yeah!" Well what the fuck!
So just because my great-great-great-great-great grandparents received the story of Christ and his ressurection, and I can't claim ignorance, I have to live by a whole bunch of rules and self-loathe weekly to get into heaven? What about tribal people! It's not their fault they weren't taught that meat on Fridays during Lent, tattoos, and droopy-boobs are enough to relegate someone to pits of hell forever.
We had better decide that of all the religions out there in the world there is one right religion, or we must decide that they are all crocks of shit. If every religion is equally valid, every religion is equally invalid. If every maintstream religion is acceptable then there's nothing unique or correct about anyone's personal take on religion. Either every religion is wrong or there's one particular sect who's getting it just right, in which case 99% of the population had better get used the idea of spending a gajillion, bajillion years of having red hot coals shoved up their ass for eternity because we're all going to hell (me especially).
Which is it?
I do understand that religion encourages positive traits. I do understand that children need guidance and by telling them these biblical stories we seem to get the message through to them. People need a sense of community, and in the world today there are very few ways that people can connect with each other. Churches do contribute positively to society. Who else is going to do the dirty work of seriously reach out to the poor, give old people something to look forward to every morning, and rape little boys? NAMBLA only has one of those bases covered, so there is obviously a need.
It seems like society needs a way of connecting citizens together and feeling like they're part of something bigger than themselves. We need ways of teaching our children what is expected of them, and what society will not accept in terms of behavior. I just wish there was a less self-congratulatory, hypocritical, guilt-ridden, ivory-tower sitting, anal sex not having way of going about it.
Sorry for the ridiculousness of this post, but I would like to think I'm a very good person. I try to practice all of the virtues extolled in the bible (without quite so much Jew-violence though). Patience, virtue, humility, temperence, blah, blah, blah. It's all something to strive for and I am the first to admit that I fail every day in developing these virtues in myself. With all of this said, just please don't tell me to be something I'm not because some string-puller upstairs is watching me whenever I kick kittens.
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