We're the only species on the planet that is aware of own mortality. This more than anything else, makes us stand out from the rest. Yet this simple fact has spawned death and years of wars, as man over the ages, for some unknown reason, has striven for a deeper meaning to life. I don't believe there is one. Birth and death, it's as simple as that.
I abhor all organised religions and detest their methods of indoctrination of our young. I was indoctrinated into the Catholic religion beginning with my baptism at a few months old, and through my school years found the teachings of the Bible incoherent.
I was taught mathematics, chemistry, physics, etc, and then told to separate these teachings and somehow believe my religious studies. I just couldn't do it. Having a pragmatic mind cost me dear, as my tutors in religion had much cause for consternation, and I often found myself suffering countless detentions for insubordination and what they called "cheek", but was merely a need for some kind of factuality. In the chemistry lab, when the tutor told us that a particular chemical would explode on contact with another, it did. Theory, experiment, and fact. Same goes for physics and mathematics. I could comprehend these things, I could not, however, comprehend a being like the Holy Trinity, or Jesus being resurrected from the dead. A simple question like "Where did man come from?" was supposed to be answered, "The Garden of Eden". But, from my history and geography studies, I was lead to believe we probably originated in Africa, and that no one really knew for sure.
I was in a constant state of confusion. It would have been much more beneficial if I'd been spared the religious teachings till I was much older. There was, for a long period in my life, a complete confliction in my mind about what was real and what was a faith. Needless to say, it had dire repercussions later in my life.
At the tender age of four or five I was expected to distinguish between what was real and what was the creed of a particular belief system, 25 years or so down the line, I still have severe problems with it.
I found the Catholic religion fraught with contradictions and cruelty and hypocrisy. Telling young children that if they are not "good" they will burn in the pits of hell is a disastrous crime against humanity, and quite frankly, should be up there with child abuse.
I dare say children should learn the difference between right and wrong, but just because you have a faith in a God does not automatically make you a good person.
I suggest that if we must teach our children religion, why not wait till they are of an age to understand it and give them a teaching of all religions, and not just one. Let them make up their own minds, when they are of an age to do so. I knew nothing of the Koran, or of the Jewish teachings, or of any other religions come to that. The entire religious education I received was bigoted, backward and stunted.
I have read many books on the subject of man's need to believe in something other than the fact that, like a tree or an insect, we come, we breed, we evolve, we die. And I know I fight a losing battle. But surely I can't be the only person on the planet who thinks these thoughts.
The ancient Inca's believed in the Sun God, the Rain God etc, and regularly gave bloody human sacrifices to appease their Gods, that is until the Spanish arrived on their shores with Catholicism, a much less bloody religion by far. Strange how thousands of years of worship can be literally dropped overnight for a more civilised creed.
I have done my own research into other religions, Jehovah's Witness, Protestant, Mormon, etc, and to me they are the same. None hold any answers for me. There is an Indian woman, residing in the UK, who has been on the run from her family, for six years. They want her dead, simply because she does not wish to marry her parent's choice of husband. And the root of this heinous example is of course religion. Or, should I say her parent's interpretation of the Koran, which if I recall correctly, does not even mention that couples of different creeds should not marry.
So, it becomes clear, does it not, that it is not the religions themselves which cause the damage, but man's interpretation. Man being the evil, not the creed. But it is still a fact that man himself wrote these various creeds. So where am I going with this? You may well ask. We, as an entire species have been given the gifts of free will and a unique understanding of our fate, so why is it so hard to accept that we, like our fellow creatures, are all doomed to perish, end of story. We survive vicariously on a small rock, which spins in an immense space. We are nothing but mere bugs in the grand scale of things. Our insignificant world could be destroyed at any moment.
We should treat our fellow men as we would be treat and just enjoy and be eternally grateful for the little time we have here.
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