Organized Religion
The other day I was at dinner with my parents and sister and the subject of why I'm not very
religious came up. My sister, who is a firm believer in Christianity, wanted to know what I
had against it. Well, being the opinionated fool that I am, I snapped back at her, "Where
do you want me to start?"
I started off with how I hated that Christianity throughout the centuries will
say something like slavery is acceptable and not sinful. That you can even find
use of it within the bible by all those saintly figures. But when slavery became
unacceptable within today's society the church changed what they stand for. They
then started saying holding others in slavery is considered sinful.
It's like the pope, and all of the bishops, and priests in the world had the big guy in the
sky speak to them and say that slavery has now been changed to a sin. Like religion is one
big company and they decided to make a change in their policy.
You might start to think, Senseless Bastard, why are you bashing on Christianity?
The answer to this is simple, I was raised around Christianity, a large percentage
of my friends are Christian, and I know the most about it. So as far as my problem
with organized religion goes, Christianity will be my focus.
Now back to my bashing. Another aspect I don't like is how people feel the need to push
their religion onto you. Now this pertains to religions other than Christianity. One
everyone can relate to is the Jehovah Witnesses who comes to your home while your eating
dinner or sleeping. Not only is their timing bad, but then they won't go away. It's like a
door to door telemarketer for religion. If I wanted to find God or become a Jehovah
Witness, the last thing to convince me would be some religious freak at my door.
Not to get away from my favorite organized religion for to long, I want to point out that
Christians are guilty of pushing their religion too. Actually I can support this with both
personal experience and any high school history book.
As far as personal experience goes, I was faced with the pressure of conformity during my
high school days from people I considered and still consider some of my best friends.
Knowing they applied this pressure a few times was okay to me because I knew they did it
only out of concern. But eventually they went over board. I went to some youth group
meetings and that was fine, but then they started to expect my participation regularly.
They also went as far as to bring their youth leader to school so he could give me the sales
pitch during lunch.
Very uncool.
By that point I had become so saturated with religious pressure and pushing I just ignored
anyone when they brought up the subject. Thus, the one big reason for the way I feel.
Also, this pressuring of ones religion is seen throughout history, especially during the
migration from Europe to North and South America. During these 300 to 400 years many a
colonists, priest, soldiers, and others were shipped to the Americas with not only the
purpose of colonizing but with the purpose of converting the "savage" Indians.
To attempt to convert the Indians is fine, but to kill them if they didn't convert is bull
shit. And then what they did next I hate more then anything. They hid behind the reasoning
that what they were doing was in the name of God, so it's justified.
Murder is murder.
The God I know and everyone generally believes in would never condone the killing
of anyone, no matter what the cause is.
So now you must be thinking I have one major chip on my shoulder when religion is concerned.
In a way I do, but let it be known that some of the morals and ideas they preach are okay in
my book.
I am open to things you know.
I do agree with the idea of good family values and that you should treat others
with the same respect as you wish to be treated. I like that religion gives people
a support net. But only when that support net is not abused and the person becomes
overly dependent on it. I think the involvement of family is good as long as it
stays in a supporting role, but not when it is dominating and condemning. And
I agree that murder and rape are wrong no matter how you look at them.
So parts of religion I am cool with and of course I didn't list everything, but I feel that
when religion is broken down to its basic form it has the right idea. I think there is a
higher power somewhere and that he/she wants us to have faith (not blind suicidal faith mind
you) that he/she is out there.
Some questions to ponder:
If there is a higher power like God, then shouldn't it be above the need for praise and the
occasional religious crusade?
Is there really even a God out there or is the idea of one just a support net that has been
around for thousands of years?
Is the true purpose behind having a heaven/hell and God/Satan to scare us straight?
If there are so many religions in the world how can one religion be so confident that theirs
is the right one?
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