Welcome to the third installment of my discussion of my personal religious beliefs. If you haven't read the first installment or the second installment, please at least go back and read the first couple of paragraphs of the first one for a grounding in what these things actually are.
A bit of stuff to clear up about last week's installment. Yes, I've heard all the reasons why Mormons are not considered Christian, please stop sending them to me. I personally see no validity in them. Your mileage may vary, and you have every right to believe something that I do not. I don't intend to stop you, and this is not an attempt to convince you that I am correct. This is entirely an exercise in putting my own beliefs in words. If you read my first installment, you know that I have some serious problems with the Mormon Church itself. I fully intend to cover those points eventually. The "lady" who e-mailed me every anti-Mormon argument in existence will get no response from me, simply because I'm not covering those bits yet. Yes, I'm familiar with them, and I fully intend to tackle them here someday, if I bother to keep writing this. But I refuse to have fifteen arguments going on via e-mail. I'll keep it all here. Except for the folks I have had correspondence from before and I already respect, I will not respond to e-mails about this subject. Period, end of story.
So on to today's actual subject:
Why do people have religion? I mean, what's the point anyway?
I had a friend in college who told me that religion is stupid. People should rely on themselves, not in some higher power, he said. Anyone who practices any religion is simply showing off their weaknesses. Believe in yourself, not in some god. While I fully understand his opinion, I have to disagree that relying on God is weakness. Yeah, I figure anyone who sits back and does nothing, saying "God will provide" is an idiot, but if you've done everything humanly possible to help yourself, then relying on God to provide that last boost isn't always a bad thing.
I'm not very focused today, so this particular topic will probably extend into the next set of musings. Anyway...
Where did religion come from? What started people looking up and thinking "there is a more powerful being looking down on me."? Is it a racial lack of self-confidence, or is there more to it than that? And what about the cultures that seem to lack the idea of "supreme being" and have ancestor worship or belief in the sprits of objects? What is this thing we generically call religion, and are we really better off with it?
Since I'm in a negative mood, I think I'll cover the bad aspects of religion first. Let's recall how much evil has been done in the name of religion. From suicide terrorists to the Crusaders, to the first person who ever died because they didn't believe "the truth", humanity has constantly shamed its own beliefs by its actions. Christianity is a peaceful religion. So is Islam. Unless you happen to believe one of the extremists, who would rather that anyone who doesn't believe as they do should be dead. Then both of those major religions gain a violent history and reputation. So these codes of conduct, supported with rewards after you die, are constantly being manipulated/twisted by evil people for their own ends. We can't even keep to the truth of our own beliefs without being led astray into murder. So what good is religion?
It was very hard for me, the first time I ventured into this line of thinking, to even understand the question. Remember, I was raised with a belief in God. The concept that there isn't a God is more than just foreign to me, it is simply unthinkable. And that colored my perceptions even while I grappled with the history of religion and with my own search for my personal beliefs. I have tried to think of a universe that happened at random. I have tried to get into the mindset, and imagine what it would take for the world to come into existence without a designer, and for our civilization to arise, and it is simply too much. Too much coincidence, too much impossibility. Yeah, it could happen. I read enough science fiction to be able to appreciate the concept. But I can't apply it to the world myself. God exists for me, and therefore religion must exist. Even if it's not always a good thing.
Ok, so religion exists because God exists. That's my line of thinking. So, how do I know that God exists?
The quickest way for me to remind myself that God exists is to simply look around. I've got eyes, and I can see. I am sitting in a comfortable place, communicating with others. I live in a house, it exists. I exist. The world exists. How could there not be a God?
Hmmm, good argument to convince someone who is already convinced, but kind of useless for anyone who thinks the world happened by chance.
And so, I think I'd best leave this until I'm actually able to think it through better, since I'm definitely not making sense now. Feel free to drop your own thoughts in here, but please don't e-mail me anymore. I want to focus on one idea at a time.
0 comments:
Post a Comment