Aspiration Toward Inspiration

Every once in a while (okay, probably more like “often”), I feel the need to rant about religion. People are often surprised by this, as one of the things which people often learn about me at the beginning of our relationship is that I am religious. I go to church every Sunday, lead a youth group, and engage in a plethora of inter- and intrareligious activities.

AND YET

I pretty much hate a lot (most?) of what religion does in our world today. Yes, religion helps those at the bottom rungs of society and sends aid (and missionaries!) to those poor wretches who were so unlucky to be born outside of the promised land (America, not Palestine), but it also furthers ignorance and a variety of ridiculous paradigms that can a) lead people to act against their better judgment, b)lead people to justify their otherwise unjustifiable bigotry, and/or c) suspend critical inquiry and follow the “leadership” of those who hold power and influence in their respective tradition. Religion has been, is, and will be for whatever unforeseeable span of time in the future, dangerous.

Much of the religious world manages to defend sexism, homophobia, classism, racism, nationalism, arbitrary hierarchies, blatant and thoughtless consumption of natural resources and our natural world (“development” at best, “Who cares? Judgment Day is just around the corner” at worst), and conspicuous consumption as “the will of God.” If this were not horrible and ridiculous enough on its own, they then proceed to tell the rest of us heathens that we should be doing the same.

If religious mindsets are often not dangerous enough in their ignorance, they are made exponentially more dangerous by the perceived call of adherents to proselytize. Jesus loves you, but not enough to drag your sinful butt out of a pit of hellfire if you don’t tithe 10% and stop having gay sex.

Yes, I know that non-Abrahamic traditions (and one of those Abrahamic) tend not to care so much about the ultimate destinies of those not currently adhering to their own traditions (and often hate it when we start delving into them as flowery-happy alternatives to our own). Just because they don’t wish to push their cosmologies on us (thank the Lord?) doesn’t mean they’re not spewing their own forms of ignorance and convincing their children to adopt such paradigms before they’re able to find a decent grasp on the world.

It must be because I’m an American that I believe in things like progress, but I truly believe that any form of religion that is convincing people to forego common sense or justify injustice is one that needs to reexamine its relevance and Truth.
One should be asking themselves if the MONEY their organization is taking in is going to the things it talks about on pulpits. One should be asking if the topics their organizations claim to care about are being put into action on all fronts, not just the ones it deems appropriate. (Are you just protesting abortion or are you looking out for all issues that are about life?)

If the paramount form of religious observation is simply to believe x,y, and z, what is your religion accomplishing? Is your God so fickle that the only thing s/he cares about is your professed love? So what? A husband that beats the crap out of his wife can swear he loves her a million times over, but if that love isn’t demonstrated and acted upon, what is it accomplishing besides a beaten-up wife? Is religion’s only purpose to make people believe things? If that’s the case, one’s religious faith is about as useful as a hand stamp to get into a club. Its only merit is the purpose for which it was created. That’s not a merit! Because I have a blade for my blender, it will blend things, but without that blender, it’s not really doing much.

So I guess what this is boiling down to is if religion’s main function is to convince people to believe certain unsubstantiated things in order that they can be “saved,” then it’s probably a load of crap. Faith can be a beautiful thing, but if its only function is to get you into heaven, I’d have to ask why else it’s useful. Why would an institution possibly want me to believe what it’s asking me to believe?

SO.

What is religion doing for me? What am I doing for religion?

If all religion is doing for me is keeping me out of Hell (which, btw, is not in the Bible, so be extra careful about Christians that are telling you that because WHERE THE HECK are they getting their information?), and not doing much for me in the here and now (other than performing the functions of a circle of friends/family (occasionally bailing you out of a mess, acting as a dating service, throwing parties, etc.)), then what is its purpose, if (God forbid) they happen to be lying or ill-informed or interpreting a weird dream as revelation (when it wasn’t) or interpreting their schizophrenia as voices of the divine? If, for whatever reason, your religion is wrong, what is it getting you to do that you might not otherwise do?

If it’s simply feeding poor people, whatever, who cares? But if your religion is asking you to give it a bunch of money for stained glass windows and other gaudy displays of wealth, it’s effectively asking you to buy it the Mercedes that its day job wouldn’t afford it. If your religion is asking you to hate people or prevent them from obtaining rights, maybe you should wipe the fog off of your glasses and examine things a little more deeply. If your religion is saying that certain people shouldn’t have educations or that certain well-established forms of scholarship and research are lies, maybe you should ask them why they would want to do that. If your religion is promoting what the educated of the world would call ignorance, maybe you should ask why they want you to be that stupid.

Or maybe you should just feel comfortable in your faith that you’re going to heaven and I’m not.