The Mighty Platypus.: April 2010

Religion. Bet you didn't think this was the subject for this here blog post, did you? Recently Roomie C and I had a discussion on religion and our views and I felt like sharing. Many a year ago or so, I, the resident and notorious advocate for agnostics (or at least radical views when looked at by some religious organizations and people) used to attend christian schools. Yup, schools. As in plural. Like one wasn't enough to dispel me. Just to get one thing straight: I do believe in a higher power. It's religion of the organized kind I don't. I've seen what some people do in church read, balance a check book, talk, sleep, and zone out. So why do these people go? If you are going to put a label on your faith than for fucks sake have some damn pride in it! You have this bible, read it, interpret it, develop your own views and stick by them. Don't just go to church and call yourself a christian or catholic, know your religion. Why do so many belong to these branches of religion and yet don't take the initiative to understand it? I think it's lazy to go and listen to others interoperate the bible for you when there it is for you to read and interpret for yourself. There are people I've met that I can't even debate with when it comes to this either, why, because they get angry and reply with things like: 'that's not true!', 'you're going to hell!', or just plain repeating 'no' without giving me a reason why. How can I take you and your views on religion seriously when you don't? If your answers to what I have to say don't explain your reasons or whys than I hate to tell you this, but it's not your religion, it's you parents or someone else's and you are just running around saying you're religious. Also, I hate to say this but stop using religion as a reason NOT to take responsibility for your actions. Yes, I've seen this happen. You do something bad or something bad happens, the devil did it. How are you supposed to learn and grow as a person? Or the opposite, you do something great, God did it. No, you did. You bloody well did it. Maybe the influence is there, but neither God nor the Devil possessed you and made you do it. You so did, if not then that whole 'free will' deal would be BS. And the guilt! Dear lord the guilt! I don't get that either. Sure, feel guilty, but don't waste your life on it. I think that is a bigger insult to your God than ignoring his existence. You are given this life, all these beautiful things in the world and you may acknowledge their beauty but you don't honor it. You pay churches so they can expand and become bigger. Giant ass churches with all these expensive things. Is that what your religion is supposed to be about? Money? Glamour? For me, I have never been closer to God than when I have been in a forest surrounded by all the beauty and chaos that was created by God. And killing in the name of God...do you realize how stupid that is? Or building an army for God (yeah, evangelists). How can you not see this? Read the basics of your own damn faith here people. Thou shalt not kill, love thy neighbor, do not judge...? Is this ringing any fuckin' bells from sunday school? Why would God want you to kill each other if he made everyone? I see a thought process you are missing here, so how about not being mindless masses? Yes, no, maybe? Stop making your own God out to be a tyrant because some man, yeah that's right, another man tells you what God wants. All men are flawed, people lie, and yes, people manipulate others to their way of 'right thinking' to suit their own prerogative. Just because you don't want to think for yourself doesn't mean the person you are letting think for you is right. And God will not hate you, and you will not go to hell if you don't go to church, or if you're agnostic. If God is everywhere, than no matter where you are it doesn't matter, you are just as surrounded by God outside of church as you are in it. And just because you label yourself with a religion doesn't automatically mean you are going to heaven, God loves you more, or that you are allowed to judge others and run around with a holier than thou attitude.

And I know that not everyone is like some of the things I said above. This is an opinion and a bit of a rant on my part. It's not meant to make everyone all huffy so much as make people aware that, like a huge chick in a bikini, I notice this happening.

Basically what it comes down to is this: Believe, have faith, but have real faith. At least if you take the time to come up with your own ideas you are taking a real interest and a real effort. Be a good person. Live your life and appreciate what's around you. Grow. And if you enjoy church because for you it makes you feel surrounded by those who share a belief in God then go. Be a christian or catholic, but take real pride in it and follow it based on the truths of it. In the end we are all the same hopeless species searching for answers to why we are here. Whether any of us goes to heaven or hell, or whether or not they really exist is between the individual and their God or Gods. For all the shit we ignore, all the things we do in God's name, all the things we blame on God, I don't think the problem is humanity believing in God, but God believing in humanity. What did you do today?