This blog is probably going to piss a lot of people off but I've never been one to shy away from controversy so whether you like it or not, I hope it makes you think....
A lot of people think that I am an Aethist. I’m not. I’m spiritual, not religious. I believe there is a higher power, something bigger than all of us. But I also question whether this belief is only out of comfort, out of the need and want to believe in something. And, I think questioning faith ultimately leads you to dig deeper. I believe in spirituality out in the open, watching a sunset, walking through the woods, jumping into the ocean. But I accept the more traditional ways as well, just not for me personally. I don’t need a church, and I don’t believe because someone told me to believe. And I don’t think that it matters what or who this higher power is. Whether its God, Buddha, the Great Spirit, or Allah, everyone is trying to figure out the same thing. Where we came from, where we are going, and what our purpose is while we are here.
My problem with organized religion is the hypocrisy. I know a lot of really wonderful people that are religious. My Nana for instance. And I know a lot of really wonderful people that aren’t religious. My Grammie for instance. But paying lip service to religion does not qualify you into this category. In fact it makes me wonder why you feel the need to proclaim that you are God loving/God fearing. Religious leaders, since the beginning of time, have been mastering the use of rhetoric and been extremely successful. So successful in fact that critical questioning or pointing out hypocrisies somewhere along the line became anti religious. As if practiced religion has no discrepancies and he or she whom points them out must not truly believe.
I suppose it all began when religious literature became available. Things were written down and became the word of God or whomever. Except things were written down and translated by a group of people aiming to maintain their power and authority. No one can be objective, they can only pretend to be. I’m not blaming them necessarily, only the people that believe that their word is the word of their higher power. The words of a higher power are not found in a static document, they are found in your heart. They are not preached, they are discussed and they are not taken as truth but found to be truth through critical thinking.
But religious people don’t see it that way. They’ve been fed rhetoric that questioning the scripture is questioning their faith. That true believers internalize whatever they are told. And it works, this rhetoric. The church has mastered it. They’ve used it to cover up molesting little boys while they shame on homosexuals. They’ve used it to justify blowing up people as well as themselves in the name of Allah. And they’ve used it to convince poor, starving people in 3rd world countries without sustainable agriculture and running water that birth control is against God’s will. Mostly they’ve used it to maintain a patriarchal society where true religious women are subservient to males. Its God’s way and not up to us to question it. I wonder who came up with that? Apparently men are supposed to be our spiritual leaders and make all the Godly decisions. But once again the book was written down by males, translated by males, and since they are our spiritual leaders, interpreted by males. Its no wonder they don’t believe in gay marriage. I mean if there is more than one penis in a relationship, or God forbid no penis at all, how is one to know who is supposed to make the decisions?
It’s not that I am against religion. Quite the opposite actually. I think religion is a beautiful thing. But I think in practice it often times is less than perfect and many times hypocritical. And blind faith is just plain lazy in my opinion. The thing is that otherwise extremely intelligent individuals will overlook any form of logical thinking when posed with a question linked in any way to their faith. True, faith should guide you but is it really your faith guiding you, or what someone told you your faith believes? A leap of faith is a beautiful thing but a blind and all consuming leap of faith is dangerous. I think true faith comes from critical thinking, analyzing, applying things to your own life. It seems that so many people don’t take a critical look at what their faith is exactly. And they vote according to what their religion says.
People want something to believe in and once they truly believe in something and teach their children to believe in something, pathos really becomes powerful. People long so much to feel a part of something, to have a purpose bigger than themselves. And this can be a wonderful thing. But it is also scary because rhetoric is one step away from brainwashing. When people become a passive and subjective partner to their faith, holy wars begin, young men and women blow themselves up seeking out martyrdom. Can you think of any stronger use of rhetoric that that? People willing to die, anxious to die. But religious rhetoric isn’t limited to Islam and its isn’t limited to nonsecular governments either. Take George W. Bush. He (or rather whomever tells him what to say) has decided very wisely to take a lesson from religious rhetoric or rather to use centuries of built up ethos to his advantage. He speaks of loving God, then bombs innocent Iraqis. (ooopps, sorry we thought that was terrorist camp, not a playground). He speaks of being a good Christian then lies to the American people to one up his dad. He’s seen at church with Dick Cheney then starts a war so that a certain company that Cheney was recently CEO of and is still large stock holder can overcharge the government millions of dollars. If he was a truly religious person maybe he would have gone into Iraq still. But maybe it wouldn’t have been under the pretext of Osama bin Lauden. Maybe we would have gone over in a humanitarian effort. Because as a country made up of individuals, religious or not, we believe that people shouldn’t be tear gassed by their own government, they shouldn’t be forced to eat glass with rice so they bleed to death, women shouldn’t be raped in front of their children. I’m not saying we should have gone to war, at least not by ourselves. But at least if our president is going to pay lip service to Christianity, let’s go over there with a true purpose and not a made up one.
Now that I am on the topic of George W. Bush let me take this time to rant a little bit. It seems to me the people that support him, support him because of the things that they’ve been told are important. I seriously think that half the population of our country has been partially if not fully brainwashed by the rhetoric the Republicans have used in the last four years made all the more powerful because they’ve relied on the rhetoric already used by religious groups for centuries. So many people like Bush because of his “religion”. Yet, besides talking about God, and saying he is a Christian every time he gets a chance, how is he truly living a Christian life? Is he really following his convictions? I would think truly religious people would abhor how Bush uses religious rhetoric to his advantage. Instead, they take his word and ignore his actions. Using religion to get votes, paying lip service to faith, makes me sick. And it is the exact same hypocrisy that undermines the core of religions. Faith is who you are, not what you say, and if you say one thing and do another, you are a hypocrite in the worst way…toying with other people’s religious faith and faith in their government and their country.
Let’s take for instance abortion. Some people are vehemently against it, mostly on moral grounds. Their emotional attachment to this issue leaves no room for logical thinking. So they won’t listen to the argument that if we outlaw it, it will go on the black market and young girls will be using clothes hangers to do the job. Yeah that’s a better idea. At least our government won’t be encouraging it right? So, “Thank God Dubya doesn’t agree with killing unborn babies!” No he waits until their born and then bombs them. Yet so many people see this as a decisive issue. Its one of the first things they talk about when discussing the elections. They can’t step away from the issue because of their faith. They can’t say, well maybe I don’t believe in it but I believe in our constitution and our government’s role in our life. Whether I personally would never choose to have an abortion and don’t think anyone else should either, it is not my place nor the governments to decide that. You may not like Nazi’s demonstrating on the street either but you can’t very well take away the first amendment. This is exactly why we are supposed to have a separation of church and state… because it has been historically proven that people cannot separate logic from emotions/religion unless they are forced to.
Second on the list would be the controversial issue of gay marriage. Didn’t become controversial by the way until the war in Iraq wasn’t going so well but that seems to be a minor point for the right wing folks that are just so glad Bush won’t let THOSE gays screw up the sanctity of marriage. No he’s all for the sanctity of marriage, even going so far as to suggest that welfare reform should be packaged as marrying single mothers off. Maybe we could start a reality show!
But this of course is all to divert our attention from the real problems. Like Rev. Al Sharpton said, “Its not who you go to bed with at night, its whether either of you have a job to go to when you wake up in the morning.” Amen. Isn’t a war supposed to boost the economy? Apparently the only thing it boosted was Halliburton’s stock rating. Large stock holder being Dick Cheney(433,000 stock options to be exact). What a fortuitous turn of events! No conflict of interest here! Doesn’t that piss anyone else off? I mean imagine, the Vice President has a personal financial interest in our country going to war. He MAKES money in dividends when we send young men and women off to get killed. It makes me sick. Oh, and he lied about it. Are we still talking about morals?
Another issue is stem cell research. People are so scared of it and with just cause. But at the same time there are ways to control it and regulate it just like everything else. There is risks of course but this technology isn’t different from any scientific breakthrough in the past. Its just that the Republicans have scared the public so much that people think if they vote for Kerry that they’ll be Dolly’s running around all over the place. Of course people don’t want to hear that this is more likely to happen if we outlaw it because then the government won’t be able to regulate laboratories that they don’t know about. Let’s talk about the real issue. How about Christopher Reeves? In my mind he became a real life superman when he became a paraplegic and was confined to a wheelchair until he died last week from complications. Don’t you think he could have benefited from further stem cell research? What about Michael J. Fox, what about Mohammed Ali, Ronald Reagan? Have many of you know someone with Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injury, a birth defect. Do you want to tell them you voted against them?
And finally terrorism. Christianity versus Islam. America versus the world. Isn’t that what it has become? And so many Americans love it. They love it because they see it from their point of view, they see it because that is how they have been told to see it, and they see it that way because they want to see it that way. George W. Bush stood on the rubble of ground zero with a loud speaker. With the American flag behind him he talked of American coming together and fighting the enemy, of staying strong and united, and exacting revenge on whomever was responsible for this horrible day in the history of the world. All with the help of God of course. And he kept his word and Americans were happy because we wanted someone to blame, we wanted someone else to bleed like we had, in the name of God, we wanted revenge. How very Christian of us. So Bush went out and found an arbitrary enemy and gave us someone to point to, someone to unite against. We found our patriotism in the blood of innocent Iraqis. And so many people believed what our government told us. They believed Iraq was harboring terrorist, aiding and abetting Osama Bin Laden, hiding weapons of mass destruction. And even now, when we have intelligence that says otherwise, some people still believe the rhetoric. But its because they WANT to believe it and no logical thinking or reasoning is going to change their mind. Their emotions override EVERYTHING because if they are wrong, if our government was wrong, everything these people believe in, their country and their religion, is up for question also.
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