Thoughts on Religion (788 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.72 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Hood (View user info) at 2005-02-07 00:17:07 EST
Having watched A&E's biography of Jesus I cast my thoughts once again to religion. Time and again I return to this mysterious realm, always fascinated and eternally curious. In this our most technologically, scientifically and mechanically advanced age the great majority of the world still turns to that which is beyond the reach of any of our modern powers.
The grand religion, Christianity, which stretches far and wide and is practiced by as much as a third of the world is based almost entirely on the text of one document, the Bible, and a long clerical tradition. The power of Jesus' life rests largely on his death and resurrection. Given any other figure in history the idea of resurrection would seem silly and nonsensical, but with this one man, it is so readily acceptable. He is equally easy to assign as the Son of God. It truly can't be so simple, but to many it seems to be just that.
We are raised and taught certain things. We are given various impressions of the world and how it operates. When no answers can be found, the mystical and ethereal takes form to fill the gaps. That is the God I always knew. He, the answer to the imponderables of the world. Jesus, His Son, was but a character in a book, a manifestation of an author's dreams put to page.
In all these years, in the face of the opposition of the majority view, I have still refused to admit that there is anything more than what I have always known. I know that Jesus walked the Earth. I know that he preached, perhaps healed and certainly died. I know that he was followed by many and that as history has proven he changed the face of society over the entire globe for all time. I do not question that. There remains much I do question.
What is known of this man is little. There is but the scripture, most of which was written two and three centuries after the existence of the subject at hand. At best the words that are written are the documentation of an oral history reflected through the eyes of the believers. Startlingly, the four Gospels that tell of Jesus' life are not the only four. There are others deemed unofficial by her holy mother the church.
A third of the world knows their savior through this limited and sometimes contradictory documentation. That third of the world also disagree. There are so many Christian sects, so many rituals and beliefs. They seem so far removed from the man that started it all. Indeed, they seem to be nothing of that man at all.
In all of this what I find hardest to bare is that along the path of my experiences I have so often been berated for what I believe. When I do not accept Jesus as my savior, when I debate the validity of the scripture and the details of Jesus' life, namely the miracles and the resurrection, I am accused of a strange savagery. When I say I find comfort in other means, that I have never had the need to call upon God or His Son, I am told prayers will be directed for me. People shake their heads and stare in awe. They feel a deep sorrow for my lost ways.
I wonder how it is that they can be so pretentious. Why is their belief structure so sacred and unquestionable while mine is an abomination and an affront to society's good nature? Is their faith so weak that my beliefs scare them so?
I gave up long ago any compunction about my religion. I am neither proud nor shameful of my spirituality. I am not completely at peace with it either. It is for me a journey just begun, but I have set out upon the path I know I will always follow and that is my comfort. I can never be a Christian because I can never faithfully believe in the circumstances of Jesus' life. In what I do know of Jesus, his history and his life, I would more quickly turn to Judaism. He was Jewish after all and it was only a strange twist of fate commenced at the behest of a Roman Emperor that made Christianity a religion of its own at all.
I can never seek my answers solely in any religion, near or far, practiced by a plurality or a minority, ritualized or not. Each of us must make of our own. If no other purpose can be found in life there can be that. Matters of faith, of belief, of idealism or anything necessarily abstract and subjective are matters of perception. My view of the world is not the view of a pope in Rome, a reverend in Mississippi, or a Monk deep within the mountains of the East.
I have no less faith than any other person. I believe as strongly as any. I just believe along parallel lines. My morality would stand amongst the best bred of Christians. In a life fraught with the numerous frustrations that the poor and unlucky in this country find I have persevered without prayer, without Jesus and without God.
Religion will provide me no guidance when the rooms of my home become too empty for want of company. It will not find me love or its trappings. No religion will get me a better job. A religion can teach a thought, a hope or an optimism. Those are powerful things, but they exist beyond and in the absence of any faith, any religion. They exist within me and I don't need God to extract it.
This whole ordeal is a matter best left to the individual and so I do not fault those that believe differently than me. I see no evil in another's religion. I see flaws, I see faults and hypocrisy, but all things human tend to be betrayed by such. That's also how I know that the church is not the answer, the religion is not the salvation. So numerous are those that must be wrong, so many are those that are astray and so large is the crowd doomed to an awful fate if just one group is right, that it only seems rational that all be wrong or all be right.
User Reviews
Submitted by Vomit (user info) at 2005-02-07 12:40:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Religion I've always thought, is for people that are so weak willed and minded, they want someone else making their decisions for them.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2005-02-07 12:33:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-02-07 12:29:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That was interesting, too bad you are going to end up in Hell since you aren't Catholic.
Submitted by the_lone_stranger (user info) at 2005-02-07 12:25:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Here ya go:
http://www.ubersite.com/m/39866
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2005-02-07 12:18:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very, very, VERY well stated.
Submitted by TheJedi (user info) at 2005-02-07 04:48:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
A very introspective piece... It was nice of you not to impose your beliefs/non beliefs on us
Submitted by hidden101 (user info) at 2005-02-07 04:19:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by williamson (user info) at 2005-02-07 01:45:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by RouteTwo (user info) at 2005-02-07 01:33:54 (#)
Ranking: 2
First well-stated-religeon-post on Uber. Ever.
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Worst spelt-religion on Uber. Ever.
Submitted by RouteTwo (user info) at 2005-02-07 01:33:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
First well-stated-religeon-post on Uber. Ever.
Submitted by gle_ek (user info) at 2005-02-07 01:23:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
In all of this what I find hardest to bare is that along the path of my experiences I have so often been berated for what I believe. When I do not accept Jesus as my savior, when I debate the validity of the scripture and the details of Jesus' life, namely the miracles and the resurrection, I am accused of a strange savagery.
________________
try being a Christian. it's pretty much the same, man.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2005-02-07 01:06:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
religion = crutch for most people. Not for you though. +2 out of respect.
Submitted by d_prime (user info) at 2005-02-07 00:56:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Actually, that was pretty interesting, so you should average out to a +1 from me.
Submitted by d_prime (user info) at 2005-02-07 00:48:55 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
There is a right and a wrong. There is a right. All this 'to each his own' blindness shows how little you think of your religons, and how it is just an excuse to believe you'll never really die.
There is a 'right', the universe does work a certain way, and thought we don't know it all, we haven't really been given any reason to believe any of these religons.
Submitted by dethcow (user info) at 2005-02-07 00:41:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for being a logical human being.
Submitted by Sassmasterr (user info) at 2005-02-07 00:38:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i declare jihad on this post!
seriously, nicely done
Submitted by Joemama (user info) at 2005-02-07 00:34:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Welcome to the realm of critical thought
Submitted by Anyway (user info) at 2005-02-07 00:27:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant. Strong enough to state a point, soft enough to let others believe.
Fantastic piece on religion. Said what was to be said without overstating.
Cheers.