On my Facebook information page there is a heading for religious views. Rather than put in an organized sect, I offered “Whatever gets you through your day, just don’t tell me I’ve got to believe it.” Am I a card carrying atheist in the strictest sense? I think not, but others beg to differ. Do I call myself a Christian? Absolutely not. Do I have faith? Why but of course. I am not alone. Though ninety-six percent of Americans say they believe in God, I dare to have belonged to that four percent group for over twenty years, much to the consternation of friends and acquaintances.
I do not flaunt my beliefs, nor do I press them on others, unlike so many who find the need to chastise me, in addition to telling me how wrong I am. In the current religious environment, when I’m walking down the street, I have expect someone to point me out and bellow, “Blaspheme!”
I did my time. I was baptised in the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, New Jersey, site of a Revolutionary War battle. After moving to Chester, New Jersey, my family belonged to the Presbyterian Church there, where I taught Sunday School as a teenager. It was while teaching Sunday School my views about organized religion took a turn. I questioned the inconsistencies found in the Bible. When the answers I was given were found wanting, I decided I’d had enough of the hypocrisy.
The only time thereafter I set foot in a church, was at Christmas to appease my girlfriend, or accommodate a friend; or for a wedding or funeral. For many years I kept my feelings about religion to myself; a closet atheist if you will. I guess I was afraid of being “cast out” from/to somewhere.
I grew tired of hearing people preach religion to me and then go cheat on their taxes, or worse yet their spouses. I witnessed pious folk while leaving the church parking lot give me the finger because I blew my horn when they cut me off. I had my fill of the Jim Bakers, Jerry Falwells, Jimmy Swaggerts, and Pat Robertsons telling everybody how to live when they made shambles of their own personal lives. And now Anne Rice has had it too.
The author of the Interview with a Vampire series recently declared on her Facebook page that “Today, I quit being a Christian.” She is not the first celebrity to disavow organized religion. Julia Sweeney of Saturday Night Live fame, did a one woman show titled Letting Go of God. After many years of devout Catholicism, she decided as an adult that what she was taught was a load of shit. She too couldn’t marry the inconsistencies in the teachings that had been rammed down her throat.
Bill Maher takes it one step further in Religulous, a comedy/drama where he looks at the world’s religions and some of the aspects that makes you take a step back and go “Hmmmmm?”
While Rice “…remains committed to Christ as always, but not being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”
Several years ago Rice made a ballyhooed return to the Catholicism of her younger days after years of calling herself an atheist. But now she’s had it. “In the name of Christ,” she said, “I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life.” So there.
However, it is not just me and a couple of celebrities who feel this way. A 2008 study by Trinity College showed that religiosity is in a downward trend. The study concluded that those who call themselves Christian has fallen by more than ten percent since 1990 while the percentage of those who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled during the same period. This is not to say these folks are not spiritual, which is different. Spirituality is on the upswing. More and more people every day are trying to find a better way to live, getting in touch with the Spirit of the Universe as Buddha once claimed to have done. By the way, the argument as to whether Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy continues to this day.
Spiritual people do not blame the Sept. 11 attacks on the ACLU, as Jerry Falwell did. Spiritual people do not claim that the earthquake in Haiti was due to an ancient curse, as Pat Robertson did. Spiritual people do not kick out congregants because they voted Democrat, as a church in North Carolina did after nine members cast their votes for John Kerry in the 2004 election. Spiritual people do not bomb each others houses of worship (too many incidents over the years to list here). When was the last time you heard someone who was pro-life getting murdered, but abortion clinics are attacked sometimes resulting in fatalities, all in the name of religion.
Albert Einstein was often cited for his lack of belief in God. However, he clarified he did have faith. What other reason could there be he said, for trying all the experiments he did. He had to have the faith they’d work.
Columnist Leonard Pitts recently stated that “Somehow, hostility to science, gays, Muslims, and immigrants became the very meaning of faith.” A far cry from what Einstein envisioned. Pitts continued, “And somehow Christianity became –or at least, came to seem – a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party.” Now I don’t know if I’d go that far, or even if I care for that matter. But it does give you something to think about with Joel Osteen sounding like he’s preaching the Word of Money and all. It kind of substantiates Pitts claim that “Low taxes for the wealthy and deregulation of industry became the very message of Christ.” I don’t think that’s what the Egyptians had in mind when they compiled their Book of the Dead.
You see, the Egyptians couldn’t rationalize death. They feared it so, that if you had the wealth (maybe that is where all of this began) you were buried with all your belongings so they’d be there when you “returned.” That fear is also the driving force behind mummification (you needed a lot of dough for that process as well). Since death was unexplainable, they came up with the first “God” theory to explain away the unexplainable. So to the Egyptians, “God” was a superstition. And boy did the human race pick up that ball and run with it.
So while Anne Rice and others are redefining their own spirituality, others will continue hold onto their dogma, and wave their pious fingers at those who don’t see things their way. I for one prefer to adhere to the gospel according to George Carlin who whittled the Ten Commandments down to two:
1. Don’t steal shit.
2. Be nice to each other.
If there is more that I need to know to be a person of good standing, I think I’ll use my own resources to find out. I don’t need to be told.
1 comment:
Buddhism is a religion, though it has many philosophical components which are hyped up, especially in Western interpretations of Buddhism, and hence it's often referred to as a philosophy. To consider Buddhism as philosophy is somewhat like considering the Psalms in the Bible as poetry, rather than religion. Yes, they are certainly poetry, and they have a poetic merit beyond their religious pretense, just as Buddhist philosophy has great merit outside it's religious underpinnings. But 'Buddhism' is distinct from the philosophies it espouses, just as 'Christianity' must be considered more than a collection of poems.
The reason that Buddhism is often considered a philosophy is that it makes some interesting metaphysical arguments about perception, the nature of reality, and the ability to know something. These are all indeed philosophical matters. However, Buddhism 'stops' being philosophical as soon as it argues that there is reincarnation, transcendental knowledge which is 'inherently more valuable' and accessible through acts rather than thinking, and that a life of suffering is worse than existence without suffering. While these are all interesting conjectures, and maybe even true, they;re not grounded in any philosophy, not even the philosophy that Buddhism dabbles in.
Post a Comment