The more science you know, the less faith in religion you have. Or at least this is how I feel. I was raised Catholic. I was baptized, communionized, and confirmed. But that doesn't necessarily mean I am Catholic. I feel like I was just born into it and am not sure it's really what I believe in. There are a lot of things about this religion I do not agree with. I'm pro choice, pro gay, and anti little boys being molested. (sorry had to say it) I'm not here to bash the Catholic religion, but talk about my confusion on religion in general.
The thing that blows my mind about religion is that most people don't know why they're religious. They don't even truly understand their religion. I can tell you first hand I've gone through sunday school and CCD and sat through plenty of masses in my life and still don't really understand it. And what I do understand isn't all that clear. Because you have the Bible which says a bunch of stuff and some of it happened, but some of it is just a metaphor, and there are psalms and euphemisms. I can say the Our Father and I know you're not allowed to actually wear the rosary and that's pretty much the extent to it. Which is sad because you'd think after 19 years I'd know more about my own "religion." But I don't and I feel like most people are the same way. I question the validity of it all.
We can obviously say for the most part one reason we are religious to get to a better afterlife, whatever religion you believe in. But is it really worth spending your whole life trying to go to a nice place after you die that you forget to acknowledge the nice place you live now? And obviously I can't say this for other religions, but with Catholic, is me going to church and singing and genuflecting really going to automatically bring me to heaven? Going to church doesn't make you a good person, and people tend to forget that. I know plenty of good people who don't go to church and I wouldn't assume they'd go to hell because of it. And is there a hell? Or a heaven? What if we go where ever we believe our soul is going to go? So if you're Catholic you'll go to 'heaven' and if you're Buddhist you will be reincarnated. It's also possible our soul doesn't go anywhere and our matter is just recycled back into the Earth.
The problem is we don't know. And the fear of the unknown is what drives many people into being religious. They are scared. People who weren't ever religious pray on their death bed so their soul has a nice resting place. If it is fear that is controlling your faith is it all worth it? Do you actually believe what you think you do, or are your emotions effecting your judgment of it all?
It's not that I don't believe in a higher being, I do, it's that I don't think I believe in the standard view of God. I believe there has to be something out there controlling it all. But I can't disregard science either. I in no way believe that God put Adam and Eve on the Earth and that's how man was created. I believe in the Big Bang Theory and Evolution. While the big bang is just a theory, evolution is a proven scientific fact. I just don't understand how these smart people don't realize that and still think it's possible for two people to just appear. And their idea of God is so contradictory as well. How can he be warlike, yet peaceful? Cruel, unmerciful, destructive, and ferocious, yet kind, merciful, and good? These are all ways he's described in the Bible, so what is he? He loves all his children, but if they are homosexual they are an abomination and they should be killed. How can I put faith into a God like that?
And maybe I just think all of this because I don't fully understand. Because I know that's part of the problem. I have a hard time blindly believing in something I don't know much about. And I truly don't understand how people don't question these things. They go through life believing in things because they think they have to, or they have a guilty conscious and seek a God to forgive them. The universe, the world, life in general, is so beautiful and mind blowing enough it's hard for me to wrap me head around this idea of God.
I believe you can be spiritual without being religious. I don't think those two things are the same at all. There is a spiritual void in the world you can feel. Spirituality is being one with nature, finding peace, being harmonious. It is free of institutional structures and hierarchies, it has no limits. And it is different for everyone. Spirituality involves a 'holistic' appreciation of a universe in which everyone and everything is connected seamlessly with everyone and everything else.
While I may not believe in the general idea of God, I believe in the sun and the moon, I believe in the stars, I believe in the never ending cosmos where possibilities are endless. So just because someone doesn't believe in God, doesn't mean they don't believe in anything. I still have faith. I have faith in the universe and that everything works out for a reason. Creation is infinite. There is a reason Giordano Bruno had the dream telling him the universe is unbounded. In that time the sun revolved around the Earth, there were no telescopes, people believed what they could see with the naked eye. Someone, or something, must have planted that dream in Bruno's head. Someone needed life on Earth to know that there is much more out there.
We belong to something much greater than ourselves. We are not alone in the universe, I'm sure of that. There are 125 billion galaxies, and that's just what we're sure of. We could be part of a multiverse, where we are just one in never ending universe's. It's hard for people to open their minds to the idea of that. That we aren't special. That God didn't just put us here and that's that. If people would open their minds and realize this, they may find a different idea of faith.
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