Religion
I don’t know why, but the older I get the more I find religion upsets me.
I don’t expect anyone to find anything I say particularly original, as I am sure that nothing I have to say hasn’t already been said a thousand times before by people far more eloquent than I.
Anyway…. I went to the funeral of our next door neighbor, Mabel. It was a sad affair - we were one of only a handful of people who attended. Mabel was one of life’s blameless individuals. She lived her 80 odd years barely making any waves, simply happy to fill her time drinking shakily held cups of tea with her husband of 50 years, Jack and making occasional outrageous comments about the ‘darkies’ next door. Unfortunately Jack died two years ago, and since then Mabel has been this little lost thing, simply counting the days until she could join him. They left no children, few living friends and just a few sticks of cheep 70’s furniture that appeared in a skip a few days later.
What’s this got to do with religion? Well, the service in the crematorium was the normal short, fill in the blanks type thing. It was clear that the vicar didn’t know Mabel (just as he hadn’t known Jack two years ago) and just trotted out some tired old platitudes about a woman who never even went to church. I was a little bored, as I am prone to getting in church so I actually listened to the funeral service words, just to pass the time.
The vicar was reading the ceremony (you know, the one where your have to say ‘amen’ or ‘hear our prayers’ or some such bollocks) from the book. The gist of it was this: You are sinners. You must beg God’s forgiveness. God in his infinite mercy will grant this forgiveness and you will go to heaven.
A couple of points here.
1 - I do not believe in sin per se. I really resent being told that I need to ask forgiveness of something in which I don’t believe in order to get my place in a concept that I also don’t believe. On the whole I try to live a fairly good life. In that I mean I don’t deliberately fuck people over and I generally expect people not to fuck me over.
2 - Milo (who is unbaptised) is certainly not a sinner - even if he does hit the cats sometimes. So how dare this bloke tell me that my child is going to his concept of eternal damnation, or Limbo (actually I think the Catholic church has change their minds on this one) unless he repents a bunch of sins he has never committed.
Basically religion is like the cosmetic industry.
To sell more cosmetics, creams and lotions, the cosmetic people are constantly finding new things for us to be scared of. Fine lines and wrinkles, age spots, old looking hands etc etc. Then, miraculously, they offer us a cure. They make it look like they are doing us a favor - They are busy finding new things for us to be scared of and then selling us a way to feel slightly less scared.
Religions (in general) start with the premise that we are going to hell or going to be reincarnated as a goat or spend eternity having our livers pecked out.
Shit, we think. We’re all fucked.
Ah ha! says religion - we can offer you a solution. Believe in our slightly different version of this 4000 year old text and we will cure you of an eternity of bad stuff happening. They generally will underline this incredible deal by reminding you of the searing fire in the pit of hell.
So what’s my point?
Grow up. Start rejoicing in the shear wonderment of existance and stop looking to some millenia old fairy story to give you meaning where there is none.
Why are we here? Does it matter? - we just are. Make the most of it. Get some cats, raise some kids (if that’s what you want), grow some potatoes… and just get on with life without letting some bloke in a frock make you feel crappy about it.
Written by exmonkey on November 4th, 2006 with
3 comments.
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#1. November 5th, 2006, at 3:48 AM.
Plus, you need to add in the fact that the big organised Christian religions, Catholicism and the Anglican church, have access to enormous power and wealth which has a very corrupting influence on their policies.
I don’t think you can expect to find God in a church. You’re more likely to find pride and prejudice. Actually you may also find some hate and intolerance instead of the love and acceptance that you were hoping for.
Surely, though, it doesn’t really matter if someone thinks you or me or Milo are going to go to hell, limbo or Tooting. We’ll go where we want to, we don’t need to get annoyed about it. It only starts to bother me when they start wanting to make me walk around with my face painted purple, or they get upset if I eat aubergines on a Wednesday.
Mind you, I do know some people get irrationally upset about my Siberian rabbit-skin hat, despite the fact that it’s not even their rabbit, and they probably don’t consider themselves at all religious.