(no subject)
This is gonna be kinda random, but I'll explain my train of thought.
I was trying to watch The Other Boleyn Girl, and then I started to think about the book, which made me think about I, Elizabeth, which made me think about how King Henry shoved off Catholicism for Anne but towards the end of his life started to lean towards it a little, and then the Catholicism/Protestantism fight between Mary and Elisabeth and blah blah. I'm not sure how much of it you guys actually know, but I'm sure we're all aware that they were two sects in violent disagreement with each other. And then that started getting me thinking on organised religion and, once again, how much I disagree with it and how much of a better world I think it would be without it. Which got me thinking about...
Human nature. Initially I was thinking how racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. weren't really human traits but how they are bred into us by culture. There was none of that in ancient cultures, with the possible exception of sexism but even then they allowed women more rights and believed more in their brains than in say the 1500s, especially before people figured out that men had something to do with the process of making babies. But when it became doctrine that these people are different because one religion used it as a selling point (which is really all that organised religion is, defaming other religions in order to get more supporters and blending their mythologies into yours as the opposite, either good or evil, and whoever ends up getting the more believers wins), it grew into a cultural phenomenon, creating the sort of horrible hate crimes we have today.
Now, I'm not saying that if it weren't for religion this wouldn't have happened. Who knows. Maybe it is in human nature to be hateful of things you don't understand (fear of the unknown anyone?) and to victimise innocent people because you just can't grasp in your head such a simple thing as a darker skin tone. I don't claim to be an expert, I'm just going by what I know, and what I know is that religion has indefinitely shaped human culture world wide. Even atheists are forced to agree that without organised religion, or religion as a whole, the world would not be where it was today, and we would not hold the same values as we do. It's just logic.
Jermaine Stewart is making me forget my original point. And even though I have now shut him off, I'm not sure I can get it back. Damn.
Anyway, I'll stick to religion since that's where I'm at. I don't believe in organised religion. I think it is a bane to society. Does that mean I don't believe in religion? No. In fact I am an eclectic pagan, I worship many Gods and Goddesses, and in a way I think it is healthy for us. Sometime between claiming I was Jewish and realising that I was in fact a pagan, I labeled myself as atheist and felt myself... lonely, in a way. Does that mean that I think atheists need to convert to worshipping some sort of God? No, I don't. But for me personally, every part of this world, every individual place that you could hope to go, has it's own spirit. The culture and the vibe you get from that place you think is from the people, but is in fact from the spirits around you which are influencing the way you think and behave. And I don't believe that one God is responsible for all that. I feel succinctly different... souls in different places, and I believe that there are individual Gods and Goddesses who make it so. And that’s part of the reason why I try so hard to learn about them, because I want to understand the beings I am worshipping, the spirits that I feel when I travel. But that's just my personal belief. And if by sharing I help to turn a light on, then great. But if not, then not.
And that's what I think is wrong with organised religion. True, you can make the religion fit who you are and what you believe as a person and still be in sync with it, but at the same time it's so famous for promoting fear and hostility and cultishness towards itself and things that it does not embrace or understand that it's almost like an outdated version of mind control. It's a money making, star seeking, self whoring way to survive. If no one believes what I believe after I die then I will be happy knowing I found peace in this world. But organised religion seems so much about shoving your beliefs in others' faces as a mechanism to survive that it has lost it's soul and organicness and turned into... a machine.
I believe it's human nature to want to fit in, to feel like we belong. And that's why organised religion thrives, because it gives you a place to embrace those feelings and to enjoy yourself and others. But maybe it's also in human nature to take things too far before we can know where and when we have to withdraw. Maybe... we needed to kill billions of innocent people, just so that we could say this isn't right.
I don't know. I still don't remember what my original purpose for this essay was. It wasn't religion. I think it was more... self control. Self preservation. Ambition. But honestly I cannot remember. And maybe it's better that way. I've been thinking about this mini-rant for a while, and I do like some discussion, so feed back would be appreciated. And maybe I'll remember what I really wanted to say next time.
I was trying to watch The Other Boleyn Girl, and then I started to think about the book, which made me think about I, Elizabeth, which made me think about how King Henry shoved off Catholicism for Anne but towards the end of his life started to lean towards it a little, and then the Catholicism/Protestantism fight between Mary and Elisabeth and blah blah. I'm not sure how much of it you guys actually know, but I'm sure we're all aware that they were two sects in violent disagreement with each other. And then that started getting me thinking on organised religion and, once again, how much I disagree with it and how much of a better world I think it would be without it. Which got me thinking about...
Human nature. Initially I was thinking how racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. weren't really human traits but how they are bred into us by culture. There was none of that in ancient cultures, with the possible exception of sexism but even then they allowed women more rights and believed more in their brains than in say the 1500s, especially before people figured out that men had something to do with the process of making babies. But when it became doctrine that these people are different because one religion used it as a selling point (which is really all that organised religion is, defaming other religions in order to get more supporters and blending their mythologies into yours as the opposite, either good or evil, and whoever ends up getting the more believers wins), it grew into a cultural phenomenon, creating the sort of horrible hate crimes we have today.
Now, I'm not saying that if it weren't for religion this wouldn't have happened. Who knows. Maybe it is in human nature to be hateful of things you don't understand (fear of the unknown anyone?) and to victimise innocent people because you just can't grasp in your head such a simple thing as a darker skin tone. I don't claim to be an expert, I'm just going by what I know, and what I know is that religion has indefinitely shaped human culture world wide. Even atheists are forced to agree that without organised religion, or religion as a whole, the world would not be where it was today, and we would not hold the same values as we do. It's just logic.
Jermaine Stewart is making me forget my original point. And even though I have now shut him off, I'm not sure I can get it back. Damn.
Anyway, I'll stick to religion since that's where I'm at. I don't believe in organised religion. I think it is a bane to society. Does that mean I don't believe in religion? No. In fact I am an eclectic pagan, I worship many Gods and Goddesses, and in a way I think it is healthy for us. Sometime between claiming I was Jewish and realising that I was in fact a pagan, I labeled myself as atheist and felt myself... lonely, in a way. Does that mean that I think atheists need to convert to worshipping some sort of God? No, I don't. But for me personally, every part of this world, every individual place that you could hope to go, has it's own spirit. The culture and the vibe you get from that place you think is from the people, but is in fact from the spirits around you which are influencing the way you think and behave. And I don't believe that one God is responsible for all that. I feel succinctly different... souls in different places, and I believe that there are individual Gods and Goddesses who make it so. And that’s part of the reason why I try so hard to learn about them, because I want to understand the beings I am worshipping, the spirits that I feel when I travel. But that's just my personal belief. And if by sharing I help to turn a light on, then great. But if not, then not.
And that's what I think is wrong with organised religion. True, you can make the religion fit who you are and what you believe as a person and still be in sync with it, but at the same time it's so famous for promoting fear and hostility and cultishness towards itself and things that it does not embrace or understand that it's almost like an outdated version of mind control. It's a money making, star seeking, self whoring way to survive. If no one believes what I believe after I die then I will be happy knowing I found peace in this world. But organised religion seems so much about shoving your beliefs in others' faces as a mechanism to survive that it has lost it's soul and organicness and turned into... a machine.
I believe it's human nature to want to fit in, to feel like we belong. And that's why organised religion thrives, because it gives you a place to embrace those feelings and to enjoy yourself and others. But maybe it's also in human nature to take things too far before we can know where and when we have to withdraw. Maybe... we needed to kill billions of innocent people, just so that we could say this isn't right.
I don't know. I still don't remember what my original purpose for this essay was. It wasn't religion. I think it was more... self control. Self preservation. Ambition. But honestly I cannot remember. And maybe it's better that way. I've been thinking about this mini-rant for a while, and I do like some discussion, so feed back would be appreciated. And maybe I'll remember what I really wanted to say next time.