Religion is two things as I view it. The first is a method of social control. I suspect there have been priests inventing gods from the first ability to speak. By instilling fear in the village, some sense of order was maintained.
The second is harder for people to accept. If there is no supernatural being, no Heaven... then what is the meaning of life? To which I say: "Get a hobby". And I ask: "Do you really think you are more important than a wolf or a fish?"
The meaning of life really opens up to infinite possibilities once we as individuals accept that we're not part of a board game with crazy rules made by invisible sky daddy (or some other deity that happens to be in fashion). We are unimportant in the universe, but we can be important to, and loving with, each other. Don't need gods to practice that faithfully.
Exactly. But all over the world, the poor are kept from asking the important questions regarding the government's control over their perpetual poverty by being promised an afterlife in heaven as a reward for their suffering.
You are right. I have to look into that abyss of pointless suffering. As much as I hesitate to condemn religions, they are a root cause, along with several other powerful factors, of* preventing human progress. By human progress, I mean robust social safety networks that provide basic human needs to everyone as a social guarantee. *edited for a typo
Start with Islam. With few exceptions, it is the primary religion in almost all third world countries. It encourages wealth, but it is a religion that traffics heavily in that promise of dying and going to paradise. It also tells you not to question your life or struggle to change it - and not to reject your country's leadership if they're Muslims (which is why Hosni Mubarak stayed in power for 31 years and why people have not risen up against Al Sisi, who is a criminal and perpetual liar).
You have a very interesting life arc. Next year I am going to start a podcast here. If you are willing to be interviewed and talk about your experiences, drop me a line: penfist@gmail.com
As a recovered Catholic I totally agree. My dad left my catholic mom for another woman. My devout catholic mom was now a divorcée with 4 small children in the late 50s. My Grandma insisted we go to catholic school but we had to lie and say our dad was on a business trip. What a crappy thing to do to a six year old. Then I had to go to confession every week and confess the lie I was told to tell. When I was 12 or 13 I came to my senses and refused to go to church anymore. The discovery of the imposed guilt that I carried as a child and the hypocrisy of the church was a realization that opened up my life. I think people grab on to religion because they need an answer to the unknown. And because of this need religion has historically been used to control the masses. It’s been and continues to be the basis of many wars. I know some wonderful Catholics and many other religious people. So I don’t mean to put anyone down. My experience was terrible and I didn’t think any child should have to go through that.
I do think we all have some spiritual connection with each other and nature. My church is a hike in the mountains and my cats on my lap. But my spiritual world does not include a man concocted god. Thank you for listening.
I subscribed today. Thank you for this blog. I have a lot of things to say, as a former Roman Catholic (which I secretly rejected at age 10) and an adult looking for answers and meaning, a former Muslim for 10 years beginning in my mid-40's. I'd been an atheist for decades and so was my ex-husband, and we raised our daughters without religion. I returned to non-belief while living in Egypt, a "religious" country overboiling with hypocrisy and social control.
I will be publishing essays at least three times a week moving forward Mary. Thank you for being interested in them. I have had this writing space for years, but I have been working on my master's in psychology and I have a full-time management job so writing time has been limited. I've visited Egypt, and have lived in other Islamic countries. Monotheist fundamentalism is a pox on humanity.
I spent 3 months in Jordan as a volunteer at an NGO giving assistance to refugees from Iraq, then 5 1/2 years in Egypt, mostly in Cairo but also in Alexandria and Mahalla el Kubra. To experience Egypt one has to actually live there, because the culture is so deep that it takes quite a while to understand it, and the religious devotion differs from place to place.
"In a truly free society, it should be illegal to indoctrinate children into any particular religion."
I disagree. In a truly free society, religion would not exist. From my own observations (and indoctrination) into both Roman Catholicism and Islam, and living in societies where religion is prevalent, I realized that the true purpose of "faith" is to create and promote social order. Between the promise of heaven, the threat of hell and the human as a herd animal, religion is one of the greatest tools for social control. It oppresses large numbers of people via its misogyny, racism and quasi-morality (our sexuality, personal habits, even how we dress are all rooted in religion).
Imposing bans on teaching religion is oppression, however.
"Imposing bans on teaching religion is oppression, however."
This begs the question: is all oppression bad? One could argue that societies must oppress certain behaviors in order to avoid toxicity. Thank you so much for the comment, and for supporting my work.
Not all deterrents to destructive behavior are oppression, but being told what you can say to your kids is too much like telling schools what they can and cannot teach. We have a conundrum in this country, and are struggling to preserve freedom while stifling what we disagree with. I don't know how to solve the puzzle, but it's good to know that organized religion is dying.
Organized religion is dying because it is diametrically opposed to what modern science has revealed about the nature of the universe. When science literacy spreads it acts as a weapon against ignorance. In regard to being told what you can and cannot say to your own children, we do that all the time socially. Emotional and mental abuse are as real as physical abuse, and they can be as traumatic. PTSD rewires the brain. Fundamentalist parents often inflict all three forms of abuse against their offspring: physical, mental, and emotional. When these abuses occur, we have a moral and ethical obligation to act. In future essays, I will unpack my own PTSD, and the nature of being adopted by, and raised to be, a fundamentalist evangelical.
I’m “religious” in a personal nonchurch way. I did send my kids to the same small school... they came out of it well educated and unchurched. They’re all very smart, very caring people. When I was maybe 10, I thought heaven would be boring and no sort of reward. One night I dreamed I was playing in our subdivision at the far side from our home. It was summer and a storm blew up suddenly... I started running home, it was raining hard and thundering with lightning...in front of the next door neighbors house, I was struck... I felt myself rising, quickly. When I looked down I saw myself lying in the road, in the rain. When I looked up it was very bright and I started moving up, fast with no effort and then I woke up. I think we continue after death. If I had to claim a sect, the closest I could come would be gnostic and I have never visited a gnostic church. I think meditation is an opportunity to affect peaceful change and connect with source. I don’t think prayer is the same as meditation. I like the theories of Rupert Sheldrake, of a unified field and believe we need to study consciousness. I think most things have a consciousness including planets and solar systems. I don’t evangelize. My beliefs are personal to me.
All you've shared is perfectly palatable. This is how beliefs should be. Shared gracefully and without any proselytizing. Many who have near death experiences feel the way you do. When I was hit by a drunk driver as a pedestrian, I too rose out of my body and surveyed the scene before I was sucked back into my vessel. I came out of that experience with different conclusions than you reached from your own, and that's perfectly alright.
The problems I have with religion all stem from believers who think they have a mandate to impose their beliefs and corresponding rules on me, or who demand I pay homage to their leaders and dogma.
In a way, church religion gives you license to forget humility... the numbers of those who believe like you increase arrogance, which then loses the entire experience.
You are either misinterpreting or intentionally twisting what I am arguing. If adults want to get together to worship a "Lord" together that is perfectly fine with me. I take umbrage with indoctrination of children, however. Yes, I read the study. Nowhere in the above essay do I argue for making the Christian Bible illegal.
I am absolutely denying the claimed authority of the Christian Bible and its authors. I am calling out Christians for not allowing children to decide for themselves what they believe given the full spectrum of choices human knowledge and faith systems have to offer.
I want to live in a society where children are given all the information freely and then decide their life's path without undue domination by one set of ideas. I wouldn't tell my own children that atheism is the only right way to live because that simply isn't true. Christian doctrine teaches that anyone who does not accept Jesus will perish in a lake of fire. That's literal and I can quote the verses. What kind of thing is that to teach a child? Do it my way or burn for eternity?
Thank you for the clarification Mark. Religion runs a gamut from benign to toxic. The reason I argue as I do is that Santa Claus just brings presents. The Holy Trinity of the Christian faith offers eternal life, but only to Christians. That’s not something that a child can easily work out. Most Christian families I know also believe that children get a free pass until reaching “age of discernment” so why bother with the born again stuff if they are going to heaven anyhow?
You sound like a very reasonable father. I had a different sort of Christian family. They never stopped proselytizing, even when I told them that they were going to be cut off.
I am curious, and feel free not to answer questions. What do you think will happen to the son who rejected the faith? I mean whenever he leaves this life.
Religion is two things as I view it. The first is a method of social control. I suspect there have been priests inventing gods from the first ability to speak. By instilling fear in the village, some sense of order was maintained.
The second is harder for people to accept. If there is no supernatural being, no Heaven... then what is the meaning of life? To which I say: "Get a hobby". And I ask: "Do you really think you are more important than a wolf or a fish?"
The meaning of life really opens up to infinite possibilities once we as individuals accept that we're not part of a board game with crazy rules made by invisible sky daddy (or some other deity that happens to be in fashion). We are unimportant in the universe, but we can be important to, and loving with, each other. Don't need gods to practice that faithfully.
Exactly. But all over the world, the poor are kept from asking the important questions regarding the government's control over their perpetual poverty by being promised an afterlife in heaven as a reward for their suffering.
You are right. I have to look into that abyss of pointless suffering. As much as I hesitate to condemn religions, they are a root cause, along with several other powerful factors, of* preventing human progress. By human progress, I mean robust social safety networks that provide basic human needs to everyone as a social guarantee. *edited for a typo
Start with Islam. With few exceptions, it is the primary religion in almost all third world countries. It encourages wealth, but it is a religion that traffics heavily in that promise of dying and going to paradise. It also tells you not to question your life or struggle to change it - and not to reject your country's leadership if they're Muslims (which is why Hosni Mubarak stayed in power for 31 years and why people have not risen up against Al Sisi, who is a criminal and perpetual liar).
You have a very interesting life arc. Next year I am going to start a podcast here. If you are willing to be interviewed and talk about your experiences, drop me a line: penfist@gmail.com
You speak my mind Bill.
As a recovered Catholic I totally agree. My dad left my catholic mom for another woman. My devout catholic mom was now a divorcée with 4 small children in the late 50s. My Grandma insisted we go to catholic school but we had to lie and say our dad was on a business trip. What a crappy thing to do to a six year old. Then I had to go to confession every week and confess the lie I was told to tell. When I was 12 or 13 I came to my senses and refused to go to church anymore. The discovery of the imposed guilt that I carried as a child and the hypocrisy of the church was a realization that opened up my life. I think people grab on to religion because they need an answer to the unknown. And because of this need religion has historically been used to control the masses. It’s been and continues to be the basis of many wars. I know some wonderful Catholics and many other religious people. So I don’t mean to put anyone down. My experience was terrible and I didn’t think any child should have to go through that.
I do think we all have some spiritual connection with each other and nature. My church is a hike in the mountains and my cats on my lap. But my spiritual world does not include a man concocted god. Thank you for listening.
I am listening.
I subscribed today. Thank you for this blog. I have a lot of things to say, as a former Roman Catholic (which I secretly rejected at age 10) and an adult looking for answers and meaning, a former Muslim for 10 years beginning in my mid-40's. I'd been an atheist for decades and so was my ex-husband, and we raised our daughters without religion. I returned to non-belief while living in Egypt, a "religious" country overboiling with hypocrisy and social control.
I will be publishing essays at least three times a week moving forward Mary. Thank you for being interested in them. I have had this writing space for years, but I have been working on my master's in psychology and I have a full-time management job so writing time has been limited. I've visited Egypt, and have lived in other Islamic countries. Monotheist fundamentalism is a pox on humanity.
I spent 3 months in Jordan as a volunteer at an NGO giving assistance to refugees from Iraq, then 5 1/2 years in Egypt, mostly in Cairo but also in Alexandria and Mahalla el Kubra. To experience Egypt one has to actually live there, because the culture is so deep that it takes quite a while to understand it, and the religious devotion differs from place to place.
"In a truly free society, it should be illegal to indoctrinate children into any particular religion."
I disagree. In a truly free society, religion would not exist. From my own observations (and indoctrination) into both Roman Catholicism and Islam, and living in societies where religion is prevalent, I realized that the true purpose of "faith" is to create and promote social order. Between the promise of heaven, the threat of hell and the human as a herd animal, religion is one of the greatest tools for social control. It oppresses large numbers of people via its misogyny, racism and quasi-morality (our sexuality, personal habits, even how we dress are all rooted in religion).
Imposing bans on teaching religion is oppression, however.
"Imposing bans on teaching religion is oppression, however."
This begs the question: is all oppression bad? One could argue that societies must oppress certain behaviors in order to avoid toxicity. Thank you so much for the comment, and for supporting my work.
Not all deterrents to destructive behavior are oppression, but being told what you can say to your kids is too much like telling schools what they can and cannot teach. We have a conundrum in this country, and are struggling to preserve freedom while stifling what we disagree with. I don't know how to solve the puzzle, but it's good to know that organized religion is dying.
Organized religion is dying because it is diametrically opposed to what modern science has revealed about the nature of the universe. When science literacy spreads it acts as a weapon against ignorance. In regard to being told what you can and cannot say to your own children, we do that all the time socially. Emotional and mental abuse are as real as physical abuse, and they can be as traumatic. PTSD rewires the brain. Fundamentalist parents often inflict all three forms of abuse against their offspring: physical, mental, and emotional. When these abuses occur, we have a moral and ethical obligation to act. In future essays, I will unpack my own PTSD, and the nature of being adopted by, and raised to be, a fundamentalist evangelical.
I’m “religious” in a personal nonchurch way. I did send my kids to the same small school... they came out of it well educated and unchurched. They’re all very smart, very caring people. When I was maybe 10, I thought heaven would be boring and no sort of reward. One night I dreamed I was playing in our subdivision at the far side from our home. It was summer and a storm blew up suddenly... I started running home, it was raining hard and thundering with lightning...in front of the next door neighbors house, I was struck... I felt myself rising, quickly. When I looked down I saw myself lying in the road, in the rain. When I looked up it was very bright and I started moving up, fast with no effort and then I woke up. I think we continue after death. If I had to claim a sect, the closest I could come would be gnostic and I have never visited a gnostic church. I think meditation is an opportunity to affect peaceful change and connect with source. I don’t think prayer is the same as meditation. I like the theories of Rupert Sheldrake, of a unified field and believe we need to study consciousness. I think most things have a consciousness including planets and solar systems. I don’t evangelize. My beliefs are personal to me.
All you've shared is perfectly palatable. This is how beliefs should be. Shared gracefully and without any proselytizing. Many who have near death experiences feel the way you do. When I was hit by a drunk driver as a pedestrian, I too rose out of my body and surveyed the scene before I was sucked back into my vessel. I came out of that experience with different conclusions than you reached from your own, and that's perfectly alright.
The problems I have with religion all stem from believers who think they have a mandate to impose their beliefs and corresponding rules on me, or who demand I pay homage to their leaders and dogma.
In a way, church religion gives you license to forget humility... the numbers of those who believe like you increase arrogance, which then loses the entire experience.
I like the Unitarian Universalist approach. They explore all the religions without insisting on any of the dogma.
You are either misinterpreting or intentionally twisting what I am arguing. If adults want to get together to worship a "Lord" together that is perfectly fine with me. I take umbrage with indoctrination of children, however. Yes, I read the study. Nowhere in the above essay do I argue for making the Christian Bible illegal.
I am absolutely denying the claimed authority of the Christian Bible and its authors. I am calling out Christians for not allowing children to decide for themselves what they believe given the full spectrum of choices human knowledge and faith systems have to offer.
I want to live in a society where children are given all the information freely and then decide their life's path without undue domination by one set of ideas. I wouldn't tell my own children that atheism is the only right way to live because that simply isn't true. Christian doctrine teaches that anyone who does not accept Jesus will perish in a lake of fire. That's literal and I can quote the verses. What kind of thing is that to teach a child? Do it my way or burn for eternity?
Thank you for the clarification Mark. Religion runs a gamut from benign to toxic. The reason I argue as I do is that Santa Claus just brings presents. The Holy Trinity of the Christian faith offers eternal life, but only to Christians. That’s not something that a child can easily work out. Most Christian families I know also believe that children get a free pass until reaching “age of discernment” so why bother with the born again stuff if they are going to heaven anyhow?
You sound like a very reasonable father. I had a different sort of Christian family. They never stopped proselytizing, even when I told them that they were going to be cut off.
I am curious, and feel free not to answer questions. What do you think will happen to the son who rejected the faith? I mean whenever he leaves this life.