Religion - Holy Crap!

Because I hate doing things I need to do, I decided to read some random people's blog posts. After all, if people like me don't read random blogs, how is anyone ever going to find mine? One annoying answer to that questions is "By being spammers", as I just found out when I got my very first blog comment - Not only did Mr. Anonymous promise to make my computers more secure, he wanted to talk to me about furnaces! Isn't that sweet? I should probably turn that spam-detecting thingamabobber on.

So anyway, I clicked 'Next Blog' five times. One was porn. One was a girl from Singapore who didn't understand why the newspaper 'only' gave Deuce Bigalow 2 1/2 stars. And three were Christian people.

Now, I don't want it to sound like I'm prejudiced, but I think I am. Granted, there are some religious people that I respect and like. However, these tend to be the ones that say they are religious while secretly being closet rational people. It's just all so hypocritical. I am really quite an accepting, loving person, but deep down inside I can't find much but derision and pity for religion and its adherents.

I am having trouble organizing my thoughts, because they keep branching. A list of the things that I want to talk about:

* Buddhism's response to theism, and how true it is.
* The divide between people like myself and religious people
* The distinction between people and their religions, and when it's blurred.

I'll just do them in order, cause I can't think of a better way.

The Buddha, as I understand it, basically felt that all forms of theism were a natural human reaction to the bleakness of a 'pointless' existence. He said that God was an idea that people cling to out of fear, both of themselves and of the unknown. I cannot overstate how true I think this is. I'm not a Buddhist, for many reasons, but this and several other Buddhist philosophies ring truer than anything else I've come across. It is so amazing to think of how powerful our subconciouses are in this light - we are so, so afraid that we can invent and sustain belief in absurd notions of miracles and destinies and so forth, to the point where such belief is a commonplace, accepted thing.

Why don't some of us feel the need for such inventions? I don't know. In my case, it's largely a matter of upbringing and environment, as it is with most people, I expect. But my parents, while not religious exactly, are certainly more spiritual than I. And how did the divide come about in the first place? Did some people just never feel the fear? I myself feel none of it. I believe that life is as meaningful as we make it, because we invented meaning in the first place. I don't need the reassurance that someone up on high thinks I'm doing the right thing, nor do I even feel the need to always do the right thing. I believe in leading a mostly virtuous, generous life, and I do, but there is always room for some fun, some mischieviousness, some intentional stupidity. Since I am held to no one's standards but my own, as long as I feel okay with what I'm doing, nothing's wrong.

(This doesn't mean at all that I don't care what other people think. Of course I do. How I feel about my actions is in large part influenced by the expectations and reactions of others. Nor am I saying that I simply believe everything I do is right - I don't, and I feel really, really bad when I mess up. There was this one time, when I was like eleven, I was at the library with a good friend of mine. This little kid, maybe six, was using the computer with his mom, and his time was technically up. Adam and I wanted to use the computer. Adam asked them to leave, and the mom said they were just finishing up this thing, and the kid looked really sad, but Adam kinda threatened them a little, told them the rules, and so she took her kid and told him that they'd have to do whatever it was some other time, and it was obviously really important to him, and they left, and I didn't say anything. I seriously could almost cry right now, it's that painful.

(And there are a few other things like that from my life. Once or twice a month, I'd say, I think of them and am just shot through with pangs of regret. Most of them are things the other people involved almost certainly don't remember/care about. But still I want them not to have happened so badly... )

I have my little philosophy, other people have theirs, but from a zoomed-out POV, it seems like there is really one clear dividing line separating people's thoughts about life, and that is religion. I think I have a decent idea of why so many people are on the other side of that line, though it continues to be rather hard to swallow. But will I ever know what to do about it? On the one hand, I know it is terribly counterproductive to spout hate at every faithful who walks by, but at the same time, listening seriously to them feels sort of like hosting a debate featuring Holocaust Deniers. I am at a loss as to how to deal with these people on a day to day basis.

Which, amazingly, leads me quite nicely to my last topic. How much is a person defined by their beliefs? I have met people and liked them both before and after I discovered they were religious, so obviously it's not like the two worlds are under some sort of apartheid. But I have also met a lot of religious (especially Christian) people whom I simply cannot stand. They're just so... stupid. I'm sorry. I am. I hate that I feel that way. But it's so true. And it's usually very directly because of their Christianity. Either they are arrogant and holier-than-thou, or they have no idea why the are Christian, and simply put all their blindest faith into a God they know nothing about. Are these people bad people? Can I help them? Does arguing with them help? How does one go about changing someone's mind about something so ingrained and illogical? I really want to know the answers to these questions. When I figure them out, I'll let you know.