Book 2– Chapter 6 - Religion and Science – Excerpt 2-4
Questioning Religion
As a child learning about religion, I was full of questions that neither my parents nor their religious beliefs could answer to my satisfaction. As long as I didn’t challenge religions authority and went along with the program, it had a place for me. I lost my religion (Roman Catholic) when I was in grade seven, when our family was excommunicated over and incident I had at the Catholic school I was attending. While I lost my religion, I never lost my faith, as religion and faith are not the same thing. After our excommunication, I was angry and denounced God and became an atheist as I felt there was no God, as what loving God would allow the church to do what they did to me and my family. Even though I had rejected God, I felt and knew that there was more to it but I didn’t have a clue what it was or how to find it. That doubt and confusion led me to become an agnostic. Even though I was not involved in any organized religion, I was ignorantly unaware that I was still running my life on old Catholic beliefs and doctrine as a Christian.
As mentioned in my first book, I explored various sciences, including psychology and psychiatry, as well as many religions along with their beliefs and dogma. While both science and religion offered part-truths, none felt complete and loving. In my study of the various religions, I was looking for what they said about unconditional love, love without conditions and rules. I was also looking for what the various religions had in common and how they differed. The thing that I found common to all religions was that while they talked about unconditional love and had a vague concept of it, they were not walking their talk, as what they were preaching was conditional love, bound by rules and dogma. I also found that when confronted about their dogma and rhetoric, that to get away (avoidance and denial) from having to face this issue, they implied that I, as a mortal human, was incapable of understanding let alone experiencing the unconditional love of God. Another thing that was common to all religions was their “golden rule” and what they would have us believe is unconditional love, ignorant (intentionally or unintentionally) to the fact that it encourages and promotes the denial of self-love.
Unfortunately, religion plays a huge part in people’s lives, especially when they feel helpless and powerless, as they seek salvation and a miracle from God to save and lift them out of their troubles and woes. At the other end of the religious spectrum are those that use it as a source of power over others, the clergy and ministers, who feed on the synergy created by a group of seekers that are joined in commonality. Religion is very much like a drug in that it is a crutch of denial, to get people over the rough times that they don’t want to face. It’s an easy out and a quick fix as you can just give your troubles away (denial) if you only believe. Religion is by far, one of the biggest organizations of denial on the planet, controlling the masses at will by their rhetoric and doctrines. Politics is a close second.
