Journal 1

August 28th 2007

World Religions Journal 1
Your own beliefs or non-beliefs-


Religion is a product of Fundamental Human Neurosis, which comes from the knowledge of impending death. It is from the conflict, that we do not wish to die, while at the same time being conscious of its inevitability, that it is born (Sheppard). Religion is essential to mankind for many reasons. As I first mentioned, we all must except that death is inevitable and that one day we will cease to exist. If we have no other instinct instilled in us, we have at least the desire to survive, both as man, and as a species. In this case, believing that we will in fact someday cease to exist is discomforting. Perhaps religion exists because there is a great element of comfort that comes from believing that there is indeed an afterlife. Or perhaps there is some comfort in believing that we do not bear the full responsibility of complete freedom, as there is an omnipotent being ultimately in charge of a certain destiny that we have no control over. Maybe without the idea of God and eternal damnation/reward, many would render life meaningless, and would conclude that if our existence should one day end indefinitely, then there is no motivation to live either virtuously, or even at all.

I was introduced to religion at an early age. My grandmother taught me how to read through a set of books containing every bible story of the New and Old Testaments. I had read this entire set myself before entering kindergarten. I was not raised to follow any specific Christian doctrine, but most of my Sundays were spent in a Methodist church, and later on in churches of the Nazarene. I had to attend church every Sunday until I was twelve years old, after of which it was then my decision. In the book of Luke at the end of chapter 2, there is a story where Jesus's parents returned to Nazareth from the passover feast in Jerusalem. Upon the realization that Jesus was not with them, they returned to Jerusalem to find him in a temple listening to the teachers and asking questions. His parents asked him why he had done this to them, for he has caused them great anxiety. "And he said to them, "Why is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business? (Luke 3:49)" Jesus was twelve years old at this time, and this is why my grandma insisted that I go to church until I was twelve, it was the 'age of accountability' as she would say. After I had become a teenager I continued to go to church by myself, as my grandparents had moved away and the rest of my family never attended. My mother would pay me and my younger brother fifty cents a piece to go every Sunday, which we would put into the morning offering anyway.

Because I was raised a Methodist, it was in my nature to be very shy, reserved, and modest. I have changed a great deal since these days, but these qualities are the foundation of my being, and that will never change. The moral code which I live by is also a product of my Christian upbringing, and is again, something that has not changed. I've learned a great deal about Christianity when I was young and have never stopped learning since. However, when I was thirteen I had a spiritual and somewhat mental crisis, and began to reject everything around me. I did not so much reject it per say, but rather I took all the beliefs and ideas I had previously known and began to dismantle and re-evaluate them. I was at a point in my life as Buddha was when he first experienced suffering and then abandoned the life he had been living to seek one of greater purpose. My perspective on the world had turned jaded and cynical and I felt that I had been living blindly until this point in my life. The fact is, I was living blindly- I was a child. It seemed as though I were a child one day, and the next day I had rapidly grown up. I had reached my age of accountability. When I was thirteen I declared war on God.

I spent the remainder of my adolescence studying Paganism, Buddhism, and Native American religion, as well as the other monotheistic Abrahamic religions, Islam and Judaism. I sometimes went more in depth to things like Kabbalistic mysticism and other branches of main religions. I frequently returned to Christianity though. I had found a great deal of what were to me, astonishing correlations between nearly every religion I studied. Luckily my knowledge of Christianity was extensive enough to see things without bias. Though I was young and naïve, I had lacked the pretension to assume that what I was raised with was undoubtedly correct.

When I was twenty years old I began to converse with my biological father who is a minister and also has his Doctorates in Theology with specialization in the Old Testament. We have had many great conversations since then, in which I express my views and concerns and also ask him many questions. He has responded with not only honesty but also with respect of the difference in my opinion. At this time I began to read the Bible again more in depth, and with an older and more mature perspective. I disregarded the majority of the Old Testament as fairy tales and focused on the true foundation of Christianity, the New Testament. My books of choice were of course the first four- the teachings of Jesus, and also the book that perplexes us all- Revelation. The book of Revelation captivated me for weeks, as I read it over and over trying to decipher its intricate metaphors and abstract script. I found a few scriptures that related to some of my beliefs I had taken from other religions, which I found interesting. A problem I have, is that when I get interested in something, I become obsessed with it. I had dreams about this book, I thought about it all the time. I eventually had to quit reading it because it had built up such fear and anxiety in me that I had never felt before. I began to question on whether or not my hiatus I had been taking from Christianity was going to condemn me. It occurred to be that this was the very thing that made me apprehensive about Christianity in the first place. I am not fond of fear tactics. I find that Christianity has turned to a religion whose foundation is fear. I've found the message of Christianity to become corrupt, and many of those who preach that message as well. I've grown tiresome of listening to people like Pat Robertson, who represent not only themselves but everything they stand for, spew ignorance on national television. I can no longer go to church without leaving with some sort of new fear brought to my attention; fear of sin, fear of death, fear of Satan, fear of God, fear of sex, fear of hell, fear of mastercard, fear of Madonna, even fear of each other. When will the scare tactics end? When will we present Christianity as a religion of faith and not fear? Not only does it deeply pain me to see the beloved doctrine that I was raised with, that is the foundation of who I am, so corrupt, but it angers me to no extent. If Jesus wept when Lazarus died, what is he going to do when he comes back to this?

I would not so much say that I have now abandoned Christianity, I still hold it to high regard, but am wearisome of it. In the past year or so I have read a great deal of both Western and Eastern philosophy and have gotten more involved with scientific ideas of God. I have found myself to be exceptionally fond of the Tao Te Ching, which I read almost nightly. It is my belief that religion is what brings a person peace, and this may not always be the conceptualization of God. What brings me peace is balance, and this is something I have allocated in the Tao. As for my idea of God, I discredit the Christian idea of God. I believe that they personify God in a manner that is not divine at all. I find myself relating to the Eastern view of God, which is that God is so complex and beyond the threshold of human comprehension, that we should except and acknowledge it as being, but focus intently on our responsibility to humanity. I don't see God as one entity, I see God as everything, the alpha and the omega, ubiquitous, natural, and the driving force of the universe. I read somewhere once where humans were described as the result of 'tiny bits of God's consciousness, rained down upon the earth." I am fond of this poetic imagery, but it is not different from Genesis, in which it states that God created us in his image.

I have also read a lot of Scientology and philosophy. The Scientology I read is the older works of L.Ron Hubbard pre-corruption of the church of Scientology. I have also been reading a lot of philosophy, especially existentialists. I have taken an interest in Søren Kierkegaard for how he has organized existence into three categories, the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. All of these categories are in order with the aesthetic being the first, which to me is the understanding of the self, the individual, and the freedom we posses. The next would be the ethical, which I interpret as the acknowledgment of objects including other people and the respect of their freedom as well. Beyond aesthetic and ethical is religious, and I believe that the idea of God is something that cannot be conceptualized until after we have fully understood and came to terms with the aesthetic and ethical side of life. In truth, I am weary of anyone who claims to know God, as the Tao says, "The sound traveler stays two steps behind and awake to all that is possible."

In conclusion, I will never come to any conclusions. I have many theories on God, on heaven and hell, morality, and reincarnation and the afterlife. My life will be a constant state of contemplation and I will someday die without ever knowing the truth. For this reason, I place more importance on the existentialist idea that existence precedes essence. Which means in other words, that what is more important then the question, "Why are we here?" is the statement, "We are here."