Religion

The ever wonderful Mini reminded me that I have been neglecting my blog and suggested that I write something about religion. I’ve been thinking about it (not enough) and I don’t think I have a proper handle on how I feel about it but here goes.

I’ve never been a regular church goer, neither has my family but my mum is a Christian and me, well, I’m not. I went to a Catholic high school: mostly because it was close by but I think my mum thought it might help me see the “light”, and I learnt a bit about the Catholic religion and other religions too but I never really got into it. I understand the role that religion plays for certain people and I respect that.

I just can’t be religious though *shrug* I’m a highly free-spirited person who is not fond of being confined or governed by rules that are not of my own making. Religion on the other hand, is rule-governed: every single religion has “rules and regulations” in place. They go to places of worship on certain days, they fast, they give tithe. They do this, they do that. And I want to do what I want, when I want, how I want..

I think, religion began as spirituality and somewhere along the line, someone thought that adding rules would make it easier (or something) for people to feel connected to each other or to keep track of who’s who and what’s going on. Or something. Or maybe the rules began as guidelines or suggestions and somewhere along the line they just got so emphasized, for whatever reason, that they became rules that people should adhere to. Also, culture found its way in there. Seriously, would God not want to speak to me because I’m female and I’m wearing pants? Isn’t that a little petty?

Some of these rules, to me, seem to infringe on my freedom: I have a thing for bacon hey. I will have it when I want it, when I want but not if I followed some religions. We recently covered some aspects of the Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza and I must say, I was intrigued. His conception of God as this anthropomorphised being just spoke volume to me: God does not have human qualities, we have just attributed them to him.
Spinoza’s God is my kind of God, I can be down with that: he doesn’t care if i wear pants or eat pork. He doesn’t care if my friends are gay or if I touch males. Well Spinoza’s full conception of God had other implications for religion: they got him excommunicated. But I like Spinoza’s God: he’s sort of outside of religion.

Religion is linked to a lot of heinous acts and as much as this may be the fault of the people in charge, it doesn’t do much for religion’s image. I’m not too sure what I’m saying anymore but I understand the value of religion. It’s just not for me