observations from a nobody

Religion.

Oh boy. Such a flammable subject. Nothing gets those emotions going like a good discussion on religion. For as long as man has roamed the lands there has been religion. Groups of people with beliefs that direct one to a given lifestyle. No matter what possible thing that one can bring up, there is nothing as powerful as religion to have shaped the world as it is today. It plays a powerful role even in these modern times. Conflicts rage because of it and have been for thousands of years. The big religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and the others topple the scales in terms of followers. The smaller religions are looked down upon and some, like the infamous Scientology, are seen as cult like and not even a religion.

Granted I don’t even know what to think of when it comes to Scientology, I won’t question that people can have their beliefs. Although many people have asked me what I believe in. While I was born a Catholic and went through their shindig, I am not one to believe in “the big book.” Some say I am an Atheist because I don’t believe in God and all that. That’s not exactly what I am or what I believe.

My parents and grandparents (at least my Mom’s side) are all Catholic. I was dragged to church every Sunday no matter what. Nothing is more of a drag for a kid than church. I would quickly fall asleep or amuse myself to pass time. The priest would go on and on about some mystical dude doing stuff in times when people threw rocks at each other. Big fucking deal. The only thing that excited me more than church ending was the football game right after. My Dad would “Amen” to that.

Over time I learned that I had to do certain things to become a better Catholic. One of them was Communion (I just looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently the correct name for this is Eucharist or something to that effect. Whatever. Moving on.). Now from my days as a little one the only thing I knew of Communion was that you got some stale looking bread and wine. I never knew you had to go through some special service to get to the booze. When I was told of the stuff I had to do I wasn’t pleased. My mom forced me hand and foot through the process. From what I remember (and on my behalf, it was super long ago) I had to go through a confession and some Sunday school bullshit. Confession is a bit of a funny thing. A week or so before I had to go through it I got mad at my brother and ended up throwing some wooden toy at his head which cut him real good. Bled all over and all that fun stuff (I was a kid, what else do you expect). When it came to confession the priest asked me why I decided to get mad and throw it, to which I replied “I don’t know.” (To this day I can’t even remember why.) I wonder what went through the priest’s mind. All I know is he is all “God forgives you, blah blah blah.” Moving along. Anyway, after reading through some Holy coloring book or some shit and coloring in Jesus as a Smurf, I finally got through Communion. Man was I glad to be done and to top it off I was getting wine! Now that’s what I call a reward. After the ceremony the wine made church slightly more bearable, but it still sucked.

Later on I was again forced into some ceremonial bullshit (and I thought God was against torture). This time it was Confirmation. I originally thought it meant I was actually a Catholic if I did this which confused me because I figured I was already one as I was going to church. To a dumb kid this shit is confusing. Anyway, my Mom again dragged me in to this mess. Now granted I, to this day, don’t even know what the hell (oh I’m sorry) Hell this Confirmation business is all about. What I do know is that I had to attend “class” and was assigned “homework” for at least a month twice a week. Not only that but I had to do community service. Made me feel like I was in jail or something. When it came to community service it was a choice between serving pancakes, serving crab, or playing bingo with old people. For whatever reason I somehow got the obvious one (no, not the serving pancakes). For two Saturdays in a row (like Sunday wasn’t enough for this religious crap) I was forced to play bingo with old people. Now usually I am all for playing games to pass up some forced labor but this was not quite what I expected. Not only was I not playing bingo, but those old people were the meanest, grumpiest people I have ever met (to that point, like you thought I haven’t met anyone worse). Okay, okay, so they weren’t all that mean, but some were. Always snapping their chompers at me for not speaking up (or being too loud). Then I was being yelled at for giving chocolate to a diabetic (like a kid knows what the fuck that is). Finally the two weeks were up and the ceremony was around the corner. I got all fancy dressed and did the special service. As soon as it was over I went over to my mom and told her: “I am never going to church again.” To this day I have not stepped into a church expect for one occasion (which you can probably guess if you read my posts from the summer of 2007).

I had beaten Catholicism. I was done. I had nothing to gain from being dragged to church and forced to listen to a droning priest go on and on about some higher power that never seemed to do anything. I carried on with life. Since then quite a few people have asked me what I believe in. To some degree I don’t believe in much.

This whole “higher power” crap bugs me. God seems to be this guy (or girl, whatever) who has all the power in the universe and created the Earth in some odd days along with everything else. If he is so lovey and people worship is awesomeness then why the fuck are their diseases that kill millions and defects that ruin people’s lives? Explain that Mr. God. Seriously, if you are the big man in the sky and love your people then why the fuck would you do this to them? Granted some people are just bad apples the majority are nice folks. So why does this occur? Who knows. Then there is the whole thing of evolution and creationism. The whole we grew from apes versus man just fucking appeared magically. I don’t even know where to begin. What I do believe is science. Fact, plain and simple. Science is the key to everything. No ye old book that screams “BELIEVE IN THE ALMIGHTY” isn’t going to change my mind. Science, and math, are the building blocks that have lead to pretty much everything we hold dear. You can’t deny that science hasn’t done anything for us. It has created cures for the diseases that used to kill millions. It has made life easier with inventions that revolutionized the world. What has this God done? Nothing in my eyes.

Now as to my beliefs about the universe as a whole, science isn’t all of it. I do believe in some theoretical properties. I do believe that there was a Big Bang and that the universe at some point will die out. Granted there are many divisions among scientists as to how the universe will eventually cease to exist, many agree that it will end at some point. This is where many will disagree with me. I believe that the universe is something that repeats itself. Now there are a few theories on how it works but nonetheless it is what I believe. What has happened before will happen again. A loop so-to-speak. No matter what our destinies or fates are predetermined, predefined. Pretty cheery isn’t it? It isn’t the happiest of beliefs but I am not one for “Oh it’s magic!”

Even though I believe in the “loop” theory, I do also think that through the ideology of transhumanism that we can make the world a better place (even if we are all destined to repeat the cycle over and over). Science can do wonders. With advances we could change anything. There are no limits to what mind and matter can achieve. It may seem crazy, but isn’t the idea of some super being crazy too?

Religion gives a sense of security to people. For all we know everyone in the world could be wrong and the Bible could have been written by some bored old man in a shack on some hill in the Middle East. I don’t care. Believe in what you want and don’t change your mind just because someone forced you to. Do your own thing. If there is one thing I hate it is people who force an idea upon you with force. Wars over belief are stupid. Most of me feels religion should have never came to be as it hasn’t really done anything good for humanity expect bring conflict and divide. If everyone let everyone else do their own thing it would be fine. That would be if we lived in a perfect would and it turns out we don’t. We can however come to some sort of agreement even if we don’t believe in the same ideologies. Who knows, maybe some greater being does exist and plans to come down to tell us all how dumb we are. Whatever happens will happen I guess.

Anyway, that is what I believe. If you don’t agree then that is fine.