More Thoughts on Religion

Lately I've been experiencing emotional conflict on the subject of religion. I have the proverbial little devil on one shoulder, and the angel on the other shoulder trying to win over my perception on the matter. It doesn't help the angel that my mind naturally leans toward pragmatism and objectivity, and less on faith. In an attempt to organize the debate on the merits of religion, my mind creates a courtroom scenario pitting religiosity against secularism. And I must say that secularism has more evidence to support its merits than religion; particulary during this day and age. My personal experience corroborates this, which I'll get into later. But, being a person who makes it a point to give both sides equal consideration, my mind doubles as a "public defender" for religion.

From what I can see, religion has the ability to divide people. It has the ability to divide families. It prevents family members from getting close to one another, if they all don't share strong religious beliefs. Religion by definition is exclusive. It has to be. In order to practice it correctly, you must make certain renouncements; for example, you must refrain from cursing, exhibiting sexuality, and sometimes dancing or drinking in public. Non-religious family members know this, and therefore act in a way that is not quite themselves when they are around religious family members. It creates a somewhat artificial, or distant feeling. One may be quick to say that the "behaviors that religious people renounce shouldn't be done anyways, from a moral standpoint." I suppose this is true. Then why do I, and others feel the way we do? The best answer I can come up with is, the religious method of behavioral restraint involves fear and punishment (of, from God) whereas the non-religious method does not. The religious approach is spartan and rigid; the non-religious approach relies on deity-independent self-restraint, which is quite possible, but perhaps less effective. I suppose that the religious approach is superior in this respect. Humans usually do need some kind of punishment in order to modify behavior, whether actual or perceived. It is a Pavlovian truth. But, for freedom-loving people, to willingly create a subconscious mental state of duress in order to keep oneself in line is an anathema. It is something we try to get around while trying to achieve the same result-- good behavior, good morals.

Religious people serve to act as a (Republican) voting bloc, and as a result can spawn change. They can, as a group change the quality of life in a way that is not acceptable to others. This has never been more true than in the Bush Years: whereas prior to the Bush administration I felt a sense of balance between the two ideologies of liberalism and conservatism. I believe that this is a healthy balance, a yin and yang existence of one force balancing the other to achieve harmony. But today, I feel that the conservative movement has broken loose. I feel that it's encroaching on my life on the personal level. I see an unstable future for the world, thanks to the actions of Bush (actually, the legions of conservatives who put him into office twice). They have opened a pandora's box, creating a "disturbance in the force," to borrow from Star Wars. I see financial hardship for local governments as federal dollars are spent paying for this and future wars. I see a weakening of our economy as we continue to slide into debt. I see global warming accelerating, due to conservatives' rejection and ridicule of the global warming theory. I see an increase in crime as unemployed and underemployed people resort to illegal means to make money. I see increased terrorism as the chasm between Christians and Muslims widens. I see stagnation in technology, especially green technology as resources are diverted to anti-terrorism campaigns. Basically I see a darker, more frightened, dangerous, polluted future.

I believe that overall, organized religion is a failure. I don't think that believing in god is necessarily bad; it's when the believers (the fundamentalists of the group) organize, achieve political power, and attempt to legislate their beliefs upon society.