The truth in religion

I've let this blog go untouched for such a long time. I felt like I was at a spiritual standstill, but I think I was just evolving. I came to some realizations in my life—maybe things I had already realized, but not quite accepted, or I hadn't come to fathom all of the implications. They weren't happy revelations. Life had been bitch-slapping me back and forth for years, and I was slowly letting go of what suddenly seemed to be youthful, useless fantasies, beliefs, and patterns of thinking. I didn't want to let go of them, but it began to seem inevitable, necessary even, if I was ever going to be happy and successful.

There was one thing in particular I was holding onto, and it had somehow become tied to everything else. I knew when I let it go, that would be the end of all belief—in dreams coming true, in the impossible, in God—and all the magic in the world would disappear. I held onto the one thing to keep everything else alive. I suspected all of these things were unrealistic, illogical, but I knew if I let them go, I would stop believing in the one thing too. I held onto them to keep the one thing, alive, too. And then finally, I convinced myself I needed to grow up—and I forced myself to let go.

When you grow up, your heart dies.
 

Just as I anticipated, everything shattered. It didn't explode in an Earth-shaking cosmic blast of the heart, the way I expected it. It just quietly evaporated, leaving behind nothing but cold logic. I didn't have very much going for me at the time, not many realistic reasons to look forward to the future, because I had no indication the future would be any better—just the desire that it would be. I had been flirting with, or perhaps fighting against, atheism while working on this blog, trying to save the faith of my heart from the logic of my mind. There was no mistaking it: I had arrived. And without all that belief and blind hope, it was very depressing at the time.

 

I kept it to myself at first. It was kind of embarrassing. Among the intelligent, intellectual, science types, it's perfectly normal. I wasn't afraid to admit it to people who still had faith either; I've never had any qualms about admitting to deviating from mainstream religion. I was embarrassed of myself, personally, because it flew in the face of who I had always been. Even after I couldn't deny it to myself anymore, I still couldn't say it aloud, because that would make it more real. I also wasn't prepared to answer questions about why. No one really asks me to explain, though. I think mostly I'm still trying to understand it myself.

It isn't that I feel stupid believing in things for which there is no proof. Everyone is blaming science for the fall of religion, and I think they might be right. The more we discover, the more I learn, the more I realize there really is a logical explanation for almost everything, always rooted in physics, chemistry, the laws of the universe; even love is just a complex dance of chemicals and biology. There is no magic; there are only things we can't explain yet. Maybe we lack the technology or are asking the wrong questions, but one day, we will have the answer. Anything that we observe in nature, we can figure out how to do ourselves. We can manipulate genes. We could even create a black hole someday.

Studying the cosmos, wrapping my mind around the vastness of infinity of both space and time, the many coincidences that made life possible, the knowledge of how very rare and precious life must be and yet the mathematical improbability, perhaps impossibility that we are the only planet with life out there—that eliminates belief in God for me, as a diety. There seems to be no plan, just a bunch of matter following the laws of the universe, random... and yet orderly at the same time. That suggests to me that there is some kind of plan.

We love because of chemicals in our brains—so that we have an incentive to protect our young. We hate because of brain chemistry—so that we have an incentive to fight for survival. It's meaningless and meaningful all at once, all of it carefully planned by nature, developed by our very cells, the only overseer the constraints of possibility as determined by the laws of the universe. Emotions are hard-wired into our species to help us thrive and survive. Combined with thought they form our consciousness, with which we associate spirituality. No two personalities are alike. Even twins, with the same DNA and genetic markers, their brains made of the same material, will think and feel differently. I imagine even if we made a clone, the clone's personality would differ from the original, unless we implanted every single memory into the clone. Even then, they would still develop different personalities, because they wouldn't be sharing the same experiences after inception.

We're all aware of how unique and different we each are, and combined with love and survival instinct, this is why we can't stand the thought of people just ceasing to exist in death. This is both the root of the value of life—and the root of much of the selfishness and evil in the world, as well. Either you see that everyone is special—or you forget that and see only your own specialness. Religion is meant to open your mind and heart so that you see beyond yourself, which should be unifying, but too often it is instead used to divide, like with like and different with different. After that division, the two sides start seeing each other only as like or different, they start thinking of the “other side” as being all the same, and then they see only the specialness of those on the same side. Even if all the world shared the same religion, we would be divided in our interpretations of how it relates to life.

Religion was intended to guide people to living a happy, peaceful life. Instead, it has been used to control and divide people—by governments, by churches, even families. Religion's fatal flaw is that we shaped it around mythology. People obey the laws of the religion because of the mythology. As science has advanced and mankind has become enlightened, the world has started to see through the mythology and recognize it for exactly what it is. That shatters everything—the fear, the promise of reward, and the moral code. Atheists have long known that you can have morals without religion. I have to wonder why we didn't do that in the first place and base it around everything we know is true about life and the universe. Then there wouldn't be any backpedaling or deviating from cannon to make room for new discoveries; it would all just have fit together. We made religion fallible by using fiction as its basis. We also made it weak by allowing it to become organized. When people wake up to the corruption of the churches and the spiritual leaders, trust in the entire religion is undermined. Then you have a society of people who believe nothing, not even the truth in religion.

And there is, indeed, truth in religion.

Many things drew me to Paganism as I began my own spiritual journey. I liked that Wicca offered both a God and a Goddess. This is more in tune with reality and paints a more accurate picture of the human condition. It is more in line with nature, more balanced. It made me feel represented as a woman, rather than undervalued and excluded. The Lord and Lady have many faces, all parts of a whole, giving everyone an aspect of deity to identify with during any part of their journey. This to me symbolized how human consciousness breaks down, first into male and female, then into every imaginable personality, representing everyone—all of us separate, yet connected. I liked that the holidays were centered around the changing of the seasons, rather than the life and times of a man who may or may not have existed. Rather than being based on history, the holidays were based on something unchangeable, something still true and relevant today, something we couldn't disprove because we observe it year after year.

What I liked the most, though, was instead of a list of black and white, set-in-stone commandments, bolstered by commands littered throughout hundreds of pages of text, there was really only one rule: harm none. The interpretation of how to apply that to life is left open to the individual, allowing personal freedom. Moreover, the Wiccan Rede was never intended to be a hard set of rules. It was mere advice for you to consider, take it or leave it. There is no threat of eternal punishment for exercising your free will. Instead, the punishment for misdeeds is the rule of three: what you send forth comes back to you, which holds true in most circumstances without mythology backing it. The consequences for your actions are your karma. When you use Heaven or Hell as the motive to do good or evil, not only do people's motives for their behavior deviate from what they should be, you run the risk that the moral code will crack when or if your practitioners realize that there is no literal Heaven or Hell. This is not so with Wicca; even if all Wiccans ceased believing in the Summerland and reincarnation, the changing of the seasons would still occur, and we would still be able to observe mankind reaping the consequences of his actions.

 

We all know that mankind is more inclined to obey when he understands the reasoning behind the rules. Imagine if, instead of threatening patrons with mythology, Christianity had explained the logic behind the commandments. Imagine if they had been treated as sage advice, rather than rules—how many lives could have been spared, how much more inclusive the religion could have seemed towards those who struggle with “sin,” and how much more united its followers could have been with the rest of the world and even within their religion without the label of “sinner.” Sinner is just another word for human, but some seem to forget that as it applies to themselves and only remember it when judging others. Imagine if we all focused not on an imaginary battle of good vs evil, but on leading happy, peaceful lives. The world would be very different, and religion would be embraced rather than increasingly dismissed or even hated. There would be no mythology destroyed by science to undermine the values the religion tries to instill.

This brings me to the truth in religion. There is a little truth in every religion. Regardless of whatever else happens when we die, we know we live on in memory. The people we knew remember us, and if our deeds are great or terrible enough, the world remembers us—perhaps even the history books do. Your actions determine whether those left behind will condemn you to Hell or pray you've gone on to Heaven. Memory is an indisputable form of afterlife. As far as the commandments, most of them are wise to follow, just as the advice in the Wiccan Rede is wise. Don't worship idols—they aren't real. Honor thy father and mother, for they deserve gratitude for all they have given you, and someday they will be gone, making it too late. Thou shall not kill because life is valuable, and there are loads of consequences for it—childless parents, orphaned children. Thou shall not commit adultery—you and your lover will forever be seen as untrustworthy, and you'll be hurting someone, possibly ripping apart a home with children, whose lives will never be the same. Thou shall not steal or falsely accuse. All of these things hurt people and breed anger, resentment, hatred, revenge plots. That's what makes them wrong.

Religion tells us not to be wordly—to value relationships and experiences over material items, to be charitable rather than greedy, to be tolerant rather than belligerent. It tells us to be humble, because boasting makes others resentful of us. Above all, it tells us to give praise to the Creator, which is basically thanks. The Ten Commandments was so convinced of the importance of this that they set aside an entire day for rest and thanks. There is a wealth of scientific data out there proving that appreciation leads to happiness, closer relationships, and better physical and psychological health. Gratitude alleviates aggression, lowers risk of drug abuse, and increases life satisfaction. Most people see appreciation as a reaction to happiness, but on the contrary: happiness happens because of appreciation. If taught that perhaps more people would take steps to be successful rather than giving praise to an omniscient sky-being whose existence is dubious in the hopes success and happiness will be handed to them. Gratitude is one of the greatest truths religion has to offer. It is too bad we tied it, too, to mythology, when we could have just preached its benefits all along. People break the Ten Commandments because they lack appreciation.

I am an atheist, but that doesn't mean I believe in nothing. I can still find the truths within the lies of religion and mythology, and I intend to do exactly that. I believe I will discover that every religion is essentially saying the same thing, that there is truth at the heart of every religion, and perhaps in doing so, I can find a set of universal truths to shape a new religion for myself. Then when people ask me about my faith, instead of telling them what I don't believe in, I can tell them what I do believe. Now that I've freed myself from the myths that I was still holding onto, I no longer need to believe in the impossible, in magic, or in God to believe that dreams come true. I simply believe in what is possible and use that to achieve my goals. And that one thing? While I don't believe what I once did about it, it has returned to me, and I believe. All of the magic in the world has indeed gone, but I no longer need magic to believe in any possibility.