Something Serious for Once

http://forums.mercurynews.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=mn-news&msg=5362.1

It's always amusing when people start debating about religion.

My ancestors were Buddhists, but I am an atheist. Growing up in America, as much as the country trumpets "freedom of religion" and all that jazz, this is still a very Christian country.

I remember one girl in particular from third grade - I'll call her "Sally." Sally was a caucasian Christian girl who eventually went on to become home-schooled. (She was also rather spoiled, but that is a different story.) Third grade was a crossroads year for me - the lines were starting to be drawn between the cliques. For awhile, I hung out with Sally and her friends, but gradually, I realized just how twisted her logic was - and how I couldn't stand it. I remember very clearly that she once said, "Why would anyone want to believe in Buddha? He's so fat and chubby."

On my part, my mistake was not standing up for my ancestors' religion, instead of just simply swallowing her bullshit.

When I was younger, there was one thought in particular that always bothered me very much. When it occurred to me that once I die, it is the end - it was a very terrifying thought. I have never been brought up to believe in reincarnation or afterlife - those hold as much truth to me as supernatural stories. Often times, these thoughts would creep up on me when I was trying to sleep at night - and I would usually slap myself in order to try to forget about it. I still have thoughts about dying now, but with tests and homework popping up everywhere like mushroooms after a rainy spell, dying doesn't seem nearly as terrible.

Just kidding.

I was reading The Open Boat by Stephen Crane, and one line particularly stuck out to me:

"When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim theuniverse by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples."

There are no temples unless we build them ourselves. It occurred to me that the thoughts I had when I was young were the same thoughts many other people shared. It is very frightening to imagine that there is nothing out there - that when we die, eventually we will be completely forgotten and our lives have had no meaning. You might leave behind a line of descendants, but they won't even know your name. I am a descendant of people I cannot even imagine, much less know their names.

This is where religion comes in. Those who believe in afterlife do not feel the same terror - there is a benefactor watching over them. Those who believe in reincarnation may return to the Earth again, or possibly become enlightened. In any case, they believe in souls - an individual psyche for each person that never dies.

Perhaps if I grew up with religion, then I would believe in the same things. But at this point in my life, I don't think I could readily accept any religion unless it was simply about how to live one's life. Other than the fact that we are smarter and thus develop ideas such as morals, ethics, and society - I don't see a very big difference between us and the rest of nature. We are all subject to the same randomness of the universe. Scientifically, humans are animals - it is our brains that separates us from the others.

Thus, I don't mind religion when it provides faith - a sense of a hope in order to drive away the feeling of loneliness. What I don't like is when organized religion starts to reflect the uglier tendencies of human nature. Religion, in my opinion, cannot be used to justify nature - including human behavior. Hurricane Katrina was a result of hot and cold air forming a spiral - it was not created by God to punish people.

Returning back to the topic of Sally, she would repeatedly talk about her faith, regarding non-Christians as strange or stupid. When I was in elementary school, the majority of my classmates were Christian. The pledge of allegiance and the patriotic songs all have direct references to God; even the Girl Scout Law, which I was required to say at every club meeting, contained the line "On my honor/I will try to serve God." There were times when I thought it would have been so much easier to just be Christian.

On the same token, I dislike those who are hostile towards other religions. I know several people, fairly well in fact, who find Christianity ridiculous. This I do not tolerate either. I could have turned to Sally and asked why she believed in a deity who killed everyone on Earth except for Noah and his family. But by doing so, I would be forcing my beliefs onto Sally the same way she tried to force Christianity onto me.

So I suppose some people might find me offending or pathetic - well, that's always the case whenever religion is involved.