magicalfreddiemercury wrote:
I not only talk to people, but I have also been on both sides of the religious wall. There are many like myself who see religion as a crutch. And there are many, like my parents and others, who see it as a lifeline.
When things go crazy, when there is no ‘reason’, the faithful see it as the ‘will of god’. The other day, the news was playing and replaying scenes showing the Boston Marathon explosions, with people crying, bleeding and running in every direction. One cameraman zoomed in on a terrified woman, trembling violently while on her knees, hands clasped and raised in front of her face, clearly praying aloud through her tears. No one knows how they’ll react in a moment of such tremendous horror, but if that woman hadn’t been raised with religion, if that were not part of her core beliefs, she would not have dropped to her knees in the middle of it all to pray for whatever she was praying for in the aftermath. She, most likely, would have run to help someone or run for cover. Either would have been the proactive response.
The Real Wizard wrote:
It absolutely is a distraction and a crutch. It is a reason to stop searching for ultimate truth…
I have no idea why I didn’t see this until now, or maybe I did and don’t remember, but I agree completely. If it’s already there, why look any further? It’s also a reason/excuse to avoid personal responsibility. Like the conversation about the pope and condoms. First, to the horror of the medical community, he insisted it was sinful to use them then he changed his position and said, basically, that it was a lesser evil for homosexual men to use them… he said to do so would be a first step toward homosexuals accepting moral and sexual responsibility. Only when asked to clarify his comments, did he include permission for heterosexual couples to use them, thus finally acknowledging the benefit of condoms and allowing their use when the safety of a partner was at stake. One can only wonder what it will take for people to simply accept such personal responsibility before being ‘allowed’ to do so.
(for anyone interested, the article/blog discussing the above can be found here - http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-11-23-pope-condoms_N.htm)
You know, this thread has been long and grueling, but it’s also been fascinating – for me at least. I’d shed pounds of soul-sucking fear associated with faith a long time ago but didn’t realize how free I was, or how comfortable I was with my own position about religion, until voicing it here. A couple pages back, I had my own little epiphany. I was responding to one of the many obnoxious posts directed toward me when I realized I didn’t care. I really, to my bones, did not care. None of it mattered. I didn’t feel the terror I’d always known or that feeling of doom I used to feel if I even entertained a non-pious thought. There I was, sitting back waiting for it, and it never came. I can’t express how freeing it was to acknowledge that lack of paralyzing anxiety after being only vaguely aware of it – maybe fearfully aware of it.
If I’d been raised in awe of some higher being, instead of in terror of it, things might be different for me today. Who knows? I could now be like catqueen – comfortable enough in faith that I could separate my own truth from the bullshit some radical church spews to its congregation. But that’s not how it was and so I stand by comments I’ve made on these pages – except one set of them where I said god/religion has a ‘life’. I knew what I was trying to say there but didn’t articulate it as well as I could/should have.
So Mooghead, to your question, which started this thread –
mooghead wrote: This might be lighting the touchpaper but surely none of the highly intelligent people who frequent this website actually believe in all that god crap?
After all these pages and all the reflection, I still can’t answer it definitively. I guess, by default, that means I’m not an atheist.
If there isn’t a god, then only half my life was wasted worrying about some non-existent wrath. If there is a god, a being that created the earth, moon, stars, us and everything we’ve yet to discover, then how arrogant and foolish it would be of me to assume I know what s/he expects of me. I’d rather take a proactive approach to life than drop to my knees in prayer. I’ve done both. The latter no longer makes sense to me. And I’m not afraid to say that.
Wait a minute….
Nope. Not afraid.
