What do I think about all the religion hype?
Quite honestly I’ve been having a hard time lately deciphering the fact from the fiction from what I really believe is the truth.
I’ll begin by sharing a little anecdote about my involvement in church “back in the day”. I grew up knowing only one religion. Eating, drinking and sleeping the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or the Mormons. Mormons being a rip off of The Book of Mormon, which just so happens to be a vital part of the whole religion). To be fair I’ll say that this church was never forced on me or anything of the like. It had just been all that I’d known. This is fine and is obviously common with family’s that go back century’s with the church.
Back to the anecdote: My friend and I were so “into” this particular church that we started a little club. I don’t remember what we called it and it’s not particularly important. What was important though was the fact that we would go around and act like missionary’s and try to convert people to our faith. We would walk down the streets and greet people and ask them “would you like us to share a message with you about Jesus Christ” etc.. Most people politely turned us down and this practice of ours soon died down as well.
I tell you this to show my past involvement in the church and to show how religion in my life has gone from preaching, to questioning, then to doubting. I’ll begin by saying that all church’s are based on faith. Faith: believing without seeing. This causes a big problem for the logical or doubtful/pessimistic (take your pick) guys. I, being one of the doubtful have questioned a lot lately. I’ve gone from believing that there is an actual God in “heaven” somewhere that actually put us here and cares about us, to tinkering with the idea of evolution, to not having any idea what this is all about. Of course the religion that I belonged to (and currently do) lays all of this information out on the table as common knowledge, and quite honestly it all makes good sense. Good sense until I talk to the people that are equally qualified (as far as knowledge goes) on the other side of the matter; the other side being atheism or evolutionism.
I used to be one to think how ridiculous both concepts are and I still do to some extent. But each side has their good arguments. And I don’t just mean “good” as in ok. I mean good as in extraordinarily competitive. Quite honestly I don’t know where I’m going in this post. The whole religion thing has been on my mind for the last while and I’m still questioning all sides of each belief system.
I’ll conclude by saying that religion can’t be fact, fiction or reality unless you make it that way in your mind. It all comes down to what you believe and feel to be true. It’s interesting that so many people can “know” and “feel” so many different things in different religions. I hear people all the time (mostly in my religion) say “they know” when I question whether they really do “know”. After all, if they knew they would have evidence. Possibly even physical evidence! Of course this goes back to the faith argument and the “feeling you get in your heart”, but in all actuality, nobody knows for a fact! I don’t say this to be even more doubtful, I just question how so many people can say they know something when they can’t prove it!
About Jeremy Blake
