Religion

Sometimes I feel sad about religion, or rather, sad about my relationship to it. I'm definitely agnostic - I don't think God can be proven (or disproven), and I don't think anyone actually knows whether God exists, or anything about the nature of God. I've been agnostic for years, but despite this, I always found religion interesting. In the past couple of years though, I've been feeling rather antagonistic towards it. I've felt increasing irritation on my part toward Christmas and the way it "takes over" December - I even get annoyed during Thanksgiving. Lately I've been reading a lot of books on atheism, such as Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, and Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation. And I liked them both very much and agree with the authors in terms of what they believe, for the most part.

However, one thing I don't like about books on atheism, and atheist groups in general, is that they do seem to create this huge division between people who believe in God, and people who are dubious. And although I do think whether you believe in God or not will shape your relationship to other things...the division part makes me sad.

I don't personally believe in religion, but I don't want to feel divided from those who do. And although I am agnostic, I can understand why people would want to have a religion, and would want to believe in God. Life is scary and terrifying, and the fact that we're all going to die and that there's no one around to tell us why on earth we exist in the first place...well, that's really frightening. It makes sense that human beings would want to believe in God, and even from an evolutionary standpoint it makes sense. Whether one believes in God or not, believing itself is comforting, and that's undeniable.

It reminds me of the scene in the movie Corrina, Corrina, where Molly asks Whoppi where her mommy is, and Whoppi says she's in heaven. Later, Molly's dad, a staunch atheist, scolds Whoppi for telling his daughter nonsense, and goes to have a talk with her. I don't remember his exact words, but he says something like, "honey, heaven and God is something people make up so that they don't hurt so much." And Molly turns to him and says, "So? What's wrong with that?" It's a beautiful moment, and really quite interesting in terms of what religion is, and how much of its "truthfulness" really matters.



Lately, very recently, I've been wondering why I feel so antagonistic toward religion. I never had a problem with it before, and when I was young, I used to be Catholic. Even after I was no longer Catholic, I liked the social aspect of religion; people get together in church, make friends, drink wine, etc...socially, religion is interesting. When I still lived in Canada, I didn't mind religion at all. I think things started to change for me when Bush was re-elected in 2004, and I cried for 3 days. I was just so....mad, and since his re-election was deemed to have a lot to do with the evangelical Christians, it just made me really mad at them. The combination of religion and politics does anger me, because although I can respect and even enjoy religion, I don't see why anyone would think that their religion should have influence on government. So I think the recent overlapping of church and state, such as CNN shows like "Politics and Faith", where candidates talk about their faith, like that really matters in a president - that makes me angry. In Canada, I don't remember that happening very much, religion is a much more private affair, which I think is why it was so much easier for me to have a smooth relationship with it. And I'm aware that some religious people are also against the politicization of religion, and I should really think about that more, and focus on why I'm really angry, instead of just directing it blindly at religion (don't get smug, Bruce, I still disagree with you on tons of other things, so there :P).

I just realized that my anger is more political than it is religious, and I've realized that I don't want to be so mad at religion anymore. I may not be religious, but a lot of my friends are, and I don't want to feel like there's this division between us. I want to feel like I used to feel toward religion; like I may not be a part of the religious community, but I am a part of the social community, and religion is a part of that, and of human societies in general.

This also reminds of the South Park episode, All About the Mormons, where there's a new Mormon kid in town, Gary. At first, Stan thinks Mormonism is cool, but then he starts to doubt the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith. Instead of being Gary's friend anyway, while not becoming a Mormon himself, Stan gets angry at Gary for believing in Mormonism when there's no evidence for anything in the Book of Mormon. He gets so angry that he starts avoiding Gary, who happens to be really nice, and avoiding his family. And at the end, Gary gives Stan what I think is a fascinating speech:

Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life. and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don't care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that's stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you're so high and mighty you couldn't look past my religion and just be my friend back. You've got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. Suck my balls.

Although, throughout that episode, I agreed with Stan; at the end, I agreed with Gary, too. He had a good point. And Stan missed out on a cool friend, because he was so angry. I suppose sometimes, I feel that way too, and it makes me sad. And I don't want to be that way. And just like Stan also had a hard time admitting that one of the reasons Gary made him crazy is because their family was close-knit (unlike Stan's own), maybe I have to admit that the reason Christmas annoys me is not because it's a Christian holiday, but because all my Christmases have sucked. If I had grown up having good Christmases, I would probably still like it now, whether I was agnostic or not. I guess...I just don't want to be so annoyed during Christmas anymore. Eggnog, anyone?