Religion. The spark of controversy since literally the dawn of answers. It’s an idea that was invented a long time ago. It’s be around before science. Religion is the conjecture to an answer. Science is the discovery of that answer. But they’ve been feuding since the earliest of human conceived the idea of “What If?” scenario. God is like the ultimate “what if” scenario and our species has not handled it well.
We contemplated “What if there was like a being that made all the cheese in the world, was in fact made out of cheese! What if that god was called Gorganzolas!” And instead saying “That would be cool. Let find out if we can figure out if it is Gorganzolas or if something else is making the global cheese surplus!” We basically said “IT IS GORGANZOLAS! AND ITS A HE! AND HE IS WHITE!” And then we have a war and now cheese is ruined forever because we thought a What If scenario was the absolute truth.
The way I see it, Religion is a tool and we as a species have spent a long time misusing it. It’s like fire. Fire is an amazing tool. We can use it to cook, weld, get high, but we can also use it to burn societies to the ground. It can nourish us but also it also gave us arson as a way to destroy everything we’ve built. It’s the same with Religion, we can either use it as a tool try and understand the vastness of the universe in conjunction with science or use it as means to kill each other and tell each other we’re wrong. Which we’ve been doing forever now.
But religion is something that’s extremely prevalent in the lives almost every single person. Permeated through every little part of our zeitgeist. Capitalism is basically the religion of money and the malls and Amazon are its temples! Yes, with all the technological advances we’re making, even our temples are moving to an online platform where prayers can charged a shipping and handling fee!
TGIF was a religion keeping citizens from going out into the world and enjoying the company of others and the creation of great art, because “Boy, Mindy’s going to get into some Wacky situations this week! She bought a Cat!
Even Atheism can lean towards the religious. The obsession of disproving God in and of itself can be a religion. Taking Science solely at its word is kinda like subscribing to a religious doctrine. And let’s be honest ourselves here, even some of the stories we hear about Scientists are a little far fetched. Isaac Newton decided to look into Gravity after he bonked on the head by an apple? I mean if we’re going to buy into that then let’s also buy into the fact that he was trying to bring God to the Earth! “Check out Lord! This is a prism and it has all the colors you invented housed in it!”
Ok, I am sure there are a lot of Atheists that are screaming at their screens right now and I understand. Some Atheists see Religion as the evil itself. The idea is the problem. Ok, I just ask that you look at this way. If we consider Religion a tool, someone misused the tool with you and now you hate the tool. It’s like if someone dropped a hammer on your foot. Are you going to hate hammers forever? Or are you going to make sure people with hammers use it properly?
It’s sparked wars! Religious wars are the most fucked up version of the “My Dad is better than your Dad argument!” Just a little heads up the monotheistic god seems to be same God. Seems like it’s the same Dad making his step-kids fight each other to show him who loves him the most and gets taken out for ice cream. As of right now it it’s no one.
One religion is fractured into a thousand pieces and is telling the older religion to hate the youngest one because they’ve got Middle Child Syndrome. I’m talkin about you Christianity! I think you have undiagnosed Dissociative Identity Disorder mixed with Middle Child Complex. Just relax, you’ve had a real stressful millenia.
The other two are still at odds with each other and both have been politicized to point of mass manipulation and are used by war mongers for the sake of their profits. The point is I really doubt genocide is the way to get ice cream or attention your step-parent. You guys should maybe find a different father figure.
At the current moment, the Catholic Church, on of the personalities of Christianity, is going through what has been described as an “onslaught” of sexual abuse scandals. Where Bishops and Cardinals covered up something that has been a joke for hacky comedians for years! The Catholic Priest banging kids. Which is horrible as an act and pretty bad as a joke.
Most people, including laxxed and practicing Catholics, don’t believe that Church was looking out for predatory behavior but rather spent most of their time covering it up. Even Cool Pope Francis was put off by all of this. Turns out being a sexual predator towards kids is a big no no for the Lord. It might be time for a new rendition of the 10 Commandments. One that says you can’t Fuck Kids and the Gays are cool. Also masturbate every once in a while...just clean up after yourself.
But it reveals a huge glaring problem about humans having chosen to protect an idea instead of their kids. They protected these so called leaders instead of removing them from the religion or looking at the cause of that behavior. If you tell a group of men that can’t masturbate or have sex till marriage, that’s a lot of pent up hormones that are not going anywhere. Clearly it’s one of the reasons that led to this scandal and litany of other toxic behaviors such as misogyny, homophobia and arbitrary uses of mer.
I doubt Jesus, the super chill dude, wanted women to be seed receptacles for men or the ones that are meant to be closest to God to be backed up for decades. If you’re still having consistent wet dreams as an adult I doubt you’ll be let into the pristine, purity of heaven. That’s not cool. Those poor angels must be doing spunk covered laundry for eternity. If you’re a good person, you’d stop spreading your propaganda of cebicy and do the angels a favor and just jack off. Just make sure you clean up, I can’t stress this enough. That’s what the whole “Don’t drop your seed on the ground” verse is all about.
But that’s how you justify your hatred using the tool of Religion. You should hate the gays, women who speak, those outside your religion! So if you’re taking action of loving yourself within a Religion that’s been co-opted to hate, then it makes sense why masturbation is illegal. You have to hate yourself too. Till God can show you love and only God can love. Like a possessive, sociopathic boyfriend in a Lifetime movie. If you’re religious rules are predicated on how NOT to live your life then of course it’s going to have negative consequences.
Instead of attacking the problem head on and figuring out how to keep your Church safe, you chose to lie for the sake the fallacy of purity. Tools are meant to evolve. They become multi-purpose. They become other tools. This is what happens when you say a tool can only be used as one thing. A tool to destroy and ignite fear instead be malleable and adapt with changing times.
And this purity is what I believe is happening with the left and the liberals. The monotheism has permeated into their philosophies. Right now I think the left is looking for their perfect, pure, individual. Essentially their God. This figure says the right words, uses the correct pronouns, and boils the gender gap only to pay. Basically they say what the left wants to hear. Taking accountability away from their complacency and simplifying the complexities of the human condition into good and evil. Again kinda like what humanity did with the idea of religion.
So when someone commits a transgression of any kind and they were coveted by the Left, they are cast out and considered irredeemable. There are a certain set of rules and standards the left and liberals adhere to and if you’re not part of that, then you get no protection and are probably a Nazi. Which means they’re probably a perfect person for the Catholic Church to support.
In search of this perfect being they’ve forgotten that we are all just human beings. We are flawed, broken and we all need a little help getting better. We aren’t some ethereal being in a distant unattainable plane, we’re right in front of each other! And the beauty of looking at the world a series of grays is we can help each sort it all out.
The misuse of religion with a monotheist lens shows us its only been used to control people using fear and violence. At least polytheism shows the Gods as flawed beings. In Hinduism Shiva needs anger management. In Greek mythology, Zeus is kinda a man whore. Norse mythology decided to sell the rights of their story to Marvel. The point is they all make mistakes and misused their tools. But if we can be forgiven and figure out what they did wrong to better themselves, this can improve.
Religion is a tool that we can use to ignite curiosities in each other. It’s a tool that can be used discover what are the moral gray areas and what are the absolutes. It’s a tool that encourage masturbation isn’t of demonize it to the point where you might become a demon yourself! If we can course correct the way we use religion we might not be as fractured as we are.