Religion

Religion

I’m not a big fan.  Don’t get me wrong, if it works for you, fine.  I just find that organized religion has probably done more harm than good in the grand scheme of things.  Yes, some good has been done following religious teachings, when done selectively.  My own background as a Catholic would find that almost everyone I knew was a “cafeteria Catholic.”  This term meant that you picked and chose those beliefs to follow, like food selections in a cafeteria.  I find this to be a bit hypocritical but essential if you are to follow any given organized religion.  My Jewish friends, the happy ones, also followed a selective belief system.  Call them “deli Jews.”  I think all ancient book based religions will require this approach.

I have my greatest experience with Catholicism and a few other Christian religions.  I also have a limited knowledge by association with Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists.  With the exception of Buddhism, these religions are based primarily on a published “rule book.”  The Christians have the Bible, Jews have the Talmud, and Muslims have the Koran.  Buddhists have a collection of texts and teachings.  The original source of these books and teachings generally go back thousands of years. 


Much like the US Constitution, the original philosophy had mostly good intentions and may have worked relatively well when written, but times have changed.  The problem here is that they all needed updates and these changes were slow to develop and subject to influences that may not have been so well intentioned.

The original teachings were in ancient languages, making them difficult to translate with accuracy.  You also have the fact that they were transcribed by hand and open to a level of interpretation by the writer.  Centuries after the original works were written you have important individuals lending their own interpretation by selecting which portions of the original works are to go forward and which are to be ignored or destroyed.

So, even if we are to have blind faith in the original source of the material, i.e., God speaking to Moses, Jesus speaking to the apostles, the angel Gabriel talking to Muhammad, what came out of those meetings is questionable.

In my own birth-religion, Catholicism, the pope has the ultimate say in the here and now.  Over the years, popes have been good people and popes have been scoundrels.  Even some of my namesakes make the list of scoundrels:  John the VII who was caught in bed with another man’s wife; John XII also a philanderer.  Other popes are far more culpable than these minor transgressors.

The period of the Inquisitions lasted 700 years.  During this time, the Catholic Church, in order to eradicate heresy, tortured and killed anyone with whom they disagreed.

During this same period, witch-hunts also provided a means to advance the control of the Church.  The Church here refers to both Catholic and protestant religions.  Witches were tortured and finally burned at the stake.  The methods of torture were horrendous.  This was done so the witches could be purified and enter heaven.  The Church was doing the victims a favor.  Estimates of the numbers of witches found, tortured and burned were as many as 100,000.  As a footnote to the witch-hunt period, it was also common practice to kill animals thought to be purveyors of Satan’s will and this included cats.  The wholesale slaughter of cats didn’t help matters when rats then brought in the bubonic plague.  No cats meant many rats.

A quote from George Carlin on religion:  Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day.  And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do.  And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time.  But, he loves you.  He loves you and he needs money.

Over the centuries, the Catholic Church accepted “indulgences” which were remittances of cash and valuables to pay for sins committed.  My own brief church/financial experience was as an altar boy in the church.  I lived in a modest two-bedroom one-bath home in south Florida with no air conditioning.  I was occasionally tasked to carry heavy bags of money from the church collection over to the beautiful split-level priest’s house.  It was air- conditioned and had wall-to-wall carpeting.  The house was built on a small lake and had two new Cadillacs parked out front.  The priests were living exceptionally well for the time (1950’s) and I was being asked to draw from my twenty-five cent allowance to donate to their cause.  I missed the logic.

My specifics here reference the Catholic Church but similar evils have been part of organized religions since their inception.  In modern times, the Muslim faith has been hijacked by clerics for their own benefit by warped interpretation of their basic teachings.  The Christian faith has also been turned into financial empires by televangelists promising “snake oil” cures but only if you send them lots of money.  

I feel that all religions should be taxed.  All revenues that don’t go directly to easily identifiable charities would be taxed at a flat rate.  These charities would have to funnel at least 90% of all derived revenue directly to needy individuals.  All other expenditures would be paid with money left over after taxes.

In general, all religions with which I have any degree of familiarity are of dubious value to the fulfillment of a better life.  If you find solace in their teachings and camaraderie, by all means take from them what you will.  I would never judge you based on your choice of religious doctrine and I would accept that you would allow me the same freedom.