Building Faith

I’m not a fan of religion. I think that it has been corrupted from the very conception. What was once a collection of stories meant to guide us on how to live have been twisted. Now it is yet another means of control. Other those that don’t think like you. Other those that don’t live like you. Other everyone who speaks ill of me, you or our congregation.

I started venturing into the world of the faithless when I turned 10. I stopped attending church with my Grandmother and started to do research. At this point in time I was interested in other cultures and their religions as well as religions that have come and gone. I studied the Sumerian Polytheism, I delved into the depths of Gnosticism, I pleaded with my mother to take me to a Buddhist temple and even dabbled in the world of Wicca. I didn’t really need to focus on Egyptian, Greek or Roman religions as they are covered extensively in this white ran country. I explored Islam, Judaism, Catholicism and the many different Traditional Religions in Africa.

I even ventured into “alternative” religions. Universalism, Scientology(don’t recommend), New Age-ism? IDK what you would call the “spiritual” movement. It all sounds like different versions of Hindi if I am honest.

The more and more I explored, the more and more I realized they were just all simply wrong. Guessing. Or using the belief system to enact their own political agenda. Now, here in the US, we have politicians using Christianity to wage war. Megachurches that relish in the misappropriated use of their funds. Fringe “churches” of abolitionist threatening young women as they enter a clinic to care for their health.

What the fuck is happening…

At this point in my life, I no longer trust any word written by man claiming to be the word of God. Any religion that takes a gospel, a story, the word of a prophet as factual and infallible is a religion built on lies. Religion should be something that is personal. It is about your morals. Your beliefs. The way you feel, think and are. It is about your connection with the divine, whatever that may be.

Some may find comfort in that organization. That’s okay! If a religion has in someway helped you or given you a sense of purpose, it is not my job to strip that from you. But this doesn’t work for everyone and those people are often turned out and left to wander. They don’t understand that all religion is made up and at anytime they can make up their own too.

I have made up my own religion. It’s complicated and calling it a religion is really stretching the word’s definition. Let me try to give you the smallest, most comprehensive version of it:

We live inside of a Cosmic Entity. This entity may or may not be aware of us, it may even live through us, the “soul” so-to-speak. Before time and space, the first thing our consciousness observed was Oblivion. Oblivion is the natural state of the Universe and life is nothing more than an accidental byproduct to come from the exact conditions in which we exist. This may sound and seem bleak. If this is the case, we are just a part of a larger machine that we can’t comprehend (yet). Then is there no point in morality, laws or even purpose. Is there no justice, crime or society?

I’d push back on that. It’s more complex, much like the observable objective. The small things do exist, but none of them belong to the natural order of the Universe. They only matter to us. We get to decide our morals, purpose and everything else. Those things that don’t fit would be nothing more than Social Constructs(Gender, crime, law and order). But would these things matter to what we would describe as God?

I don’t think God cares about what you do with your life. Life isn’t meant to be lived under the rule of thumb. If that were the case the slaves wouldn’t strive for freedom. The genocides would have happened quietly and quickly. Hell would be overcrowded. No, life is meant to be experienced.

And that’s what my religion ultimately boils down to. The experience of existence. Not what rules need to be followed in order to get to some magical ultimate forever life. To simply be. But what does experiencing life mean? Does it mean to follow the rules and laws that others set out. Does it mean to go for more hikes? Am I supposed to be passive and just go with the flow?

I don’t know. You figure that out. I have a whole religion to build.