Friday, August 27, 2010

Religion:a multi part series, part 1

"I believe in freedom of religion. Believe what you want. Just don't push your religion on me."

How many times have you heard someone say it? How many times have you said it? Now think what that phrase means. Now think about what actually happens when you say it to a believer. Do they leave you alone? Not once. Never. fucking ever.

No their eyes glaze over in the rapture of the challenge. The challenge of bringing you into the fold. It doesn't fucking matter what you say then. Until you lie to them and say "Hallefuckinglujah I believe!" OR are burying them in a shallow grave by the railroad tracks, do they finally go away.

And I have heard every joke in the book. on how to answer the door. What to say to scare or befuddle them. How to dress, etc.

Well I have had it. I don't want to evade anymore. So this is my statement for people peddling Jesus and the rest of his holy gang of do-gooders.

I don't fucking like you. In actual point of fact I cannot summon the interest to like you or hate you.In most cases I don't know you. So if I don't listen to this crap from my loved ones there is no fucking prayer for you.

And guess what, I don't like the self help section either. The religion I grew up with preached tenants of tolerance and that god was within us all. Then I watched as my religious beliefs were boiled down into the fucking "secret". I watched some of the basic spiritual principles I grew up with become a fucking punchline. So some douchebag with no imagination and the ability to repackage shit could make a million dollars, and meet Oprah.

Now my beliefs are my own. I will talk about them when asked, but my faith is my own. God however is not a certainty in my mind. I am still not sure if I believe that there is an intelligence behind all this. Or if this is just the nature of how things work inevitably.

I am not sure if those of you believers out there know why you believe. I mean a faith you don't question makes you a mindless follower and in any other circumstance the human "free will" will fight against being made a slave. But I am starting to think it is because you needed answers. Religion is beautiful. Its answers are simple. It is easy. It requires no more than your faith.

However it requires no less than your whole fucking existence.

Let me settle this now for you people looking at your screen funny. You want answers? You don't look into religion or even the philosophy du jour because those cost too much for such an invisible and late coming payoff. Find answers in your own enrichment. Learn to paint or act or play an instrument. Go to business school. Become a doctor or lawyer or a plumber or welder. Do what is gonna make you happy in your life. We live on this fucking planet to experience all it has to offer and do our best to get a long.

This world has so much better shit to experience than some shit we made up about magic and miracles.

Over the next several posts I will go into this further. Until then I will leave you with a paraphrased quote from David Mamet to make up my quota. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck...fuck!"

With deep and abiding affection,
Gabriel

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