Thoughts on Religion

By Frederick Vale

My earliest memory surrounding religion is death.  I’m pretty sure, back when I was still small enough to be carried around, I was baptized some sort of Protestant.  I think my family might have gone to church for an Easter or two, maybe Christmas as well, but not since I can remember.  This leaves my first religious memory as my grandma’s funeral. 

I’ll always think of her face when I hear the word ‘drawn.’  Not drawn as in ‘that was drawn by Banksy,’ but drawn as in ‘the news of his daughters death left his face haggard and drawn.’  Even though she was 89 when she died, she had seemed so alive until just a few days before.  I remember walking into the church to the front where her casket was.  I thought that the woman in it looked a lot like my grandma, but it couldn’t be.  It just wasn’t her.  I haven’t seen a lot of dead bodies in my life, but maybe that’s how they all look.  Like someone very similar to the person you knew, but what actually made them that person was gone.  Her face just looked droopy, like the corners of her mouth were being pulled down by invisible string. 

I went to church a few times here and there with religious friends of mine, even to a Buddhist temple, but no matter the religion I felt like an intruder.  Not that I wasn’t made to feel welcome, but that I didn’t belong.  That what I was witnessing was something private and important to the people involved in a way that I could never understand. 

When I was in high school, and maybe even as early as middle school, I tried to find a religion for myself.  Again and again I would research the basic tenants of each – different kinds of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, even things like animism and Shintoism.  I thought ideas from each were interesting, and the commonalities among them more so, but nothing sounded to me like something I could actually believe in. 

There was a time when I thought maybe Islam would be good, but I think that was probably because I didn’t know any Muslims and it sounded different.  All kids want to be different in some way.  Unique.  But not too unique so they don’t fit in.  Buddhism was probably the closest I got, but I never really thought I could believe in any of them. 

I think the biggest problem is that my earliest memory has not been proven wrong with time.  The more I learned about religion, the more I found that death was a centerpiece.  As I went through school, I learned about the atrocities committed in the name of religion: the Crusades; the Spanish Inquisition; ‘White Man’s Burden’; slavery; crimes during the Partition of India; so many others it would take a book to list them all.  It’s near impossible to find periods in history that aren’t punctuated by murder in the name of religion. 

Today that same violence continues to rage across the globe.  From different kinds of Muslims fighting each other in Syria to different kinds of Christians fighting each other in Ireland.  From the stoning of women accused of adultery to the bombing of abortion clinics.  From the slaughters in Nigeria to the roadside bombs in Israel and Palestine.  From the constant danger of nuclear war between Indian and Pakistan to the self-immolation in Tibet.  The examples are endless. 

The crimes of religion are not limited to the physical realm.  Rather, they more often take the form of bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness.  I do not believe that all religious people are prejudiced, narrow-minded bigots, or that the absence of religion means the absence of these failings.  However, I do believe that such blind faith in something that can never be proven creates a vehicle for these failings that is easily driven.  As Kurt Vonnegut Jr. said in Mother Night, “Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.” 

The question I most often hear when people find out that I do not necessarily believe in a god or follow a religion is what guides my moral compass.  Without a holy text to tell me, how will I know the difference between what is right and what is wrong? 

I find this question insulting. 

I find it not only insulting to me, but to humanity in general. 

The idea that we, as a species, need some sort of higher power to tell us that killing and stealing are wrong is preposterous.  Humanity can decide what is right and what is wrong without having it spelled out for us, especially as our societies continue through time, refining our idea of natural rights. 

I do not blame or look down on those who have religion, those who have faith.  It certainly gives life more of a purpose to believe that there is a higher power and greater meaning that we just don’t understand.  There is nothing wrong with something that gives more incentive to being a good person; I just don’t think that we really need it. 

I reject such weakness in humanity.  I do not believe that humans are innately good as individuals, but I do believe that we are innately good as a society.  We’re not there yet, but we’ve been working on it for a few thousand years and we’re getting closer.    Humanity’s time on Earth is nothing but a drop in the bucket when you look at the grand scheme of things, and our progress in just the last 50 years has been remarkable. 

Arguably, religion has done more good than harm.  Both hopefully we will eventually reach a point where an argument the other way cannot be made with a straight face.  I’ll accept anyone’s beliefs, as long as they accept mine instead of trying to make me believe what they do, or look down on me for believing differently. 

Is there a correct religion?  Is there a higher power?  Is there a greater Plan that we are all destined to be a part of?  I doubt that we will ever know, but we can still be good and accepting people while we try to figure it out.