Religion

I grew up Roman Catholic. I went to church every Sunday (or Saturday night), I was an alter server, I read readings, and I taught Sunday school. I was a known face in the congregation and I enjoyed my time doing those things. Unlike many others who had bad experiences of the church, I did not. I still fondly remember going to church on Christmas Eve or going for lunch at the greasy spoon down the street after Sunday school every week.

While I have a lot of fond memories of those years, I also had a lot of questions because there was a lot of it that didn't make sense. Why do people only go to church on Christmas eve? Why do you go to church and say sorry to God for gambling and then go straight to the casino afterward? Why is Jesus a white guy? How come there's a Devil if God is all powerful and omnipotent?  Why do you say we should love each other and then you don't like certain people or groups? Why can't women be priests? Why is God male? Why am I apologizing for things I'm not actually sorry I did? Why does none of this actually make sense? How come I don't feel like I fit in here anymore?

I was a small child and teenager during these years. As I got later into my teen years, I knew something didn't make sense and I knew I didn't fit. I didn't belong there anymore, but I didn't know what the problem was. Frankly, I thought I was the problem. I got pregnant at 20 years old, out of wedlock. The horror! My mother did me a favor and encouraged me not to go to church while pregnant. While I took that very personally and was very hurt by that at the time, it was one of the better things she did for me. By taking it personally, I ended up not ever going back, which was also a very good decision, even if it was made from a sense of pain and exclusion. Without those choices, I probably wouldn't be writing this right now. I wouldn't be here in this way. Life would have taken a very different turn.

Losing my religion (Are you old enough to know that song?) opened the door to spirituality. It freed me to question religion and the beliefs within it. Truth be told, it would take me 20 years to begin to question any of it or find something that made more sense to me, but eventually I found spirituality.  That's what started me on the path to spiritual self-mastery.

Religion, any religion, is just a belief system. It offers a way of being in the world. It tends to override a person's individual set of moral beliefs because if we want to practice the religion, we have to agree with it and follow it whether we like it or not. This sense of requiring complete, unquestioned acceptance is part of what makes religion difficult to practice and follow for many people. 

Religion was originally created as a means of controlling people through fear of punishment by a God that seemed to have a mean streak. Unfortunately, that need for control continues today and people are still afraid of that same mean God condemning them to hell for simply being the human beings they were created to be. This story is what creates the fear that people feel. It's what keeps people going to church, apologizing for things they aren't sorry for, hating people they don't really want to hate, and otherwise doing things they would probably question if they felt they had the freedom to do so.

What I'm offering you below are some alternative ways of seeing some of these things. I'll try to answer some of the questions that people have, and I'll offer my perspective on who or what I think God actually is and why I believe there is no such thing as hell. As usual, take what works and leave the rest. 

Love to all.

Della