Humanity Versus Religion

I know this is a hot-button issue, but I'm a hot button kind of gal, and this was on my mind today. I am agnostic. I don't believe in organized religion. I think that it's detrimental to the institution of man... it is the "opiate of the masses" as they say.

There is this mind set, and not that it's an entirely bad one, that we have live by a certain set of rules as laid out by various religions. They are all pretty much the same, with their varying degrees of radicalism across the board. The well-intentioned believers are not the problem, but, as they say, "the road to hell is paved with good intention."

The thing is, religion, in its various forms, divides us all. It does nothing to unite people across demographics, causes wars of epic proportion, and, well, none of that seems to make much sense to me. Through religion, people are preoccupied with "what's going to happen when I die?" that they forget to LIVE. And then there is the moral side-stepping in the name of religion that I just can't understand.

We want so badly for god to be tangible--accessible--that we make up all sorts of things. Tales and stories likely passed down through tribal societies have been turned into gospel and taken quite literally by many. Then there's the big heaven question. Heaven... really?! A place in the sky where we all go to live together after we die? Probably not.

I hate to crush people with that one, but I feel it's more likely that our energy (which is infinite) is likely recycled into the greater universe, where we become something like stardust. The bottom line is, it's a mystery. And there is something really mysterious about humanity. In fact, we DO feel tied to something greater--but why must we put a "right" or "wrong" on the whole thing?

Why can't we just be comfortable with not knowing? Why must we come up with answers to complex questions that we haven't even begun to grasp? Why can't we try to understand ourselves before we presume to know god? I guess it's easier to make up stories than ask hard questions.

I believe "god' dwells in every single human being. More like a Yin/Yang thing, you know? Where we've got the darkness and light, and we're these universal beings--mysterious.

I talked a couple of days ago about the fact that we (humans) are still animals, no matter which way you cut it, scientifically, that's the news. So, in that vein, I ask, what would you do if your dog was obsessed with their eternal soul? It sounds a little bizarre. But animals really aren't designed that way. We excuse it to mean that they have no higher reasoning skills; they aren't as smart. Well, I know my dog isn't smarter than me, but I do happen to think that my dog is more in tune with nature than I am.

So if my dog in more in tune with nature, simple pleasures, and simply loving their lives, maybe my dog is actually closer to enlightenment than I am... just a thought.

But the real issue at hand, is humanity. How can we ever progress if we continue to divide ourselves through religion? I wonder if people who have a "more loose" concept of god are evolutionary--as in, we'll someday "get over" the whole organized religion thing and be a more peaceful people.

I think that we cannot achieve peace as easily with religion because like anything that divides people, it goes beyond reason. It's an argument that can't be won between people with different beliefs. And it's all just so exhausting. Maybe religion WAS an important step for man, but it just may be largely irrelevant in light of our new-found, modern knowledge of the world, the universe, and science. There's nothing wrong with taking steps as a species, but I think it may be time to let it go.