A rant on religion
The dial on my new box fan is mercilessly switched to number 3. Even though it's been raining cats, dogs, and horses recently, it's still been hot as hell. Speaking of hell, I've been quietly ranting about religion a lot. This is a not-so-quiet attempt.
Sometimes I wonder why religion exists. I wonder why some people are into one religion, and others in another. I wonder why people need religion. I also wonder what do I have to do with religion.
Sometimes I confuse myself.
So I asked Google what 'religion' was.
Apparently, when it comes to religion, lonely ladies get feaky and buy whips and chains
Google only confused me more.
Anyway, being brought up as a Catholic since birth, it was only natural for me to say that I was 'religious'. A religious Catholic at that. So, until I was 17, I dutifully fulfilled the church's rituals (or sacraments), such as First Holy Communion and those uncomfortable confessions. I attended Sunday School until I was Form 4, and it was then that I was given the choice to reaffirm myself as a Catholic, or not. My Sunday School class was being prepared for Confirmation.
I remember my teacher telling the class, "When you were baptised as a baby you didn't have a choice of choosing your religion, but now you do..."
Yeah right, lady.
In a perfect world I would have a choice. But imagine the parental, social, and peer pressure. I think I would've been left on the streets if I would've declined.
But I was still pretty much a kid then, raw in experience. To me, this was just another 'ritual' I had to go through. I suppose I was pretty passive when it came to this. So I went ahead with it. Those Confirmed were deemed 'soldiers of God'.
I didn't attend Sunday School the next year. Many of us didn't. It wasn't compulsory anymore. Heck, it's been almost four years since then, and only four out of the thirty students stuck around for Sunday Masses until now. So what happened to the soldiers of God?
Today, I still go to church every Sunday, and I still abstain from meat every Friday. Still, things have changed. I have to drag my heels to church, and I don't see the purpose of a lot of things the church does. The people who run the church have a 'holier-than-thou' attitude, and everything and everyone is segmented into Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs). I don't live in the area the church is, so I don't have a BEC to belong to. All church activities are done through these BECs. Technically, I am an outcast in my own church which I was baptised in 21 years ago. This is the problem with Catholics. Everything is hierarchical rather than leveled.
In the end, I asked myself, 'Am I religious'? My answer is, no, I am not religious. It took me twenty-one years to realize this, but I am not religious, but rather spiritual. I am no more passive, and I don't need a religion to suggest to me what lies beyond death. Heaven and hell is just another theory to me, but who's to say who is right? I have learn to ask 'why?' and 'why not?' instead of eating one-sided information off one's hands.
Adding to that, I do not understand humankind's herd mentality. Don't we all have minds of our own? Don't we have our own ideals? Why do we 'worship' religion as a group? To me, religion and/or spirituality is a very personal thing, almost within me. We all think and yearn differently, therefore, religion/sprituality should be practiced differently, and individually. This is because, well let's face it, we are born an individual, we live as an individual, and we die as an individual. My point is, know and focus on what you believe in, and know what you don't believe in. Don't follow blindly.
Also, refer to:
The Purpose of Religion
Definition of BEC
Sometimes I wonder why religion exists. I wonder why some people are into one religion, and others in another. I wonder why people need religion. I also wonder what do I have to do with religion.
Sometimes I confuse myself.
So I asked Google what 'religion' was.
Google only confused me more.
Anyway, being brought up as a Catholic since birth, it was only natural for me to say that I was 'religious'. A religious Catholic at that. So, until I was 17, I dutifully fulfilled the church's rituals (or sacraments), such as First Holy Communion and those uncomfortable confessions. I attended Sunday School until I was Form 4, and it was then that I was given the choice to reaffirm myself as a Catholic, or not. My Sunday School class was being prepared for Confirmation.
I remember my teacher telling the class, "When you were baptised as a baby you didn't have a choice of choosing your religion, but now you do..."
Yeah right, lady.
In a perfect world I would have a choice. But imagine the parental, social, and peer pressure. I think I would've been left on the streets if I would've declined.
But I was still pretty much a kid then, raw in experience. To me, this was just another 'ritual' I had to go through. I suppose I was pretty passive when it came to this. So I went ahead with it. Those Confirmed were deemed 'soldiers of God'.
I didn't attend Sunday School the next year. Many of us didn't. It wasn't compulsory anymore. Heck, it's been almost four years since then, and only four out of the thirty students stuck around for Sunday Masses until now. So what happened to the soldiers of God?
Today, I still go to church every Sunday, and I still abstain from meat every Friday. Still, things have changed. I have to drag my heels to church, and I don't see the purpose of a lot of things the church does. The people who run the church have a 'holier-than-thou' attitude, and everything and everyone is segmented into Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs). I don't live in the area the church is, so I don't have a BEC to belong to. All church activities are done through these BECs. Technically, I am an outcast in my own church which I was baptised in 21 years ago. This is the problem with Catholics. Everything is hierarchical rather than leveled.
In the end, I asked myself, 'Am I religious'? My answer is, no, I am not religious. It took me twenty-one years to realize this, but I am not religious, but rather spiritual. I am no more passive, and I don't need a religion to suggest to me what lies beyond death. Heaven and hell is just another theory to me, but who's to say who is right? I have learn to ask 'why?' and 'why not?' instead of eating one-sided information off one's hands.
Adding to that, I do not understand humankind's herd mentality. Don't we all have minds of our own? Don't we have our own ideals? Why do we 'worship' religion as a group? To me, religion and/or spirituality is a very personal thing, almost within me. We all think and yearn differently, therefore, religion/sprituality should be practiced differently, and individually. This is because, well let's face it, we are born an individual, we live as an individual, and we die as an individual. My point is, know and focus on what you believe in, and know what you don't believe in. Don't follow blindly.
Also, refer to:
The Purpose of Religion
Definition of BEC
Chewed out by Mystery Wolf at 10:50 PM
:
human beings are hardwired to believe in god
god needed to us to believe in god by default?
I don't think human beings were hardwired to believe in God. Looking at how some religions formed, humans started worshipping inanimate objects as a means of a solution to solve things they didn't understand.
That brings me to the unanswerable question: 'Does God even exist?'
Then again, everything is based on opinion. It's just a matter of how 'socially accepted' one's opinion is.
evolution, people get smarter, so does religion, messengers 2.0 are better than prophet's (beta) 1.7, not to say that the previous prophets were any less important, do u see anyone worshipping logs nowadays?
A.
"If there was no God, it would be necessary to invent Him" - Voltaire
You are all right. Again, I say it's all a matter of opinion.
Perhaps it happened naturally that man had always thought of the existence of a higher meaning, or a higher power to everything that surrounds him. Probably it's some stone-age inferiority complex with his environment.
I like that quote from Voltaire, I have a lot of opinions on it, but I'll save it for later.
This is spam.
http://www16.brinkster.com/albnok/default.asp?id=1567
http://www16.brinkster.com/albnok/default.asp?id=15
I hate spam.
... and I don't see the relevance of the second link unless you're trying to tell me that you only go to church and get involved in churchly activities to hook up with girls.
Well at least I followed the ninth commandment.
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