Religion and Reality Don't Always Mix

Religion relies on beliefs that are not rooted in objective evidence, can not be measured, and the supernatural claims purported by believers can not be demonstrated or verified. One might as well believe in fairies because they, like God, fit within the same category of untestable beliefs. Religion is so very obviously a human institution and so very obviously a means to give people a sense of control, which leads to feelings of security, hope and creates purpose. The oblivion we humans can maintain while never seeing, or experiencing anything other than natural life is amazing and testifies to our basic susceptibility as a species to remain basically irrational in nature. It is why we are able to enjoy extraordinary fiction in movies, books and stories. It is our minds ability to suspend belief coupled with our instinctual need to feel secure that allows religion to exist. 

There are so, so many religions and spiritual groups vying for attention and all of them, and I mean all of them, believe theirs is somehow real, but everyone else is deceived, misled or "whatever". The kind of evidence a rational mind requires in everyday life is missing in religion, but that's not a problem because faith covers this seemingly innocuous and inconvenient little truth that all of us live in a natural universe and depend on natural laws to govern our science, medicine, and technology. It's only in everyday unscrutinized life that we can make the claim of faith with little to no accountability regarding its lack of reality and substance in everything else.

It's in this mental fugue state of religious belief that people appear immune to reason and evidence which should lead people away from supernatural explanations. The mind is truly amazing. It is apparently capable of believing fantastic things with little to no evidence, even to the point of death. Religion is somewhat predictable though. It accomplishes the same thing for every stripe of other worldly faith. It is a mechanism to feel something other than despair, or fear, concerning the unpredictability of life, and it is enmeshed with our strong natural desire to maintain happiness.

I’ve always said that reality is grim. We grow old, get sick, lose people we love and eventually die. Those hard cold facts are sobering and tragic, but none-the-less they are immutable facts. Our basic self-awareness seems to demand some sort of meaning behind these seemingly un-meaningful facts of living. Religion seems to fill that gap between living and dying. Religious beliefs try to void what all of us will realize at one time or another. We will all die, our consciousness with end, and we will return to dust.

Don’t shoot the messenger. I didn’t ask for consciousness and self-awareness. The evolution of our cerebral cortex makes us self-aware. Much to the chagrin of my fellow religiously inclined homosapiens, there isn’t a soul located with some trans-mystical corporeal connections, which is released upon death. No evidence of any kind points to such a fact. No…. we live and we die, and we hate to be reminded of it. Yet we continue, for the most part, moving toward anything that we believe will make us happy or dull the ache we often feel from living with reality.

Even with religious belief bogging us down or lifting us up, we overeat, overspend, neglect those who love us, drug ourselves, create risk just to feel alive (as so often proclaimed by extreme sports enthusiasts, or bored to death one time sky divers) and yet those pesky beliefs, which people in lemming like droves run toward, do little to circumvent our failure to harm ourselves or our fellow human being. Consider the statistics of divorce among true believers within Christendom, or the many religious believes in prison today, or the many teen pregnancies and abortions in every state of this God fearing union.

The non-religious make up less than 16% of the U.S. and atheists and make up less than 2%, so do the math. Believers are the ones aborting, killing, stealing, overeating, overspending, lying, and filling prisons like there is no tomorrow. Yes, the unreligious do it too, but stats in the U.S. show a connection between unbelievers and a low divorce rate, low crime rate and higher educational achievements, among other things.

Reality ought to tell us something, but it doesn’t for everyone. I'm not saying a lack of faith makes one a moral person, or that faith makes one moral. Jesus is attributed with saying something about letting those who have ears to hear actually hear, so I ask you to listen and watch with an open mind. The truth is smacking us in the face every day with war, pollution, waste, greed, gluttony, hate and whatnot, yet our species looks the other way.

Did you know that less than a 100 years ago our country participated in the lynching of black Americans? People would turn out in droves with families in tow. The crowd would fill with doctors, lawyers, clergy, housewives and children to celebrate this form of public hate and murder of our black citizens. After the killing, people would take pieces of the body as souvenirs. How did such an entrenched part of our public mentality change? When those few people, who saw it for what it really was, stood up against the majority belief, that's how it changed.

Reality may bite, especially in the end, but it is the only reality we have. Try altering it with anything you like, but you can’t escape what you are, or what life is, or how it will end. Live in a dream if you must, but there are those of us who seek comfort in reality, who face the fear and meet it head on. In my opinion, it's better to call a spade a spade then to make believe you have an ace up your sleeve. Better to educate one’s self with real facts, work towards objectivity, and fight bias and prejudice rather then to go about your day “make believing”.

But you aren’t asking me are you? Ask yourself if reality is what you truly seek, or is comfort your real goal? Are you looking for a way out, or someone like God to rescue you? Objective people living in a real natural world view are in short supply, if you ask me, and it’s a shame because there are so many things that need addressing by clear minded people unencumbered by irrational morals and unseemly thoughtless ideas of a rapture and a new earth. Reality demanded justice when our “One Nation Under God” turned away an ocean liner full of Jews during WWII, or when minorities were used for experiments, lynched, and relegated to separate lines, bathrooms, water fountains, etc.

Be ye clear minded, seek objectivity, face facts….don’t allow your untrained mind to create reality for the benefit of personal pleasure or internal security. Let's not rely soley on our feelings and subjective experiences as guides toward moral behavior, or creation of our value systems, and certainly let's not rely on them as confirmation of fantastical claims.

Is it too much to ask my fellow humans to question beliefs addled by mysticism and hand written by ancient homospapiens? Is it too much to ask to consider object facts and utilization of science rather than depend on beliefs touted as truth by bronze age men? Is it too much to consider that God, if there is such a being, wouldn't admire those who apply critical thinking to refute irrational laws, behavior, discrimination, bias and face reality? Is fear what motivates people to avoid striving to remain objective and question anything unsubstantiated? Religion seems like a placebo, which only delays the inevitable and covers the eyes of reality with a shroud of make believe. Who am I to say any of this? I am a former believer who saw the light of reality and, at first flinched, but eventually embraced it for what it is…..life as it is, not as we wish it to be.

Honestly,

Bill

Good Simple Belief....

I believe and I act accordingly says the religious folk. In doing so, I guarantee myself a better life now and for sure.... after I die. I believe all this in my head and that's all the good spirit, or God asks of me... to believe as a child and act accordingly. Nice simple package! What's not to like??

Makes one wonder why using your rational mind to question the irrational is somehow wrong according to most supernaturally based religions? It's a nice way to limit people from doubting what their mind would otherwise question.

Bill