I will never understand...

But it sure makes me feel better writing about it. Yesterday I was thankful for a lot of things--peace and quiet, not having to cook anything, naptime, my mutts. What I was not thankful for is the news, that once again, someone has blown themselves up, this time taking not only soldiers but children and other civilians with them. In front of a freakin' hospital.

Usually when I stop to think about this sort of thing, I get so angry and baffled that I'm nearly speechless and all I can do is shake my head and open my mouth and find no words to express what I'm feeling. I simply do not understand.

I am not a religious person; I ended that a long time ago when it became clear that if I had to socialize ('fellowship') with people who claimed godliness but didn't live it (most of them)I would commit some kind of horrendous crime (sarcasm, for the sarcasm-impaired). I'd heard some of the most atrocious things--men quoting bible verses in order to talk someone into having sex with them (Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free!), stealing church/fellowship funds and saying it was for god's work... all kinds of things in my own personal experience, and scores more incidents on the news. I'd been let down and hurt. God's people were simply a thorn in my side, and I walked away to live my life as I saw fit. Without them.

OK, so I look back at some of the things I've encountered among the religious and compare that to what the so-called religious are doing today, and I'm just floored. WTF?? And I'm talking religious folks of every and any flavor. My precociousness regarding religion when I was young was quickly quashed in light of dogma as I progressed through parochial schools. I had devoured with a burning fervor a catholic catechism left lying around in my house when I was 8. I then demanded to be baptized catholic and my mother agreed. It took a couple of years, but disenchantment with the lack of logic therein caused me to drift in other directions in search of truth and sense. So I wandered around awhile, came to light in several different organizations, but moved on again. In every organization, I found actions and attitudes antithetical to so-called biblical word-of-god teaching. I was disillusioned, and remain so even today.

That is not to say, however, that I do not admire, and sometimes even envy, those people who are actually able to live good lives and still be richly involved in churches, mosques and synagogues. I am happy for them and I'm certain that the world is better for them being there and being faithful, and living peaceful,loving lives.

But that's one thing...to be involved in something you believe in, something you live daily, and are passionate about to some degree. No god I have ever read about, learned about, heard of, in the sense of god in this world today--Christian, Jewish or Muslim--encourages the kinds of atrocities I'm hearing about. There is no way I can reconcile murder with god. Period.

Keep in mind that among Jews, Christians and Muslims, there is a common god. Allah is just another name for the god westerners worship in their churches. Muhammed was a prophet, and Islam acknowledges Jesus as one of the prophets of god. It all stems from the same thing. While I am not cognizant of the particulars of Islam (I'm working on that) and I'm not a comparative religions student, I do see threads of principles woven tightly through each of these religions, each of their teachings. How can a fearsome, vengeful god (OT) become a god of peace and love (NT) and in another faction, turn into a god of, simultaneously,jihad and mayhem and peace and love?

I know how and I know why. I've always known, since the first realization that the proclamations coming out of the mouths of church leadership had some contradictory flaws in them... it's not god, it's people. The things that pissed me off most about church and religion were people. The reason god takes on so many different faces and so many different aspects is because of people. People are, to god, what the National Enquirer is to celebrities. The pictures get doctored, the headlines skewed, just to sell more papers. People proclaim what is useful to them at the time, and then go searching through sacred texts for verse they can use to illustrate/prove it. People want to be powerful, they want to be insiders, part of the elite...they want to be better than others, holier than others, more righteous than others. There is a certain pride associated with that-- everyone, without exception, is prone to this and it's part of being human.

I do believe that there is something. I'm not sure what and I am not going to be vain enough to say that I do know, or even have an idea of what that something is. But I do know that while we are capable of great thought and immense creativity, it took a lot more than the likes of us to bring this game into self-sustaining reality. But whatever that something is, I do suspect that blowing yourself up and taking other people with you is not part of the plan, really, if there is a plan. Nor are religious theme parks, television beg-a-thon ministries, and snake handling.

Left to its own devices, the world sustains itself. My yard is a prime example...without me out there whacking off branches and trimming and pruning and imposing my structure on it, it takes care of itself and things grow and blossom and reseed and grow and spread out; the milkweed sustains the monarchs, and I didn't plant milkweed--it just showed up one year, to my delight. The seeds sustain the birds and chipmunks. The decaying old growth sustains new growth. And I don't have to do a darn thing. The plants sustain insects, who also sustain the birds. Not a lot we have to do. But I'm not really comfortable with that and I have to go out there and 'make sense of it'. I guess it's the same with some people... they have to impose order, a story, a reason, on everything or they aren't comfortable. And that's what religion is to me... someone imposing a structure on something that really doesn't need it. Someone using structure to govern and control what other people think and do. And to me, that's not right. But I guess they can do what they want. I'm not going to impose my beliefs and ideas on anyone...just write about them.

© 2005 ala-murphala.com