As I approach the age of 50 years old, organized religion has ceased to be a determining factor in my life. I tend to view organized religion much like an episode of Scooby Doo. In every episode, someone is attempting to convince the townspeople and the Mystery Inc. gang that ghosts, zombies, ghouls and other assorted monsters exist, only to see in the last two minutes that it is some guy in a dumb outfit who’s doing it for money. When I realized that the plot lines of every episode of Scooby Doo wouldn’t be fundamentally changed if the unmasked party turned out to be the leader of a church, self-styled or otherwise, it was quite the revelation. Consider this script sample:
“Now let’s see who our mystery ghost is”…
[Ghost’s sheet is taken off, and the gang shouts in unison, surprised]
”JOEL OSTEEN!”
I was raised Roman Catholic, and received five sacraments as a member of the church from birth. My personal story of the first 35 years of my life and my involvement with Catholicism is better left for another long-form forum, but I can at the very least share the main reason for separating from the church permanently. When the priest who officiated my first marriage was found a few years later to have been molesting children in the parish, I left. Having been raised in the belief in the early years after Vatican II, when Pope John XXIII reintroduced the importance of social justice into church doctrine, I was under the impression that it applied universally. Apparently, given the history of the Catholic Church we now know far too well, it apparently doesn’t apply to the victims of pedophiles who happen to have received Holy Orders as a sacrament.
In the ensuing years since my separation from Catholicism, I have come to no longer believe in a large portion of Christian doctrine. I now see organized religion as an artificial governor on human potential and reason. Certainly, elements of religious doctrine that carry over from one religion to another (no killing, as an example) can be brought forward into every life, but I believe that it no more requires the artificial construct of an organized religion any more than a soda can requires a .22 for ease of opening.
My core moral code has evolved into the following:
- No Killing
- No Stealing
- No sex with the dead, children, animals or the unwilling.
Everything else is relative to time, place and situation. An example: when your wife asks you “Does my butt look fat in these pants?”, there is only one answer to that question. (Did I mention that I am on my second marriage?) Even with all of my other transgressions, I have lived a life that always adheres to these three core beliefs. I continue to be surprised at those who cannot. These rules seem pretty easy. If you can’t get to a place where these three simple beliefs make sense, it’s time to turn in your Human Card.
I have abandoned the belief in a monotheistic system that attempts to explain the creation of all life and circumstance on our planet. Perhaps, 1000 years ago, without modern tools, it was easier to chalk it up to an invisible, all-powerful being in the sky. Today, we have the Hubble Space Telescope, among others, which redefines Earth’s place in the universe on almost a daily basis. This renders the belief in a vengeful being in the sky determining everything from someone finding their house keys to volcano eruptions a bit ludicrous. In many ways, rigid belief in one non-demonstrable reason for existence slowly eats away at the idea of self-determination. Eventually, everyone needs to get up off their knees and go do something.
Given my journey away from religious doctrine, there is one unexplained belief that remains inside me, which is the idea of an Afterlife.
I don’t have much time for existing definitions from large, organized religions when it comes to the Afterlife, mainly because the larger religions in the world define it in a very narrow fashion. The Koran repeatedly mentions “gardens with running streams”, but I have seasonal allergies to beat the band, and I have a pathological fear of bugs. Islamic Afterlife sounds a lot like my personal “Hell”.
There is a long-running theme centered around harps being the instrument of choice in Christian Afterlife, but as brilliant as he was, there was a reason that Harpo Marx’s solos in all of the Marx Brothers movies lasted no more than five minutes; people need variety.
Some religions claim that animals don’t make it to the Afterlife. In my lifetime, I’ve had all manner of dogs and cats, looked into their eyes for the briefest of moments and saw the infinity of unconditional love. Why would someone follow religious doctrine to the letter, being an exceptional person to any and all beings, and be rewarded with no animals, and by extension, this very special kind of love? That feels incredibly counterintuitive to me.
I believe in an Afterlife that rewards adherence (or lack thereof) to my core beliefs above with a subjectively perfect result based on the person. If a starving child dies, the Afterlife provides unique sustenance to that child that is not available to anyone else. When Dick Cheney dies, an endless line of people of color will drill into his chest, via his heart surgery scars, seeking oil and munitions for all eternity. When I die, depending on my adherence to my core beliefs, I believe I shall either be dressed in a dark blue terry cloth bathrobe, the left pocket of which contains an endless supply of Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwiches (plain), or I’ll get the alternative: I’m naked, in a narrow closet full of various gigantic bugs, with no chair, a single low-watt bulb and a loud speaker that plays the entire catalogues of Celine Dion and Patti Labelle on an endless loop for all eternity.
Whatever your belief system, it is becoming clear that people who exist outside the construct of “belonging to a faith” continue to be treated similar to lepers in our society. A recent study by the Pew Research Center showed hints that America is evolving into a less religious nation. Unsurprising to this particular reading audience, it appears that the great many people who answer “None” to the question of religious adherence tend to fall on our side of the political fence. Based on the number of people responding that they are “nones” who still believe in a god, I would argue that we require more sociological discussion as to what exactly “less religious” means. Despite this small bit of evidence, I think we have an inkling of what would happen to someone running for elected office who stated unequivocally that they don’t believe in some form of “God” (when this survey estimated that 89% of people do) in this country.
Being a musician on the side, I am used to the sociological need for people to classify everything and put people in boxes for easy identification. Attempting to explain to people how I would describe my belief system often gets bogged down in the existing labels for people of “alternative” belief.
Am I an atheist? I believe that this term is too strong a word for my personal belief system. Atheists can certainly speak for themselves as to why they self-identify with the term, but I don’t. I believe that people who state something with absolute certainty, from whichever end of the religious belief spectrum, are simply bringing forth another form of orthodoxy. History teaches us that it is only in rare moments of intellectual flexibility when humankind realizes the great possibilities beyond its current state.
Am I an agnostic? Not really, because that leaves the door open to perhaps joining another organized religion down the road. I am opposed to a human being defining something I can’t see in order to get me to pry open my wallet. Eventually, all organized religious roads lead to a pipeline from one checking account to another, to say nothing of the development of a judgmental nature in some less-flexible sects toward people outside their walls.
So what is left?
With everyone’s permission, I’d like to offer a new term, applied to the curious explorers among us. If we can dare to envision something else other than the norm, the world carries with it great possibility. Instead of a definition that takes one from the orthodoxy of belief to the orthodoxy of non-belief, and instead of being a carpetbagger between varying human constructs of belief, please allow me to be continually open to unexplained possibilities, while at the same time maintaining my good credit rating. Allow me to define who I am by a non-belief in vengeful beings tempting me to destroy myself. Allow me, most of all, to figure all of this out for myself.
From this day forward, please, call me Areligious.