MY religion is better than YOUR religion (or "MY religion is real whereas yours is just plain silly")

So I published a Sarah Silverman meme on facebook the other day.  I really like Sarah Silverman.  I freakin' LOVED her show.  It was so kooky, the humour so irreverent - she and the team she worked with had me in absolute stitches.  David and I both fell in love with her and her craziness.

Needless to say, Sarah Silverman has some fairly great lines when it comes to religion.  Being of Jewish descent and having a Catholic boyfriend at one time, she once described an imaginary conversion with her future children as thus:  "Mommy is one of God's chosen people and Daddy thinks Jesus is MAGIC."

Here's the meme I posted:

Now I don't think this needs much commentary.  This is from a very highly respected comedian, after all.  What kind of surprised me was that a friend of a friend who had liked this post on my wall decided to prove to me that in no way could one compare Scientology to Catholicism.

For some reason folks who subscribe to a religion that has been around since the dark ages like to view Scientology as if it is a cult.  The same goes for Mormonism as well.  I've heard folks say that stuff in the bible is pretty "out there" but Mormons are just "crazy".  It's as if, somehow, these new religions are just plain silly whereas our ancient Abrahamic faiths are somehow much more plausible and respectable.

I consider myself to be agnostic, I'm not an Atheist.  Many people of a faith can't actually tell the difference between the two (here's a clue, I used a capital "A" for Atheist).  The reason I'm agnostic is that I find Atheism requires one to subscribe to a belief system not unlike those that are held by people of faith.  As an agnostic, I won't subscribe to a belief system because I just don't know!

Nobody comes to a religious belief all on their own - they are either led by somebody to drink from the fountain of faith or they surmise from the teachings of others a new path and become one of the leaders.  Quite often these preachers try to convince folks that what they are preaching is the only path, the only one and truly righteous path.  By this definition, anyone who subscribes to only one religion immediately becomes intolerant of all the others.  You have to reject all the other belief systems in order to truly adhere to the one that you call your own.  You have to pick.  I don't want to pick.  I never want to pick.  The reason I don't want to is that I just don't know.

 

As a result of this, I have found that I can be eternally open to the teachings of every faith.  I can read any book, I can find beautiful uplifting quotes from the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita to the Bible.  And I'm not limited to "official" texts - I can happily find spiritual succour in ancient manuscripts like the Coptic texts.    I can also find crazy damaging stuff - so ultimately if you ask me to bat for one particular team I will gracefully bow out of the room and vehemently decline.

 

Here's one of my favourites, from the Gospel of Thomas:

 

Jesus said, "The pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys of knowledge (gnosis) and hidden them. They themselves have not entered, nor have they allowed to enter those who wish to. You, however, be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves."

We live in a world where every day we learn something new.  Every day we learn something new about ourselves, the world we live in and the universe that it inhabits.  We cannot surely declare that there is no greater power out there, just as easily as we cannot surely declare that there is.  I'll wait, thank you very much, until we can actually determine whether this is the case or not and I won't be swayed by any fear mongering that if I don't pick THIS team RIGHT NOW then I will sadly not get to spend eternity in the ONLY afterlife.  THAT, my friends, is not something that I can believe a higher power would have us do.  That does not bear any resemblance to an enlightened being, that is a fascistic dictatorial power hungry being.  And THAT is all too human for my liking.

How easy it is for someone of faith to deride another person's faith as rubbish.  How easy it is to make fun of the NEW kid on the block whilst failing to see that the old kid is just as ridiculous?  I don't need to go into much detail to point out the crazy stuff that can be found in Christianity (or any of the Abrahamic faiths for that matter).  I mean, it all begins with a talking snake and a deity that was so powerful that he created the entire universe out of absolutely nothing but when he came around to making a female human he had to borrow one of the male's ribs in order to do so!    

If these are just "metaphors", as is invariably put forth once science starts to prove that the concepts are a little ridiculous to accept as facts, then why can we not right now just assume that the whole shebang is metaphoric and be done with the "this can be the ONLY truth that you will ever need to know"?

Since time immemorial mankind has worshipped deities - there have been so many that we literally cannot count them all. What this tells me is that since the dawn of mankind we have never been able to fully comprehend the unknown but we have always felt compelled to try .  We most likely never will be able to grasp it.

 

Bear in mind that if there really is a creator of everything then that means that every deed that we can do, whether we view it as good, bad, ugly, evil or blessed, is something that actually comes from that same deity.  Disease, mass destruction, the euphoric love that we feel for our children - all of this stems from the creator of everything!  It's enough to blow your mind and quite often it blows away all reasoning when folks try to comprehend its meaning.  All we can do is marvel at our inability to do so and keep trying to do so at the very same time.

God is everywhere, including nowhere.

Or as the love of my life likes to say "God is everything I do not know, and I learn something new every day."