Is Religion Crazy?


“Do you think I believe in a crazy religion?” This is the question I was recently asked. My initial response was to say something like, “No because you truly believe in it.” It wasn’t a great response but it was honest. I’ve been thinking about the question lately much like someone meditating might contemplate the sound of one hand clapping. So, the problem is, how do I answer the question beyond my initial response?

Before I attempt to answer that question I must point out that the person asking me the question is someone very near and dear to me. She belongs to a different religion that I do and her beliefs are very deeply engrained into her. In fact, she’s told me that it, her religious beliefs, are very much a part of who she is. So, my response was tempered by the fact that I truly do care for her immensely. That and there’s no pretense or BS between us, so, the answer I gave was an absolutely truthful answer but it was incomplete at best even still. Not an omission but incomplete because I hadn’t yet fully considered my true feelings on the subject of religion in general. I was forced then to take a hard look at how I feel a bout religion now but to do so I must consider how I’ve felt in the past.

I grew up in a Jewish background. I went to Hebrew School each Sunday and in high school I was president of the youth group chapter at the synagogue. I also went to Saturday services almost regularly during the school year. When I got to college I essentially dropped out of the religious side of the, well, religion in favor of more of a cultural identity. I’m Jewish but I’m not a religious person about it.

This is not an uncommon story. Religion is often lost on the young. For some time my theory on the subject has been that people become more religious the more they contemplate their own mortality, which often begins with the mortality of the older members of their family. Death has a funny way of becoming a part of the human experience. The longer you live the closer you get to facing it head on.

There are other factors as well, if my theory is correct. When you are young your only job is to get an education at school. Whenever that ends it comes time to begin earning a living and moving on your own. Then hopefully you get into relationships. Then hopefully you have a family of your own, which at the very least is a partner to take the journey through life. There are kids and so on. All of these things help to shape our identities, which is probably the biggest factor. It’s hard to relate to God if you don’t even know who you are. Hopefully, you figure this out by the time you’re thirty because age begins catching up with you. Physical activity gets a little harder at that point. This is really the point in my life that my spiritual and religious identity began to crystallize. It was right around the age of 35.

At that point I would probably have identified closest to being a curious atheist. I got heavily into what I considered religious mythology. Kind of like a Wikipedia archaeologist when it came to soaking up different religious viewpoints and icons and so on. Equally so was my search for answers to the inner workings of the universe itself. This is where my current set of beliefs really began to take shape.

I had begun to write stories that really played off these newfound beliefs. They were fiction but heavily laced with my own burgeoning philosophies. What came of these writings is the belief that everything in the universe is connected via some form of energy that we are only vaguely aware of. In other words, we’re all connected with everything else out there on different frequencies of energy. To put is in short, we are connected to the Earth along with everything else that inhabits or makes up this planet, biological or non-biological as is the Moon. Earth along with the planets of the solar system are connected to the Sun, the sun in turn to the galaxy and the galaxy to the universe itself. Kind of like a neural network with in our brains. It also means that we are aware of all our constituent parts that make up our bodies but those same components probably aren’t very aware of much beyond their own existence, if they are aware of anything. They may have a vague notion of a greater being just as we are with what we refer to as God.

In my fictional model, it works between us and the planet. We’re vaguely aware of a greater being but what if that is simply Mother Earth who in turn is vaguely aware of her relationship with the Sun. The thing is that we are only vaguely aware of one level of being above us.  So, it would mean that we aren’t aware of anything beyond the Earth who would only be aware of her relationship with the sun but not beyond that and so on. The thing is that this was fiction and where it breaks from religion is in the beliefs concerning that higher being having a consciousness.

It can’t be overlooked that humans have an inherent need to have a relationship with a higher being. It’s not a far stretch since when we’re kids we align ourselves with our parents in a similar fashion. The difference being that mothers and fathers are tangible beings whereas God requires a leap of faith, which is where religion comes in. This leap of faith becomes more important the older we get as the role of higher being shifts from parents to something beyond them. This may be especially true when parents die.

All this philosophy over the past 8 years has made me a very spiritual person, which came to fruition recently when I felt an almost grace surrounding the very same person who asked the original question in the first place. These recent leaps of faith of my own were rather too personal to list here but suffice it to say that my eyes have been opened to greater possibilities. I’m still not a religious person but I am a very deeply spiritual person who firmly holds to those formerly “fictional” story plot points. That’s fine but I still need to answer the question about whether I believe her religion is crazy.

It is said that we should never discuss religion or politics in casual conversation. This is because it’s all too easy to slip into heated arguments rather than conversation. It’s hard to debate religion because how do you. You can’t argue that one religion is better than another when religious beliefs are so deeply held at the core of many people. So many treat religion as part of their identity similar to race or other identifiers.

It is a fair comparison between religious identity and race identity even though the latter is genetic and the former is not. Still, if you attack someone’s religion you may as well be attacking his or her race. Try attacking someone’s political affiliations or better yet, try to tell an iPhone user that they’re a fan boy because you think Android is better. If you think my moral pendulum is swinging a bit far with the cellphone thing then visit a tech forum and see for yourself. These are all things that people identify themselves with and therefore an attack on those identifiers is an attack on the person.

It’s also very easy to be turned off by religion. There are plenty of people out there who are all too willing to condemn people who believe differently about religion and faith or it would seem that way if you pay attention to the news the past decade or so. There are people who seem to hide behind their religious beliefs as they condemn other identifiers. Things like homosexuality, transgender, birth control and abortion are all hot button issues that people often argue based on their religious beliefs. These arguments all too often become dead-end arguments because people are more hesitant to change their minds if what they believe is based upon faith. It also doesn’t help when people display signs that say things like, “God hates fags” at funerals.

This isn’t very fair to those who quietly believe in their faith. These people, who I believe are the majority out there don’t display their religions like shields. They don’t condemn those who believe otherwise even if they disagree. These same people under the right circumstances will be more than willing to discuss their religions based upon curiosity of what others believe. This has been the case with that special lady. We discuss our religions with curiosity and respect for the differences. Our religions do not separate us but rather help to bring us closer.

The effect of my relationship with her has provided me with more of a complete answer to her question, which is to say that I respect anyone who believes in their faith and doesn’t condemn those who choose to believe otherwise. It is when someone is hiding behind the shield of his or her faith that I have a problem. So, the answer is that I do not believe her religion is crazy nor do I believe she is crazy for believing in it and following the traditions. I’ve listened in to her religious services and found things that I do like. I also found things they’ve discussed rather interesting because I hadn’t anticipated hearing what I’d heard based upon my own experiences.