Rufus: He still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the shit that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good?
Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.
I use this little piece of dialogue from the fat man's epic religious movie because it is killing me to see the hypocrisy and lack of devotion to what is supposed to be core tenets of certain faiths.
I don't want this rant to turn in to, oh well you are talking about religion, not faith. To that end, let me neuter you now. Faith is a deeply personal matter which is between you and your God. It is only between you and your god and it takes place inside your own mind. It dictates your behaviour and informs your actions. Religion is what you project to the public. What you espouse to others and what you gather to celebrate. Any time you tell me what you believe to be the ultimate truth is in fact religion. It is a series of beliefs based on whatever text you tend to follow. If you want to tell me that there is a difference between what one believes and what one has faith in then you must give me a better argument, since in the end, actions speak louder than lip service.
All that being said, I am tired of closed minded lip service payment to ideals I hold dear.
You see, I believe everyone needs to be loved, and everyone needs to be accepted and treated with respect.
I am told that this is the main ideal of Christianity. I am told that Jesus was all about loving thy neighbour as thyself. A beautiful ideal to be sure, yet one no one seems to have a hold on in any meaningful way.
I heard this morning, a man claiming to be a christian in one breath, and calling a politician a whore and making fun of her.
"..just because she liked to sleep with oily drunk men..."
This was a characterization of something the woman said, without actual claim to her past. This christian decided to make fun of her and belittle her based on no evidence. He did not love his neighbour.
In the last few weeks, a man in the position of being a christian leader wanted to burn books and treat others with great disrespect. This man did not love his neighbour.
Last week, I was unable to do things on my own. I asked for help and was denied because the person projected their belief, which is not based on anything other than opinion over interpretation of sayings in a book. How can I say this? Well the fact is, they are putting their own belief on something they do not like, while ignoring the things that he does like which also break commandments. He did not love his neighbour.
I listened to two people argue over what damage atheism is doing to the world. One person claimed atheists are the worst thing in the world. He ignored the fact that as many atheists are working towards the betterment of their fellow man as Christians are. He ignored the fact that people like me devote their being to helping others and merely dismissed me and those like me as evil because we are not spreading the word of god.....as he sees it. He did not love his neighbour.
What do all these people have in common? They all not only claim ownership of the truth, but they also all influence the opinions of my friends.
I want to love my neighbour. I want to devote my life to improving the lives of others. I want to treat others with respect and caring.
I do not want to hold beliefs that would have me wish my son be stupid rather than gay.
I do not want to reject human beings because their beliefs are different than mine.
I do not want to belittle another person because I want to neuter their ideas.
Intolerance is not solely in the purview of the secular.
As I type this, a priest just said, and I quote: "you are like a chatty cathy doll, you never shut up." He does not love his neighbour.
I am tired, and I am not interested in hearing about how we can love god and not love each other.
Life is too short to live for death. Life is too long to live for yourself.
We need to look at our religious texts, and we need to look at them critically. We need to not blindly believe in something.
We need to see how the one hand says love, while the other teaches intolerance. We cannot pick and choose if we claim to believe in the word. We either believe in all the words, or we believe in none of them.
Picking and choosing which items are still relevant and which are outdated is ridiculous. I like this idea so I am going to go with it, but boy this is not tastey, let us reject it.
If you are going to reject homosexuality, then you must reject female teachers.
If you are going to reject premarital sex, then you must reject blind people.
When a person says it matters more what is in your heart, it doesn't mean that you get to ignore the other things, merely that following the rule of law is not enough.
Nowhere does Jesus reject the law, just that he claimed wanting to follow the law is not as important as believing in the law.
In the end, the only thing I want is to hold my own spirituality in my heart and spend my time making the world we live in a better place.
Too often people are only concerned with the afterlife. They see this world as flawed and not worth saving. Thus they work towards the next life. They believe in saving souls so they can join them in the afterlife.
I want to see this world improved. It is flawed. It is broken, and so are the people who live in it. I see it as a world worth saving. I see people as worth saving now.
When your belief is based on the destruction of the world, how can you work to improve the world? When all you do is designed to protect you when the world blows up, or you die, how can you work to make this life and this world better? You do not love your neighbour. You fear your god's wrath.
There is a war for my soul. It is happening here and now. I intend to give it back to me. I intend to be accountable to myself, my loved ones and my neighbour. I intend to let my neighbour define what loving them is, not some book which is full of intolerance and hate.
I know this will upset a number of people, but in the end, I cannot live with hypocracy and rejection.
I had a whole other entry lined up and scheduled. I have moved that schedule to another time in order to get the rest of this off my chest.
One final note to those who might say I am being selfish and hypocritical by rejecting some of my neighbours, I say this to you, I will love my neighbour until they reject my love and make it impossible for me to love them. There are tough choices in this world, and the fact is, judging people is not what I want to do, but like all humans I cannot avoid it. All I can do is try and live my life and treat everyone equally.
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