I need a religion...

[redneckgaijin]

I forget who it was- Heinlein, probably, the bastard- who said that religion was the refuge of weak minds. Well, color me weak, because I need some reassurance that this existence is not all there is. Every time I contemplate mortality- specifically, the concept of ceasing to exist upon the shutdown of the flesh body- I experience sudden and deep terror and depression which makes me pretty much useless.

I was raised fundamentalist Baptist; in the belief that the King James Bible is 100% true, factual, accurate and inerrant, written by God Himself by dictation to various blessed authors. My faith was first crippled by college, when I met openly gay people, openly non-Christian, in fact openly non-rural-Texan people for what amounted to the first time. (Vacations don't count, since it's seldom one really pays attention to the people in countries other than the home town.)

Furthermore, the more I thought for myself, read other writings, and read the Bible itself, the more disillusioned I became with Christianity as a whole. The Old Testament God, for example, is into genocide in a big way- not only in the book of Joshua, where Israel practially exterminates every Caananite they run across, but in the book of Isaiah, where God threatens to wipe out Israel itself- all the men, all the women, all the children. Several references in the Old Testament, plus the Epistle to Philemon, endorse slavery as a positive good. Not only does the Old Testament say quite clearly and without confusion that sex within wedlock is sinful and sex out of wedlock is punishable by death... but Jesus himself, in at least two of the Gospels, said that THINKING ABOUT SEX is a sin, even without any intent to actually have sex.

Show me a teenage male who can stop himself from thinking about sex and I'll show you a psychotic.

Add to this the inconsistencies in Christianity. The bans against homosexuality are always quoted from Leviticus... but other Levitican texts, including ceremonies of purification, locking up your spouse and daughters in a shack behind and away from your house for three days during menses, and eating kosher are all in there too, and I don't know of any Christian sects who practice any of them. At one point Jesus overturns the old laws- "turn the other cheek" rather than "an eye for an eye"- and at another point he declares that "not one jot nor one tittle shall pass from the law."

Now, my Baptist sect believes that, once you have professed your faith and been baptized, your ticket is punched- nothing can prevent you getting to Heaven, no matter what. Yet my reading of the Gospels says that's a bunch of bullshit- Christ demands that His followers live sinless lives, and Paul and Peter both teach that people who believe in Christ can still go to hell for being sinful.

And me? I'm not eating kosher. I have no problem with sex, so long as no oaths are broken and so long as it isn't excessive. I don't believe that the moral decisions of others entitles me to slay them in the name of God.

By the tenets of the religion I read from the Bible, I'm going straight to Hell. Literally. And it's just possible that that will mean nonexistence (instant consumption by fire) rather than the eternity of torment taught by my original religion.

But although my faith is pretty much gone, I'm too afraid of nonexistence to give atheism a go. Besides, there are too many reports of ghosts, too much anecdotal evidence of reincarnation, too much which is yet unexplained for me to completely lose faith in the supernatural.

I've given the Koran a skim-reading, and on my first reading it gives me no comfort. It begins with rabid calls to slay the unbelievers, the infidels, and (coincidentally) anyone who has ever wronged the Prophet Muhammad. On several occasions Allah changes his mind when it would suit Muhammad for the laws of Allah to change.

Nor is Judaeism attractive to me, since I can't find anything definitive on the religion, except that much of the Old Testament (which troubles me) is involved.

I don't like Buddhism's fundamental tenet- that the end goal, nirvana, is -nonexistence.- That's what I'm trying to avoid. I like self. I like identity. Me is precisely what I don't -want- to lose.

I've considered paganism in general, but every time I've asked a pagan about their religion, they've told me point blank, "I can't tell you." This is not helpful.

I'm currently leaning, ever so vaguely, in a reincarnationist-Deist direction. If I could make heads or tails of Shinto, and be excused from worshipping Akihito, I'd probably go with that...

... except that, when the chips are down and life is bleak, I default to Christian, groping futilely towards a God I'm pretty sure hates me, praying for help and comfort.

I don't know what I believe, but I know what I fear... and I'll believe in anything, and even pray for eternal torment in Hell, so long as there is still a me after death to be tormented.

Hell is better than nothingness.

(Oh, and BTW? Revealations does NOT say jack SHIT about a rapture. In fact, it's pretty damn clear that Christians will be around through the entire End Times, and that most of the professed Christians will turn away from the faith and thus be destroyed. The Rapture is a happy lie perpetuated by the church to comfort people like, well, like me.)

Comments

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Kris? I'll be happy to discuss my personal faith with you, but not on LJ -- it's too complex. In person would be preferred; by e-mail would be acceptable.

I notice you don't say anything about reincarnation, the Great Wheel, which is what I believe in when I'm not being obnoxiously rationalist and saying there IS nothing after death. (This is all part of the whole "too complex" thing mentioned above.) Does the idea of having multiple chances to learn what you need to learn appeal to you?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

I lean towards reincarnation because of minor anecdotal evidence in its favor (the reincarnated high Lama and such). However, "multiple chances to learn what you need to learn" begs the immediate question: Need to do what?

My best-case happy-making view of reincarnation is the "RPG Theory," in which we are immortal beings playing an intricate and ineffable game as brief-lived mortals, deliberately denying ourselves the Larger View as part of the rules.

A less happy-making thought is the God-as-Author theory, which I first encountered from the comic works of Ted Nomura. If we are all characters in some cosmic Author's imagination, this helps us not at all; we may have a purpose in life, but once we have spent our time on stage the best we can hope for is to repeat the role over and over again. Otherwise: nothingness once more.

One of these days, when I stop by your place, we can discuss such things in depth.

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

I was raised Catholic, but you've expressed many of my own reactions to religion over the years. I don't know if there IS a religion that mirrors my own feelings about it and I've about decided that it doesn't really matter if I ever find one. Taoism is about as close as I get and it's remarkably noncommital about what happens after death.

I saw starcat_dreamer's response and I have to echo it. I'd be happy to talk about this sometime when you're visiting. Finding people without an axe to grind who really want to talk about this stuff can be tricky.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Eh, the -only- use I have for religion is to explain that which is beyond this existence, i. e. the afterlife. Moral issues require a better argument than, "You should do this, or else hellfire shall burn you forever." To that end, taoism is to me more a philosophy than a religion.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

*raises hand* Pagan, trained to priestesshood but not yet High Priestesshood in the Blue Crescent tradition of Wicca, and quite willing to talk about it. At length. As you may have discovered from the crud I post in my own journal. : ) I also belong to a Unitarian Universalist church.

Like starcat_jewel, I probably don't want to discuss it over LJ, just because of the limitations of the format, but the next time I see you in person I'd be glad to answer any questions it occurs to you to ask.