Religion and doctrine
Most people will say they either are or are not religious and while many scholars have failed to agree on the definition of religion, many would agree that it encompasses having a set of particular beliefs, which is something we all have. The beliefs we do have either serve us and keep us healthy or cause us distress and pain. Whether we are religious or not, the beliefs we have that cause us any distress or pain are the ones we need to question.
One person, whose experience growing up was with Christianity, said when she was a small child, she believed in God. He was her imaginary friend and the one person she could talk to about how she felt. When she was unhappy, she talked to God and the cat and she loved them both completely. She remembers though being puzzled by the understanding the adults around her had of the God she knew. Before going to bed each night she, along with her siblings were made to kneel beside their beds with their eyes closed, hands clasped and say their prayers. It was a ritual that she thought God would see as a bit odd but she whole-heartedly complied until one of her parents stated “Don’t forget he knows what you are thinking” to which she replied, “well if he knows what I’m thinking, then why do I have to speak?”
This was the beginning of many things about religion and beliefs she questioned throughout her life.
Once she was old enough to go to church, her feelings and her understanding of God started to change. However, she did think after spending a week in school clothes or working clothes that it was lovely to see everyone dressed up for the once a week ritual. It was nice to catch up with family and friends and the tea and cake afterwards was always something to look forward to. It was also nice to hear everyone sing regardless of what their singing voices were like and to have a place to go on occasions to say goodbye to departed loved ones, to see couples marry and babies christened. The strange formality and the hierarchy of it all though, was difficult for her to comprehend and why if God was the creator of the natural world were we always doing these things and praising him in a building that isolated us from it?
She was taught then that the Bible was the word of God and remembers wondering why he would be thoughtless enough to communicate with everyone through a book that so many people couldn’t read or understand. It seemed to her that believing this made the speaker in the church the only authority on God who often spoke of him being vengeful with rules and punishments for anyone that broke them. It was then that her love of God started to wane.
As an adult, she saw religion cause conflict among others who all insisted their beliefs were right and judged other people’s beliefs as being wrong, which she had been taught was something reserved only for God so it didn’t make sense.
Some people blame the church for the way they feel or for any unpleasant experiences they’ve had but a church is four walls and a roof and can’t be blamed for anything, it’s the people in them who are guided by their own misconceptions that attempt to cause harm.
Often we hear arguments between adults around us about how life began on Earth with some claiming it was created by God and other’s claiming it was due to evolution, which seems pointless because as no one was around at the time, there’s no real proof of either.
Every civilisation and culture and every person within that culture will have different beliefs. A man returning from a camping trip in northern Australia with a few friends and an indigenous person as a guide said one night they all laid out their swags around the camp fire and looked up at the stars. One of the men said he wondered how the stars got there. The indigenous guide jumped to his feet and enthusiastically announced that he knew. He said one moonlit night a beautiful woman with black skin and long black hair walked into a billabong to bathe. When she came up out of the water, she shook her head and all the little droplets of water spread across the sky and became stars. Another man in the camp scoffed and said it wasn’t true. He then went on to explain his story of the scientific theory of evolution. The indigenous man responded with ‘well – my story is better than yours’.”
Respecting each other’s different stories and beliefs without judgement is the only way we can connect with each other.
The Bible, like many valuable ancient philosophical and religious books and documents, contains many wise ideas and wonderful stories, perhaps written by people who have understood the value of truth, the nature of a higher intelligence and their relationship with it. Our interpretation and beliefs will align with the truth or they won’t and the way we feel is the only authority there is and the only judge.