Religion Is a Four-Letter Word

I could not bring myself to write about the forbidden topic of religion without invoking the Great Twain and his opinions. Inevitably, religion, either as a topic of conversation or in personal or social reflection, puts people precariously on the defensive. I believe the reason “why” is also the very source of religion itself…the “why” of life, of death, of existence. We are defensive precisely BECAUSE there are actually as many “religions” as there are people on Earth. And each religion is correct and true. Now would be a good time for the reader to peruse Twain’s comments.

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.
-Mark Twain, “The Lowest Animal"

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life--hence it is a valuable possession to him.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

My particular (religion, story, philosophy, creed, insert label here) began in the Christian tradition as a young boy. My parents both brought me up with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the American icons of the Christian seasons. We sometimes attended the Methodist Church in Medicine Lodge, but I never liked it much. I was estranged at an early age from religion, I believe and recall, because I felt a certain persecution from other “believers” that I was not as attendant to the church building as they were. The kids on the school bus, mostly Baptists from Sun City, would poke fun at me for “going to Hell” or “don’t you know this or that or whatever Bible verse” type of stuff. The few questions that I did ask of my parents were answered, thankfully, with vague scientific answers or “no one really knows, honey.” They later would tell me that they did not believe that a child should be baptized until they were old enough to consent to it. While this later haunted me at a Catholic boarding school, I now have the utmost respect for that decision.

I have always enjoyed the hard sciences because they made sense to me. They were concrete and there was an answer that fit the problem, unlike the creative arts. And religion, as I knew it from an early age, struck me as “vague” and “creative.” But I was not yet old enough to question authority. Who was I to ask questions of such an establishment that could build vast empires of buildings and political structures and so on?

There were a couple of reasons that I went to a boarding school. My parents thought it was important that I could have the opportunity to attend a school, and all the extracurricular activities, without riding a school bus for 2 hours per day. I could also have some more exposure to high-quality education, religious and otherwise. My father’s side of the family “traditionally” went to boarding schools. His particular one was a military school with an Episcopalian bent. In south-central Kansas, there were only two options, and we chose Thomas More Prep-Marian in Hays, a 4-year Catholic preparatory school.

I declared myself a “Protestant” on the enrollment forms and was promptly pigeon-holed as such. The iconoclastic aspect of my personality was born, in part, because of this most traumatic teen experience. Of the roughly 400 boarding and day students at the school, I would estimate that there were about 10 non-Catholics, and even fewer in the “boarders.” I vividly recall being homesick to the point of crying on the phone every night with my folks, and particularly being called “you fucking Protestant FARM BOY.” Every school night after the required 2 hour study hall, we had evening prayer in the chapel before bed. I prayed for the first time in my life. And for the first time I really NEEDED something. I still believe this NEED is the crux of religion, whether personal or global. I will address this later.

I buried myself in my studies and was socially awkward. My gaining the A-Honor Roll status virtually every 6 weeks was my way of thumbing my nose at the “good Catholic boys” who poked fun at my expense. I greatly admired most of the priests and brothers at the school. Some were major players in my formation as a thinking, philosophical man. Largely because of this admiration, I continued in the Catholic tradition of praying and believing in a supernatural force. Of course, I had Religion (a curriculum) all four years of high school, so I knew little else about the world of thought.

At Kansas State, there were virtually no boundaries for me. Coming from such a strict parochial upbringing, I went a little wild in college. There were no curfews, there were fewer social restrictions…I was free! I dated a girl for about 2 years and thought we were really in love. I didn’t know much about her religion or personal belief system, but at that age, it did not matter. She was a guaranteed date for parties, and someone to call “mine.” That was good enough for awhile. The problems came when she began to say some rather racist and gay bigoted things that I found judgmental. My best friend in high-school was black and I also knew of some boys who were on their way to becoming closet homosexuals. They were my friends, I was “Christian” and I thought my girlfriend’s “morals” (which she liked to invoke upon everyone) were atrocious and rather un-Christian. That was the beginning of the end of that love.

My next major shift in philosophy came from my best friend. He was very much an intellectual and we enjoyed tossing around various ideas of “why things are the way they are” just for the sake of argument. Of course, religion came up early in our friendship. He said that he was an atheist and so was his Dad. His Mom was a Christian, but they all loved each other, so that’s that. (He didn’t put it that curtly, but it was a matter-of-fact sort of statement.) I was in shock. Everything he said made sense to me and appealed to my sense of logic, reason, empiricism, rationality….all these things that were latent in my young mind. But my gut just wrenched at the word “atheist.” Wasn’t that a bad word? Isn’t that tantamount to Devil-worshipping? I had no idea about what to think about this man that was (and is) a giant in my life. He single-handedly gave me the courage to dive headlong into an amazing and scary world of theology, philosophy and writings from people who have changed the world of mystical thought.

I began to take some courses in philosophy, but mostly read books on my own about God/gods/spiritualism. I developed a major interest in the various arguments for and against the existence of God. I was in disbelief that these books, these major works by the greatest thinkers of human existence, had been essentially hidden from view by the Catholic Church during my tenure at high school. The biggest breakthrough I had was when I read the writings of Karl Marx and his view in the Communist Manifesto that “religion is the opium of the people.” I had been poisoned! Poisoned by a greater power, but not by an omniscient, all-loving, all-powerful God, but by an agency! A government! An organized RELIGION! A certain wrath would be had by ME during the coming years. I would pay back all those creeps and jerks in high-school that had used the power of a priest’s robes to subdue me. I was on a personal crusade to rid the world of religion and its evils.

I have calmed down significantly since then. Yes, we would all recognize that people have died and will continue to die in the name of religion. The Crusades, the witch burnings, the Inquisition, the Middle-East Wars between Jews and Palestinians…it never ends. And it never will. I spoke earlier of a NEED for religion. People NEED to make sense of their mortality. We are all going to become worm food. It is plain as day, no matter how hard we try to ignore it. We humans will cling until death to that which we believe will bring us comfort, righteousness, grace, or even immortality. And if it means dying for it, then some of us even believe that that is the ultimate sacrifice—martyrdom.

I spent about 15 years calling myself and agnostic or atheist, depending on which definition one prefers to use. I am a very well-read person on the topic of the various arguments for and against God, but have come to the conclusion that the whole question is pointless. Either there is, or there is not, but it is immaterial to me. I have flitted with the belief in deism, that a supernatural force exists, but has no concern, bearing, or influence upon us. I still am searching. That is what life is all about…the SEARCH. I don’t believe there are hard and fast answers. Life is not math. Life is an essay and we are writing it RIGHT NOW.

On the days that I wake up and think “I am an atheist today” I don’t treat anyone any differently. My moral upbringing is ingrained in my mind. I treat people as a Christian would. Or is that “as a Jew would.” Or maybe like a Wiccan would? Who cares? The Golden Rule is not the property of Jesus Christ. It is a universal belief of virtue that permeates all mankind of almost every sect/religion/club.

In the last 3 years I have been intensely interested in Eastern thought. Jean-Paul Sartre said something to the effect of “man must come to the realization that he is ultimately and exclusively ALONE.” Existential thoughts can be scary, but they can also be very calming to the body and mind. (I don’t want to delve into whether dualism exists, but I am speaking of mind/body in the everyday sense.) The inherently introspective nature of Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism realized through the majestic art of meditation intrigues me incessantly. A favorite book of mine, “Freedom From the Known” by Jiddu Krishnamurti summarizes everything that I have tried to digest recently. Although I am not a scholar on the subject, I do understand the concepts and they help me everyday understand my world, but especially the interaction between the OBSERVER and the OBSERVED, a key element of Eastern ways.

The last paragraph is possibly the most startling in my “spiritual” journey. I have recently endeavored to comprehend the mind of Stephen Hawking and his book “A Brief History of Time.” Astronomy, physics, and cosmology are not entirely foreign to me, but I must admit that I am a mere fledgling chick in a large henhouse when I struggle with the enormity of cosmology and minds like Hawking’s! Prior to this landslide realization…an epiphany really…I had not broken out of the mindset of “what I cannot observe or reach intuitively does not exist….it may exist, but since it cannot be proven, I will not hold out any hope for it and will proclaim it as myth.”

Dr. Hawking introduced me to the idea of anti-matter and dark matter. These concepts are so scary and nonsensical to me that they rival the story of Noah and the Flood. The erratic and illogical (to me anyway) behavior of light, as energy and matter, is just as boggling to my immature brain. So I am “back to square one”, colloquially, in my search for the light. Perhaps there are things outside our realm that do exist, but that we can never know. This bothers the somewhat mad scientist in me, but can also provide relief that “I don’t know all the answers, so God (as I once understood him) may exist in some form.” Again, life is about the SEARCH.

The Unitarian Universalist Church is the only church that I have paid annual dues towards. Their simple creed is consistent with mine. They are a compassionate group. Many would consider their ranks to be wishy-washy and lacking of answers. But that is what attracts me to them. They always have room for everyone’s opinions and appreciate “the inter-connected web of existence of which we are all a part.”

Man invents religion to explain away his mortality, the existential Achilles’ Heel, and to make sense of his inexplicable circumstance. Every man, woman, and child has a “take” on his own version that is unique to the Universe. And from each we may learn about ourselves and our World. And as for whether we survive death? What does it matter? We are here TODAY. We might die tomorrow, literally. Living in the moment, the present, the here and now, is the ultimate reverence for the Life Force, whatever its origin.

March 7, 2007

Nathan Lee