Saturday, May 15, 2010

Religion, Church and the Bible: My Thoughts

Another one of those hot button topics out there. My problem with the religion and church thing is when people try to force their beliefs on me or make me feel bad for not thinking the same way they do. For example, my dad. He's in church pretty much every Sunday and he's always trying to get me to go with him and I probably will eventually but no time soon (and not because I want to, but because he wants me to and I figure it's the least I can do). The thing that bugs me is that when I say no he's all "don't you want to go to heaven?" Really daddy? I love you but calm the fuck down. Sorry but I refuse to believe that not going to church is an automatic ticket to hell. And I don't think I should be made to feel bad for my decision not to go.

In the past I never had a specific reason for not going to church, I just didn't want to. But now I don't want to go because I don't agree with some of the things that are taught in church and I feel that some religious people take the Bible WAY too literally. I personally don't feel that the Bible is something that's meant to be taken word for word. I mean think about it. Look who wrote it and when. A bunch of semi-anonymous old white dudes somewhere in the beginning of time. Do I really want to live my life based on their words? They say it's what God says but how do I know that? How does anyone? Are we just supposed to take their word for it? To an extent I suppose but, I don't know. To be honest, old white dudes haven't always been kind to my people in the past so forgive me if I don't want to heed their advice.

Then there's the whole obedient wife thing I talked about in another post. And of course everyone's favorite topic: homosexuality. On Sunday mornings on BET they show sermons, etc from various preachers, churches and what not. One day I heard a pastor say something about how being gay is wrong, a sin, blah blah blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, yadda yadda yadda. Of course the whole ignorant congregation was in agreement with this fool. At that point I decided I was done with church. If I had to sit there and listen to that idiotic nonsense about how "wrong" homosexuality is I think I might stand up and scream right in the middle of the service. Idiots. One thing I absolutely can not stand is homophobia. It truly pisses me off to no end. I talk about that a little bit here. I just have a serious problem with perpetuating hate and ignorance under the guise of religion. Don't blame your closed mind on God, it's not a good look. Anyway, that's all for now.

ps: I went to Catholic school for 8 years and yes I do believe in God, just not sure about the "institution" of religion (if that makes sense).

1 comment:

Anna said...

Yeah, I refused to go to church after the age of 8 for this very reason. Totally unimpressed.
There are religious people out there who have evaluated their spirituality deeply and rationally... but I just didn't meet any of them until much later in life.

PS My word verification is .... "orgalasm".