Why Organized Religion Needs to Go

My thoughts on religion are hardly a suprise to anyone who has read my previous blogs. I have had major reservations in the past but have been inclined to concede religion to those who feel they cannot live without it. Recent events have now convinced me that any good provided by the world's religions as they have evolved is far outweighed by the damage they inflict.

I've always believed that religions shut down human minds. Sometimes this can be helpful, as when Christianity provided social cohesion and something other than warrior values for the warring European tribes. The problem, however, was that instead of standing aside when its role was over, Christianity entrenched itself and became a corporation--enriching itself and crushing any opposition.

And that's what Christianity is now--a vast corporation employing thousands determined to make a living by making people fearful and then offering salvation for a price.

Christianity's corporate strategy has been  to cherry pick rules and regulations from a supposed holy book that offers up two thousand year old solutions as if the world never changes. What does a nomadic, patriarchal, sheep-and-goat raising religion have to do with a world where we transplant hearts and travel in space? Even more pertinent, why are people in the Middle East killing one another over differing interpretations of teachings if not to preserve the power and income of supposedly "holy" men?

And the leaders are all men. Please note that. Old, dessicated, querrelous men. When the US Congress holds hearings on contraception that do not include women, they hark back to a fine tradition of men knowing what is best for women. Rush Limbaugh is also in that tradition. He sounds like a near-Eastern patriarch rousing the crowd to go stone a woman.

Women are involved intimately in the realities of life and they can spot bull. So they are a threat. Yet, they are also people that Jesus Christ specifically preached to and about. 

Even if someone wants to argue that religion teaches basic, enduing principles, will someone then tell me why one religion is considered "better" than another and worth dying for (or being made to die for)? If these are enduring human principles, then it shouldn't matter which set of principles one chooses to follow and there should be little to choose among them. But it does matter, particularly to those who make their livings peddling some unproven set of blue prints for salvation.

Anyone reading the bible for themselves can see that Christian leaders deliberately misread and even misrepesent (for their own purposes) the teachings of the founder, cherrypicking his teachings to whatever suits the Church's interests in maintaining power and controlling minds.

Listen to Jesus Christ talking, before he went off on a megalomaniac side trip. I am the way, he says. The way. Not the end.  He shows people how he looks at the world around them and creates parables from it. This is what they should do. Emulate him. Not adore him. When he seeks strength, he goes out onto a mountain to experience something larger than himself. He doesn't go the stones and bricks of human-made temples. In fact, he's trying to open the minds of his listeners, not close them for profit.

I'm reminded here of Joseph Campbell who, during an interview, talked about our image of god as being is the last obstacle. Of course it is. We've had contradictory images force fed to us since childhood--is this a kind, loving god who forgives, or a harsh judging god waiting to destroy us? Both visions are there in the bible. We can  see this same dichotomy playing out in our politics: the extreme right is the vengeful god, condemning non-conformists to various circles in hell, while the extreme left tries to accept and forgive the human vices and even, gasp, such terrible things as illegal immigration.

You're not supposed to be "Christian" and inhumane at the same time--something Arizona seems to have mastered when they chain a woman in labor to a bed so she can't raise her arms or hold her newborn. Good going, Sheriff Joe.

No, the wars over religion are not done. But it's time they should be. And we can start by getting religion out from between us and the world, looking through our own eyes, recognizing religion for the corporation it is, denying all religion-generated fear of death, that most natural of our physical processes, and allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed and grateful for the beauty around us. This will bring us a lot closer to god, spirit, the universe--or whatever you choose to call it, than any canned sermon or pathetic bleating from some politico pandering to the most self-righteous among us.