Friday, April 2, 2010

My View on Religion


Before I get on my soap box I need to preface this post.
I want to thank all who sent me their the well wishes and prayer about my wife's battle with cancer.I appreciate all the kind words I received from everyone who has contacted me on Facebook and other social networking sites.
I do not wish to offend my friends and those who really know me will understand my thoughts.

As a child I grew up in an Italian-American household. Roman Catholic icons were all over my grandparents house. I went to Catholic school for 9 years and did my duty as an altar boy. Needless to say, religion was a big part of family life.
First Holy Communion.
Confirmation.
Church on Sunday.
No meat on Friday.
No goodies during Lent.
These were the rules that were going to get me into heaven. I got married in a Catholic church, teaching love, honor, till death do us, etc. But then it happened, I got divorced. A Roman Catholic doesn't get divorced, it's a sin. I'll go to hell.

No wait, all I have to do is go to confession and it's all better, and even though my ex and I had a child she got the marriage annulled. Neat trick.

After a few years I tried the church again. I went to church with a very devout Catholic girl. During the mass, the priest stood in front of the congregation holding a blow-up sheep trying to talk about something or other. I sat there thinking, "What the fuck is the priest talking about?, this is religious enlightenment?"

After many years of pondering religion in my life, trying to get something out of a church service, I have come to realize that organized religion is like a crutch. It helps you when you need it, and when everything is ok, you can discard it. In recent years the talk of God has flooded the media. People killing in the name of religion, saying it is "God's will". A young child is struck down by a stray bullet from some crack dealer's gun, and they say, "God works in mysterious ways". Now a Christian militia is trying to gun down police officers becasue they don't agree with our government and want to start their own based on the 10 commandments. Maybe they forgot to read the one Thou shalt not kill.

Recently my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and I am supposed to believe that an all loving God would create such a nasty disease. Or that now since she has had surgery and is recovering it's becasue of God? NO, it's becasue of medical science that she is recovering. Cancer is just a diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues. And our goal has been to find the best team of medical doctors to help us fight and win the battle. Science, plan and simple.

So now, here is my belief; Life is what you make it, not what some spiritual deity has destined it to become. You set your course and you determine the outcome. It's not pre-planned, it's not fate. Like the T-shirt says "Shit happens".

Sometimes the shit is good, other times it fucking sucks. But what you make of it defines you as a person. So live life to the fullest, enjoy every minute and love, laugh and be kind to those around you. Not becasue you'll go to heaven but becasue it's the right thing to do.

1 comment:

John Slimp said...

Wow Mr. B! Very insightful, deep and accurate. We all seem to spend time in prayer when we need something, like magic, but we never seem to spend time in prayer just to say thanks. It is a social crutch that we seem to depend on when we don't want to take responsibility or action on our own.