On religion, or the lack thereof
Tuesday Apr 16 14:20:37 2019
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(Repost from coolvibe.org.on the web)
HTML Original
I guess this comes up sometimes when I talk to people online.
Especially religious people. But I think it merits a post on my blog,
and my blog needs a new post. So this is me killing multiple birds
with one stone.
So, when religion comes up, I do have to confess I am an Atheist.
What makes me a bit different from your typical Atheist is that I am
a natural one. What does that mean, really? Well, it means that I
never actually grew up with a religion. The first time I encountered
religion is when I was around 6 or 7 (not completely sure about that,
it's a long time ago), and that's way too late for religious
indoctrination. Which leaves my "religion"-module in my brain (of
which the existance I am uncertain, but I heard there were studies
confirming such a thing exists) pretty much unpopulated. I've filled
in that void with LaVeyan-styled Satanic adversarialism (I might
devote a blog post about that) and a dash of occult esotericism and
paganism, but it leaves me with one pretty significant downside: I
really don't understand religion.
I need to clarify that a bit though. Since I was never indoctrinated
with a system of faith, the mental leap required to assume that a god
can exist is just something I can't do. It just seems illogical to
me. Since I don't have religious faith as part of my operating
system, reason sits there instead, and imagination/creativity fills
in the other gaps. On the positive side, I really am curious about
how religious people come to their conclusions, what their religion
means to them, how they see the world, and I love to debate them.
The downside is that my approach is pretty Socratic, and might come
across as willful ignorance, even though it isn't. I'm always
genuinely curious. The problem is that people that are entrenched in
a religion have a solipsistic tendency to assume that I'm religious
as well, and assume that I share their beliefs. This can make debate
a bit cumbersome, because I genuinely don't have a clue what they are
talking about. Also, this means that when it comes to religion, I'm
pretty neutral because I don't have a bias, having never experienced
religion in the first place.
Of course, having grown older, I have seen the effect that religion
can have on people and it regularily shocks me what people do to
others in the name of religion. I've seen religion used as a tool to
solidify power structures (which will also cement a religion in place
so it won't evolve). On the other hand, I've seen the solace and
comfort that people get from it, and yes, I'm a bit sad I can never
have that. I would love to be able to shove all my existential
problems onto the shoulders of a deity and not having to take
responsibility for them, but alas, I am not wired that way.
Also, I have learned the difference between religion and faith from
my many debates with religious folks. Yes, those two differ. Faith is
what you take on as truth without evidence, and religion is faith you
get bestowed upon oneself from your superiors and peers. I have
philosophical issues with the latter, but I just can't fault the
first.
I guess I can say that I do have faith, but I just lack religion.
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