Ever since I was a young child, I was always fascinated by religion. I lived with my grandparents during my early years which were in a very Christian household: pray every night, church every Sunday, prayer before meals - so on and so forth. When my mother married my stepfather, I was introduced to a different religion: Islam. Even though he didn’t practice that religion as closely as my grandparents did with their religion, I still learned a lot about the Islam teachings.
Each religious thought taught that their religion was the most accurate religion and should be the one the rest of the world should follow (Whether that’s true or not, that’s what I was told up to this point in my early childhood). “How is that possible?” I thought, “If God made everyone and God loves everyone, why would He destine one group to doom over another?” I began to further my investigation unto other religions to see what they thought. Even though a lot of them had similar teachings, all of the people I talked to from those religions, thought THEY were the correct religion, the one TRUE religion all others around the world should follow.
Of course you get different interpretations of this from different people, so I decided to make it my quest to find that ONE TRUE religion. I wanted to follow the path God had set forth for us to follow. I kept in mind, many people are so hard core about what they believe in because they grew up being TAUGHT to believe that and never even tried to “think outside the box”. (Please refer to Blog #2 -- What would you believe if you were not taught to believe, what you believe right now -- as I go into more depth about this) I started to investigate HOW these teaching were started, when they were physically written down into text, and how long after the events, were they put in a language that made it understandable to the rest of us.
I found that these religions were all stories TOLD from generation to generation until it was physically written down in books. If they WERE written down on tablets, scrolls, or stone walls, all of that had to be TRANSLATED into a language that was widely known by man, and THEN put into book context.
This made me think back to when I was a kid and we played “telephone” in our class. The teacher would whisper a sentence to one student, they would whisper it to their neighbor, then to the next until it gets around to the final student. By the time the SAME SENTENCE is passed around from one child to the next, it came out COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than what the teacher stated in the first place. Just imagine what could happen to religious stories that are passed from one generation to the next until it is finally written into context….
Then I saw documentaries on TV about how scientific discovery found scrolls or tablets that were never included into the modern day Christian Bible. That got me thinking, what if the religious leaders, at the time all these historic religious events took place, knew they had so much influence and power over their society, fabricated the stories or teachings slightly here and there, so that it would benefit THEIR preference? Politicians do it all the time in the modern world, why wouldn’t religious leaders do it during their time of influence over society? What if the scare of “religion” itself was just used as a means to control large groups of people? What if the messages of all these religious teachings were “lost in translation” when translated into a more popular language?
Of course since there wasn’t the great technology of the internet, news papers, or other social media to document these “teachings” AT THE TIME they occurred in a language widely known to man, no one will ever TRULY know what had transpired all those years ago.
I continued my quest to finding the “true” religion by speaking with people directly involved with these various religions, both liberal and hard core and passionate about their religion. Guess what I found out? None of them were ever able to answer my one defining question about their religion without getting immensely furious with me.
After they told me that they hard core truly believed that THEIR religion was the ONE CORRECT religion to follow, and told me that all others would be doomed to burn for all eternity because they never found their way to that “one true” religion, I asked them all this same question:
“So if your religion is the CORRECT one, and all others are not, and you believe all others are destined to burn in hell if they don’t believe in yours, let me ask you this: What happens to those people who were BORN into a different religion than yours? Is it really their fault that they follow what they were TAUGHT to follow? What if they live their life praising to a higher power, always doing good things for other people, never causing any trouble, never having the means to relocate outside where they grew up to even have the CHANCE to experience or learn anything different – are they REALLY going to burn in hell because they don’t follow your religion?”
Not one person has YET to answer my question without getting mad at me. I know they only got so mad because A) they didn’t have an answer and B) made them question their beliefs and entire life’s teachings. But I just honestly, truly in my heart of hearts, was just genuinely trying to find the one true religion so that I could follow the right path to God. Well, after all that was said and done, here I am 20 years later STILL without a valid answer to my question.
My conclusion: I personally believe in God but Religion – not so much. The inner detective in me still feels like a lot of what religion teaches is fabricated to some extent or is just hearsay by generations of retold stories. I wasn’t there to witness it, nor was anyone closely related to me. There isn’t any hard core proof anything was really “said” from a burning bush or a snake. For all we know, Aliens could be our “God” and they came down to Earth some many years ago, mated with monkeys, and we are just a product of years and years of mutation. And perhaps their said visits to Earth are to “check up” on us! (There ARE documentaries that have arguments to support this, too!)
But, even so, I do believe in God because I have EXPERIENCED God’s work (or a higher power as some would like to call it). Good things happen when I pray. Problems are solved. Guidance is provided. It comes in forms of my dreams, experiences, intense gut feelings (refer to Blog #3 Leap of Faith) or even through other people’s actions or words. The way I see it, as long as you are not harming others, who is to really dictate which religion is correct or not? Everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe, whatever feels true and right for them, and whatever helps them fight through the hard times and achieve the peace.
Lady Gaga, who grew up Catholic, I think put it best when she was asked about her religion during her “Google Goes Gaga” interview. She said (and I’m just paraphrasing) that she sees God in all of her fan’s faces when she performs on stage. She gets a lot of her inspiration from them for new music and artistic ideas. “My religion is You.”
(I ENCOURAGE you to comment – whether you agree or disagree – please challenge me!)
(: Tina Marie :)
Twitter: @PrincessLibra16
YouTube Channel: PrincessLibra16
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