Bad Religion

Religion can be a source of joy and comfort. We can seek better understanding of the spirit, chase away those things that trouble us but should not, seek the beauty of community and of inner peace. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Bad religion takes the unknowable mysteries of the universe and tries to subvert them. It exploits our discomfort with the unanswerable by offering definitive answers that are based not on fact but on faith. It halts the process of exploration and thought by creating false facts that halt our attempts to understand. Good religion helps us to accept that we cannot know everything about the universe. Bad religion declares a worldview than attempts to shape reality to fit that view. It argues with what we know, creating scientific errors and uncertainty where none exists. It tries to disassemble the way we learn about the universe by creating conspiracies where there are none and doubt where it should not be. It projects and accuses of subjective thinking in the arenas of life where there is objective process. Good religion takes the world the way it is and shapes our understanding of the spirit around it. It embraces new understanding of the world, and teaches us how to live within it. Bad religion starts with the answers and tries to control the questions. Good religion starts with the question and offers one path to find the answers. Bad religion encourages faith and obedience to doctrine. Good religion encourages questions and dissent, viewing the search for knowledge as communal effort. Bad religion turns people away from the quest of the spirit. Good religion gets drowned out and lost.

Greetings

The first element of this was choosing the title.  I kept going back to a single image - me on my twin bed at the Ashram rolling my eyes at the ads for ear candling and miracle juices in the magazine given out downstairs.  Not too different from the me that enters Kate's Joint, a den of dreadlocks and scuffed Converse, in my pinstriped suit fresh from my corporate job.  We all have dual natures, but in a forum that I hope to center around my thoughts on spirituality and philosophy I choose to center my thoughts around these dual natures. 

I strive for a place of moderation and balance in a world that little understand or accepts nuance.  I don't have to blindly accept everything labeled homeopathy to be a serious yoga practitioner.  Nor must I distance myself from the peace I find chanting in order to embrace a worldview built on logic and reason.  There is a middle ground.  This is my journey to find it, and keep it.