2.23.01

They say there are three things you should never talk about with strangers - sex, politics, and religion. Well, I don't like what "they" say in this case, so screw them. Let's talk some religion, baby.

I guess you could say I've always had a very scientific mind. Not mathematic, just ask my Algebra teacher in high school, but scientific. I view the world with my senses and then think about those experiences to develop my hypothesis. I have basically used this same method to develop my ideology about religion. Quite frankly, the idea that there was an all-knowing, all-seeing guy up there in outer space…or somewhere…that was controlling everything seems a little far-fetched. However, due to my recent revelation, I'm starting to think more about my spiritual self and my philosophy of life.

I'm from a small, mid-western, Protestant town. Now when I say Protestant, I MEAN Protestant. We have Methodists, Lutherns and Mennonites. Nothing else. No Catholics, no Muslims, no Buddhists - only Protestants. And just to give you some idea of how important religion is in my town, with a population of 1500, we have 6, count-em, 6 churches to serve our community. We were part of the hip, young, uptown crew at the First United Methodist Church. This basically meant that all the other churches in town thought we were freaks because our Youth Groups consisted of going out for bowling and pizza instead of Davey and Goliath marathons. However, despite all this religion, I can only think of a hand full of kids who were practicing Christians; the whole praying before they ate their fish sticks at lunch hour, never cursing, quoting Bible scripture every chance they got. Not that there's anything wrong with that - you go do your own thing, whatever is fine with me - but in a town that seemed so interested in religion, there weren't that many kids who were religious away from the sanctuary.

Once I got into high school, my Dad and I really started to have some interesting conversations about God and religion. It was here that my ideas about God and Chrisitanity really got engrained. It had never occurred to me before then that the Bible was written by man so it was really just an interrpretation of God's word. Woah. Then you have to consider the possibilities of translation problems. Oh shit. Then we got into the secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls and that really threw me. (If you're not familiar with what these scrolls are or what they say about Christianity, especially what happened to Christ during and after the crucifixion, you might want to read more. Let's just say it will rock your world. I'll look for some links for you and I'll get them up.) These things made me THINK about the religion that I had been taught to believe and with the scientific mind that I use to think about these kinds of things, my thoughts are quite different than how the church would probably like me to see.

I would have to say that Chrisitanity is just a strange religion to me and something I have a hard time believing in. Jesus was a man - even the Bible says this, that's the whole point of him coming to Earth, right? Well, what if that's all he was? What if Jesus was a very charismatic person who was able to convince many, at least twelve that we know of, to pretty much give up everything they owned and follow him? Sound like anyone from the last twenty, thirty years? Reverend Jim Jones? David Koresh? The leader of Heaven's Gate? Dare I say, Charles Manson? Now I'm not saying Jesus was like any of these men, especially Charlie; I have no idea what he was like. But doesn't that make sense when you take the Son of God part out of it? And what better way to convince more people to follow you than to say you're the messiah of your people, the Jews. This is exactly the same thing Koresh did. How do we know Koresh was not the Second Coming? Do we believe the government who persecuted him like the Romans did Jesus? Who's to say the ATF and FBI are telling the truth about anything? Again, I'm not saying that I personally believed that Koresh was the Son of God, but when their stories are so very similar, why is that most people believe that Jesus was? This just doesn't make any sense to me.

Someone could come back at me with "Well, it says in the Bible…", but why should I believe that? Let's face it, the Bible, or at least the New Testament, is a very well-written piece of propaganda. It tries to convince you that this man was the Son of God by telling of his great deeds and words that may or may not have happened about two thousand years ago. I don't mean to say that Jesus wasn't a great guy nor that he wasn't the Son of God, I'm simply saying that it could be seen in this way. I could see someone from the Branch Davidians writing a similar book about David Koresh; hell, I could write one about Pikachu or any one of the other Pokemon.

So as a person who believes in what he can absorb with his senses and then think about what these senses have told him, I'd have to say that right now, the thing that makes the most sense to me is nature. The cycle of life is right there in front of me - it makes sense. Today a chicken had to die so I could eat a buffalo chicken sandwich smothered in wonderful 911 sauce served to me by a beautiful Hooters waitress; tomorrow, I'll die and another chicken will eat corn that grew in a field that was aerated by the earthworm that ate my body in the cemetery next to the field. This is the natural order of life. Best of all, it's going to happen whether or not I believe in a big guy with a beard who's making earthquakes happen and giving Tony Danza a career…wait, maybe that's the other guy.

With this idea of nature in mind, I'm not sure if you could say I'm looking into religions per se, they're more like "ways to live". So far, that search has led me to something that really seems to make sense to me. I'm in the early stages of learning about it, frankly I haven't even read a single book on the subject, only a few pages in a philosophy book I own and a few websites, so I can't say I'm going to stick with it necessarily. But so far, Tao seems like it might be a good direction for me to go in.

Tao (pronounced "Dao") means literally "the path" or "the way." Basically it deals with nature and our place in it. It teaches to love nature as a whole and to understand the cycle of life and this fits wonderfully with my scientific mind.

Evolution seems like it has its merits. Granted, there are many pros and cons to it, but again, thinking logically, it makes sense; especially the idea of "only the strong survive". This is obviously a large part of nature and therefore, in my understanding of it, has to be a part of the Tao. That's not to say that I as a stronger species should just randomly kill weaker species just because I can - except spiders who are just…ewwwwww.

I also like the concept of duality; the now famous, Yin and Yang of life. For life to exist there must be death; for good to exist there must be evil; light must have darkness; hot must have cold; love must have hate. This is definitely how I see the world and life, so this too fits my outlook.

Finally, the Tao does not promote any God or deity that's behind the whole scheme, at least not in such a personified version as a man or a woman. The Tao is not a person, but simply a presence. Frankly, it's a lot like The Force from Star Wars (hmmm…wonder where Lucas got it from?) in that it is all around us, yet we are part of it. Again, this is a very "hands off" approach to the world that I can get on board with.

Although Tao is technically not a religion, it's more of a philosophy, that's ok with me. I wasn't necessarily looking for an afterlife, but a present one. Besides, I like the idea that my body goes back into the Earth and nourishes the next generation of life. I'd rather do that than worry about finding a place in heaven for a soul I may or may not posses.

Again, I'm just learning more about the concepts of Tao, so we'll see how things progress from here. According to what I've read, there is a mystic side to Taoism that I'm not too sure on. But, Toaism basically has no dogma, so you can practice how you want to. I have a feeling that side of it won't interest me, but I'd like to learn about it just the same. I plan to go out and pick up a couple books Sunday so I can get started reading and see if this is the right thing for me to look into. I'll keep you updated for sure.

And don't worry, I can guarantee I'll talk religion and philosophy again, so please, if you have comments, let me know and I'll see about including them in my next religious post. Oh, and someday I'll get to politics and sex and then we won't be strangers anymore either.

Your Pal:

Space Monkey