TGIF - Metaphors, Similes & Rum

(Even though it's Saturday already and has been for a while.) Tonight I read Andrew Sullivan's last installment in his discussion on religion with the atheist Sam Harris. [Clears throat.]

I'm not much of a believer myself. I think it's because I've been stung by religion and, especially since I've been aware that I'm gay, see the trouble religion causes for good people. And looking at the role religion has historically played, and continues to play, in wreaking strife and sorrow on humanity, I consider it a dangerous and divisive element in any culture. I think it's more destructive than the worst of drugs. So I choose not to imbibe or shoot up. (I realize that Marx said religion is the opium of the people. I don't know about that.) Religion may give some people comfort, but keep it away from me.

I think religion, like fairy tales, is best for children. It teaches lessons about right and wrong--but it can be scary, too. I remember as a child being taught that only Christians can go to Heaven. At the time, I had a serious problem with that, since I couldn't see why our loyal and loving dog, Harvie, would be going to Hell because he wasn't baptized as a Christian. Finally my parents were able to calm me down by saying that Harvie would be going to "Dog Heaven." (From then on, I assumed there was a Heaven for all species of good animals.)

Later on, I couldn't accept that my Jewish friends would be going to Hell, or Buddhists or Muslims or atheists, for that matter. At that point I realized that this perspective on life I'd been taught, this view engendered by my religion, was not helpful or useful but, rather, counterproductive and divisive.

Based on my own experience, I think people who cling to religion still believe, as their belief instructs them, that they are essentially better than those who don't share their beliefs. For me, it's not an operable way of living.

Right now you could call me an agnostic. I don't find religion necessary or even useful in the conduct of my own life. I learned my lessons from it as a child and have moved on from there. Though I still like to think that "God is Love" (as was once inscribed on a parchment bookmark by my Sunday school teachers for my Bible), I think adult society would be better off by doing the same.

[Tonight, as I was thinking about writing this post, I was watching "Polyester." At one point, Cuddles says to Francine, "There must be a God. Everything is so beauty-full!" That's when the ants attacked the picnic, and the skunk came around.] [I first saw this movie with the scratch-n-sniff cards. When the skunk appeared, the audience was instructed to scratch the card on one of the numbered patches.]