The Religious Condition

(A piece I wrote in high school that I think holds up)

God. The first issue I had when addressing this concept was capitalization, but I realized that the very premise of this essay warranted capitalizing “God,” and it’s not because of grammar. Religion as a social construct is and always has been a prevalent and incredibly influential force in society. Whether you’re an atheist, mildly Christian, or a Rabbi, you can recognize that. Religion has shaped civilization, created reason for war, and allowed for peace. So whether you choose to believe in it or not, the concept of God has shaped humanity, and thus earns that capital “G”.

People have convinced themselves that books written thousands of years ago were the indirect word of God, and they inform their everyday decisions and even shape their lives around this premise. Whether God really sent messengers, or the literature was just written by humans, as might be probable, is immaterial for my purposes. Whether you like it or not, religion is everywhere and will continue to exist assuming humanistic principles remain consistent in humanity’s growth. It may not exist in the same religions that are prevalent today, but it will always exist.

The traditional definition of religion involves a deity or supernatural power. But the way that religious organizations have developed and behaved over time contribute to a different, broader definition. Large congregations with the mutual goal of heightening one’s spirituality are immediately associated with religion, but do not necessitate a supernatural power. The entire spiritual perspective of Buddhism is often touted to be the world’s 4th largest “religion,” but it isn’t a religion at all. At least, not in the traditionally defined sense. There is no divine component to Buddhism. In fact, Buddha advocated for a lifestyle in which worship did not play a role. But the fact that humans continue to consider Buddhism to be a religion suggests that the word has a broader practical usage — a more relevant definition. This new definition is one that no longer requires a deity or supernatural figure — it only needs a doctrine and structure.

Richard Crichton in his address to the Commonwealth Club in 2003 commented on how the religion of the urban atheist is environmentalism. I’m of the conviction that the majority of humans need some religious framework in their lives. Crichton asserts that environmentalism has Judeochristian parallels; the natural world is Eden, and we are striving to return to it. He says that this is what gives environmentalism its religious nature. But there’s a larger commonality at play: as long as some framework of ideology has the ability to explain the world around you and comfort you by giving you purpose — a reason to live — it is religious in nature.

I consider myself somewhat agnostic. I like to think that there’s a creator to explain one thing in particular that I think will never be explained by anything that’s not supernatural: I firmly believe that the origin of the universe will never be explained by any amount of science, so I use God to fill in this gap. But not in the traditional sense of religion — it’s not like I consciously think about how God created the universe and has a plan. In fact, I don’t believe in a plan or any humanistic intention at all regarding God. I just use it to keep me sane. What was before the Big Bang, and how did that come around? And what about before that? If it was nothingness, what does that really mean? How can nothing actually exist, and how can there not have been a precursor to that nothingness? I avoid these questions through God, so I don’t have an existential crisis. One might say weakness is the foundation of faith, but that’s a different topic altogether.

The thing about God and the supernatural is that it can do whatever you want and explain whatever you’re missing in your life however you want. It’s an infinitely expansive support system. And there’s a beauty that God has in its infinite power and ability to provide solace for humans. The idea that you have an eternal, all-powerful guardian naturally makes you feel pretty good. But it goes deeper than that. Worship is one of the most nuanced aspects of an individual’s relationship with God, and I believe in only a single aspect of it, but this aspect is integral for human growth. Worship in the sense that an individual is reflecting on all that they have to be grateful for is a wonderfully enriching experience. But I am reluctant to call this experience exclusively religious — you can reflect like this without the concept of God. It just so happens that God is an extremely useful way to reflect in this way. This reflection creates humility, but more importantly, it can improve an individual’s contentment by highlighting everything they have to be happy about. Life is infinitely multifaceted, and you can explore endless dimensions of conscious experience — it’s the beauty of free will. So, there’s a lot a person can be happy about, and worship facilitates this. There’s also a powerful sense of community that can arise from a common belief in a God. This community can provide a support system and foster empathy, kindness, and consideration. This community lifts up its members and makes the road towards a better living experience smooth and unobstructed. Such are the potentials of God’s infinity capability.

But there’s a point when this theoretically infinite capability becomes an issue. It’s the same principle surrounding wealthy people abusing their power: when some entity gains a great amount of power, that entity’s influence becomes a double-edged sword. Regarding worship, I mentioned that I only connect with a single aspect of worship — the idea of gratefulness. The area where I have an issue with worship is when there is excessive reverence in worship. That is, when the objective of worship is to “glorify” God. If a God exists, I’d hope it wouldn’t be as vain as to want humans to spend their time on Earth expressing their boundless love for it and putting it on a higher pedestal than a supernatural, all-powerful being is already on. Certainly, an omnibenevolent being wouldn’t feel this way — it would much rather its creations live the lives they were given to their maximum potential. Imagine creating a species only to have members of it spend large portions of their existence praising you and getting others to praise you. I guess that might be a bad hypothetical if you happen to be a self-centered prick, but try to put yourself in omnibenevolent shoes.

The community that the concept of God can create is just as capable of starting a war with other such communities as it is of helping them. I’m referring primarily, but not exclusively, to organized religion. The Crusades, Israel-Palestine, India and Pakistan, the Croation War, the Bosnian War, the list goes on. All of these conflicts were violent, and all these conflicts either had religious undertones, or were overtly religiously motivated. The lore of organized religion in the way that people practice it very commonly implies theocentrism. Christians will naturally believe that their particular teachings are what God would have wanted, and so will Judaists and Muslims. But most atheists also believe in their often scientifically-oriented doctrine to be supreme, as do agnostics. The pretentious atheist stereotype is founded in the truth that most atheists are convinced that other religious orientations are absurd and illogical, and breed unnecessary discord. Ironically, even though atheism attempts to be inherently secular, it is commonly guilty of this same centrism. Agnostics reject organized religion in favor of looser belief, so they aren’t free of blame either.

The key here is embracing the irrationality of religion. I don’t claim to have the ideal religious orientation; I’m still exploring these ideas. This essay is one of these explorations, in fact.

But I do claim that this theocentrism must be eliminated, and I think that an acknowledgement of irrationality is the key to this. This acknowledgement will eliminate the double-edged nature of common belief in God. People will no longer dispute over God’s plan, and missionaries won’t exist. This means that religious organizations will have to acknowledge that their religion is just as irrational as all others. It’s true that this will diminish some of the ideas that are central to these religions, but it’s necessary to escape theocentrism nonetheless. People will have to realize that their own God is not an excuse to be self-unaware, and that their perspectives need to be consistent with one that fosters the coexistence of religions. And this coexistence cannot be born from ignorance, or avoidance. That’s what we do today. It must be born from self-confrontation and it must be motivated by a harmonious vision for human life. The most central aspect of my own religion that I haven’t mentioned yet is that I believe my religion is absurd. Just like all others are. It seems counterintuitive to the inherent nature of faith, but there are ways to be aware of a doctrine’s flaws and continue to benefit from its spiritual teachings. Like I mentioned before, though, atheists have a role to play too. They don’t really have any irrational components to their perspective, yet they have this centrism. Atheists need to acknowledge the benefits of believing in a God, and they need to recognize that not all things can or should be explained by non-supernatural ideas.

These necessities that I’ve listed for a religiously ideal world are extreme. I acknowledge this. But they shouldn’t be. It’s more than likely that satisfying this list will result in religions that can no longer be called Jainism, or Hinduism, or Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism, or any others. And that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. The fact that certain religions have an irrational belief in lore and a conviction that they are more correct than all other religious perspectives is a testament to the corrupt framework of the modern religion. And self-awareness is the answer.