Clubs and Cults

Some may have wondered why I am posting my thoughts on the existence of God and religion separately. My reasoning behind this is simple, it's because I view personal spirituality and organized religion as two very separate things, and I wanted to make that clear. Plus I got tired of writing.

Let's get some definitions straight here, because it's pointless to discuss something when we don't even know what we are discussing. When I mention personal spirituality, personal beliefs or anything like that, it's basically the collective spiritual ideas that an individual may believe in, their thoughts on God, the afterlife, morality, ect. This, in my opinion is very different from religion, which attempt to define these very subjective concepts and then organize everything into a "club" for like-minded people.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with clubs of course. The Boy Scouts are a club, there's Yacht clubs, ect. But then there is also the club's evil twin brother, the cult. My problem with religious clubs is when they cross over from being clubs, to cults. And if you take a look at history, it's very easy to see that the unfortunate fact is that this happens more then often and as a result has been a driving force behind human suffering, violence, ignorance and bigotry. Of course not all churches are cults, in fact some of them are quite the opposite. But saying that is also not an excuse to ignore the undeniable damage religion has done to humanity, which is really sad because I think religion can and has done good in bringing like-minded people together, giving people another pathway in life that can give them hope, a sense of purpose, morals and a variety of other things. And I believe that this can be achieved without all of the harm that comes with it. Of course, and I can't stress this enough, religion or spirituality is not the ONLY way to achieve those good things. It's just another way. What works for some people doesn't work for others, and if somebody has truly achieved a better life through religion, then good for them. Just don't tell me that I need to do what he did to lead a happy and fulfilling life as well.

This idea, that religion is the only way, is what I think is the root of the evil that it can and has created. It's the dogma, the belief that it's not good enough to be just another church, but that a specific church has to be THE church, THE authority on all things God, like they are the spiritual version of the fashion police, except instead of getting a fashion violation ticket for wearing clashing colors, you are getting your head chopped off because you had the "wrong beliefs," which I find ridiculous, because as I (hopefully) explained in my previous post, there are no wrong beliefs.

Combine this "my religion is the only way" mentality with the interpretation of the holy books, and then things truly start getting fucked up. Allow me to pick on christianity for a bit. The Bible is so vague, contradicting and just plain nonsensical in many aspects that not only do interpretations of it often lead to bigoted and ignorant beliefs if one truly believes that the Bible is the final say on everything (homosexuality is wrong, if you aren't christian you're going to hell, ect.), that it can also be used to suit people's harmful agendas. Please don't tell me that it's not possible for the Bible to not have been changed, either deliberately, or accidently when translating it. Over thousands of years this kind of stuff was bond to happen, and if it look at the history of it all, a pattern begins to emerge that there were a lot of people that saw potential to control people with christianity.

Not only have many of the books had their meanings changed drastically (I will get into a bit more detail on this later), but entire books were excluded from what was deemed to be the "holy" set of books included in the Bible. The Bible isn't the word of God, it's the word of thousands of years of people realizing that religion is an extremely powerful way to control people. Whatever they make the Bible say, either by interpreting it in a way that agrees with them, or by changing it, they know is what countless other people will follow. It's exploiting one of the most widespread things humans naturally believe in: God and the supernatural. And it really shows how powerful religion is, when you have people getting brainwashed into believing in the dogma and fighting against homosexuality, different religions, science that conflicts with their religion, and many other things, all while truly believing they are doing good.

One example of this exploitation is what the Bible apparently says about homosexuality. This video explains it pretty well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_9Oik8QSoc

The guy, in short explains how the commonly cited reason why many "christians" believe that homosexuality is evil or wrong. I put christians in quotes because I honestly think that anybody that goes around condemning people to hell or calling other people "sinners" a very self-righteous and un-christ like, which I'm pretty sure is the entire point of christianity any way, to try to be christ-like.

The version of the Bible in the original Greek language doesn't actually use the word homosexual, it instead used "malakos," which actually means weak, soft or submissive. That passage was used, as he put it "to denote a weakness in character, or a submissiveness to social status quos or temptations." Yet the newer, more simplified versions of the Bible do not carry the original meaning over, and in many cases have been changed to suit people's hateful beliefs.

I think another thing is he said in the comments section is worth posting:

"Jesus gave us two very simple commandments; "Love God with all your heart and mind and spirit, and love your neighbor (everyone) as you love yourself."

He said that if we do these things, we would be his disciples.

Sounds pretty simple to me and I don't hear any other conditions being placed on entering Heaven, other than by some of his disciples. When it comes to my belief, Jesus is the only and final authority. I don't feel the need to read anything else into his words."

Religious or not, I think most people can agree with the basic idea here. The book of Job says that homosexuality is a sin. You know what? Fuck what Job said, Job is a douche bag. Job isn't Jesus. Jesus is Jesus. And the cool part is: Jesus didn't say anything about homosexuality.