Controversy Week: Religion

Here's something I find odd: although I have many strong opinions and am not usually shy about sharing them, I tend to stay away from controversial topics. That is, I'm happy to argue for hours on end about the literary merits of mid-1970s-era MAD Magazine movie parodies or why I didn't care for Fight Club but love Kill and Kill Again or what the best way is to get from my work to the freeway or whether the sacrifice bunt is ever a good idea. But for the BIG TOPICS, I try to stay out of the conversation, only sticking my toe in once in a while with a quick comment.

This week, though, I think I'm going to switch it up a bit and talk about controversial topics. And I'm going to do it up right, by actually saying what my opinions are, defending them, and explaining calmly and rationally why everyone else's opinions are hogwash. Well, I might not do that last part, but it'll probably still be implied. Sorry about that. If it makes you feel any better, I know perfectly well you think my opinions are crazy.

So! I'm going to kick things off today with Religion, then move on to Politics and Sex over the next couple of days, after which I will hopefully have thought of more topics that automatically count as "controversial". Maybe Sports? It seems like that would lower the Controversy Level after hitting the big ones. Well, that's for the future. Let's start making enemies!

I have no strong religious beliefs.

Now, that doesn't mean I haven't looked into the topic or don't take it seriously. In fact, I've done a lot of reading on the subject, but in the end, I just . . . don't buy it. I read the bible, so I've been exposed to The Word if you like, but it just didn't ring true. And since pretty much every variety of Christianity considers the bible to be, to one degree or another, the literal infallible word of god, it's not a religion for me.

Now here's the thing. I don't think that should be a controversial statement. Isn't "faith" supposed to be the cornerstone of Christianity? Well, I don't have it. That is, I don't have faith in the particular set of beliefs involved in the creator of the universe and his son who gets reborn and the commandments from the mountain and really all that sort of thing. But a lot of people actually choose Christianity. How does that work, exactly? I hear people say things like "I choose to believe in a chance at eternal happiness because the alternative is too sad," and I guess I'm not wired up that way because I can't choose what I believe. Am I making sense here? Even if I found it soothing, I don't think I'd be up for going to church and listening to sermons I didn't believe.

And, frankly, I don't find it all that soothing. I don't want to get into a big "Unbeliever Tries To Disprove the Bible" thing here, because that never works. But I'll just say that the prospect of eternal damnation for sin that was apparently built in from the initial design sounds like a drastic overreaction. Look, all I'm saying is that I'm not convinced, and when I looked closer, I was even less convinced.

One thing I find interesting is that while I know a few devout Christians, I hardly ever hear them talk about their beliefs. They'll go on all day about church politics (seriously, all day) but not so much about the Jesus angle. Maybe that's because times have changed enough that you never quite know what reaction you're going to get, but when you combine that with the advice you sometimes hear to join a church to get involved in the community, I start getting the impression that churches are primarily social organizations, not places of worship. It's not that I'm interested in worshipping anything, you understand, but it just seems odd.

Okay, so I'm not a Christian. These days, that's not shocking. Heck, in my circle, it's expected. Most of the people I know are Pagans or Wiccans or Satanists of one variety or another. And I've looked into that, too. I've read every book Robert Anton Wilson has ever written and I know how to pronounce "Samhain" and I've attended the odd ceremony in my time. But, again, I'm not sold. Maybe it's just that I'm too cynical to see all the magic in the world, but on the other hand, maybe Wiccans are just a bunch of people standing around on the Solstice doing a poor job of replicating what somebody else thinks people might have been doing a couple thousand years ago.

I've read up on Satanism too, and it's also hard to get into for me. The stuff byAnton LaVey goes on and on about how much he dislikes Christianity and how people should throw off their mental shackles, but I don't seem to be the target audience for that. Because I've read a lot of fantasy novels in my time, I like the idea of being able to perform magic (or possibly "magick"), but I don't think a hooded black robe would make me feel Evil and Empowered. I think I'd feel goofy, so even if the paradigm works for some people, I'm pretty sure that you can't warp reality with your will if you don't take it seriously.

Plus, although it seems like I know a lot of people that have theoretically sold their souls to Satan, very few of them have achieved untold riches and worldwide fame as a result. Maybe I'm just being demanding, but after careful thought, I've decided that if I'm going to sign on to a church that explicitly encourages people to shun them, I'm going to want some guaranteed results. Plus, it turns out that although it's only a few decades old, Satanism might be more splintered than Christianity and they've already reached the point where if you want in, you have to "prove your worth" somehow. Really, I can't write an essay saying "This is why your brand of magicians should tell me your eldritch secrets," because frankly my only reason for applying would have been "I'm highly skeptical but I have enough spare time that I'm willing to give it a try, providing I don't feel like too big a fool."

Having said all that (and let's just assume that I've studied and dismissed everything else I could get my hands on, so there's probably no profit in emailing me and trying to sell me on something I haven't mentioned), I wouldn't really say I'm an atheist, really. I mean, there might be a god. Just because I don't find it likely that the universe started in 4004 BC and that dinosaur fossils were put in the ground as a practical joke doesn't necessarily mean that the world wasn't consciously created by something. I've basically decided that the existence (or non-) of god (or gods) doesn't have much day-to-day impacy on my life, so I'm not going to bother worrying about it. If it turns out that there is a god and that I was required to spend every Sunday (or possibly Saturday or maybe Tuesday) in a church and give 10% of my income to a particular religious institution, well, then I'm screwed. But I think the whole Pascal's Wager thing (scroll down to "The Argument from Superdominance" to see the specific grid I'm talking about) is unbalanced, because if it turns out there isn't a god (or if there is, but all those things weren't required after all), people who devoted their lives to Spreading the Word don't end up with "Status Quo", they'll have bet their entire lives. Plus, like I said earlier, if you decide that believing is a good idea, that still doesn't mean you actually believe, does it?

Whoops. Got off-track there. What I meant to say is that my basic position is "I dunno." I'm not saying anyone's necessarily wrong. Maybe Jesus did die for our sins. Maybe you really are channeling Dionysius. I'm just saying I probably don't agree with you, pretty much whatever you think.

You can see why I don't bring it up very often.