I’m a spiritual person, not religious, but I get it. If you are afraid of death, religion is a great option for calming you about the afterlife. Or maybe you have been a terrible person with no moral compass and religion is the only option that sets you on the path of being a good human. Maybe guilt drives you. I have seen countless adult performers over the years turn to religion to heal themselves. I used to scoff at it, but I get it. Extremes beget extremes, and I’m not immune to the pendulum swing. But religion never resonated with me. Maybe I just saw it as a manipulation tool to control minds. I’ve yet to encounter a religion that isn’t deeply racist and misogynistic. I’ve never encountered a religion that doesn’t hate women.
My theory (and I’ll get a lot of flack for this, but at this point, it’s par for the course), is that religions were created by men who were jealous that they can’t birth life. So what do they do? They conjure up a great male being that gave birth to… well, everything. Christianity is the religion I know most because I grew up with it. In their story of creation, Adam was the first human (even though science shows all fetuses begin female and the chromosomes have to “fight” to become male). But poor Adam is lonely, so God makes Eve from his rib… And then she’s the devil who ruins everything. I know, the Devil is the snake, but she is the weak one; the reason they are cast out of “The Garden.” And it’s the kind of boring fantastical story an unintelligent person would drum up, in my opinion. What’s really crazy is that this archaic story is perpetuated. It just doesn’t make any sense. It certainly doesn’t make women look good. In every religion women are the problem. You can’t shake their hands, or hear them sing, or see their face… Controlling women and putting them down seems the only goal, so no, I will never be religious.
Don’t get me wrong, if there is a super human in the sky, it’s not female, either. Native American Indian cultures refer to it as The Great Spirit. That makes more sense.
I prefer the spiritual approach. Being in the moment, appreciating the divine in everyone and everything. Some people, like a relative of mine, enhance the idea of religion because they truly walk the walk and talk the talk. She is proof that religion in the right person is a beautiful thing. If I ever wanted to believe in a religion, she would be my inspiration. But most uber religious people I’ve met have a guilty conscience. And by “uber religious” I mean over-the-top. These people preach and tell you you’re going to Hell. I’ve lived in several cities, traveled the country and met many people in my life. In my experience, those people have a guilty conscience because they’ve done some really questionable things in their lives. Religion balances out something broken in them, but it doesn’t “fix” it. Again, that’s just my experience.
All of this to say that spirituality is important. I’ve started “praying.” I commune with myself and ask the universe for blessing to be bestowed on those I care about. Namely the one’s who haven’t hurt me, but also the one’s who have hurt me. I think we can all heal from past trauma, but we have to come from a place of truth and humility. No one’s perfect.
