Losing My Religion

       So in our quest for Truth we have come to Crossroad: Knowledge and Wisdom from Science and Philosophy do no permit us to fully grab hold of any kind of ‘Truth’, therefore I have a serious decision to make. Do I dare look to faith? Do I dare stop, and ask for directions? Let’s see what happens!

       Lately I have been seeking wisdom and knowledge in various places including the Tao Te Ching, which was recommended to me by a friend. Indeed it does contain much wisdom with regards as to how to live your life. The three key concepts to this wisdom are; moderation, compassion and humility. Awesome! If I can keep these concepts in line, then I will not only be wise, but I will be able to live out this wisdom.  It got me to thinking though: what is the point of achieving such wisdom apart from finding God. If this wisdom shows me how to lead and exemplary life and how to become a great moral citizen then that is good, however I know my own weaknesses and at the end of the day I still have 100% chance of mortality. At the end of the day, wisdom does not offer me purpose. Wisdom is becoming more of a concept than a reality. Wisdom is not the be all and the end all of truth, Wisdom should however, be an aftereffect.

       The Tao is not the only place that offers such wisdom or ‘Truth’. In fact, many world religions would offer you a similar moral code of conduct. From what I have learned over the last few years, religion is man’s approach at ‘righteousness’ in order to find acceptance with God. Religions, offer you a path way to God through morality and rules. However, many would agree that religion is not really a good thing. I would have to agree with them. Religion, legalism, dogma: call it what you will, does not bring you closer to God. We know this through our own observation of religious people in our lives that are a far cry from perfection. “Go easy on them Rachel” you might say, “For we all make mistakes”. Yes, you are right. Indeed we have all fallen short of even our own personal standards. Also, I want to add to some of your surprise, that I have been reading Christopher Hitchen’s  work, “God is not Great: How Religion Poisons everything”, and I have to admit, his critique of religion has a lot of valid points to consider.

       Ironically, the protestant minister, Timothy Keller also agrees with this argument somewhat, stating that religion is and has been a very bad thing in the world: “religion, generally speaking has a really strong tendency to divide people. It has a very strong tendency to create strife amongst human beings, in fact I would go so far as to say that religion tends to create a slippery slope in the heart that tends to move all the way down to even oppression and violence. You see, if you tell a group of people, ‘You have the ‘Truth’ and you are saved by preforming that ‘Truth’, that has to lead to a feeling of superiority to the people who are not preforming that ‘truth’. In turn, that leads to a separation, you tend to pull away from those impure people, and then you become unfamiliar with them. Then you are able to believe the worst of them. You begin to have stereotypes and caricatures in your mind about them. This finally creates a condition for you to passively or actively participate in the marginalization or oppression of other groups of people with different beliefs. You can dehumanize them in your mind…”  Unfortunately this is very true of ‘Religion’. I only have another problem now: Although I believe that legalism, religion, and dogma have brought much strife into the world, I cannot get over the sense that I have a creator, and that we are not here by accident. I am still waiting for Truth "to set [me] free"

       Growing up in a Christian home, I did not think that it would be okay to come to any of these conclusions. I thought that I should just accept religion and keep on ‘fighting the good fight’. This became a big problem for me though, and I began to ask, “what if I am fighting for the wrong side? Is what I believe in even Truth or is it just another religious institution? What if I, as a religious person, am really the bad guy?” A few years ago I proposed this to my father, even though I was very nervous to do so. I was astonished by what he had to say. He told me that he agreed with me 100% (and this is coming from yet another minister). Both my father and Timothy Keller agree that ‘religion’ is and has been a bad thing in the world. I then asked him how it was that he was able to maintain his faith and his beliefs. My father explained to me that Jesus Christ is the difference: Jesus Christ came to the earth to announce that no one can ever be saved through their own morality. He came to crush all the preconceived notions we had about God: instead of giving us more rules to follow in order to reach him and gain acceptance, Jesus (God in the flesh) came from Heaven to earth to reach us and offer acceptance freely. This doesn't sound like the religion to me. If Jesus did indeed walk this earth as God in the flesh, in order to restore our acceptance before God, then it is truly revolutionary and not religion at all.

       After this little chit chat with my Dad I realized that although I have more direction, I only have more questions. I am not going to just believe what he has to say about Jesus on blind faith. First of all I want to figure out who this Jesus was: Was he even real? What exactly did he say about himself? How can we trust what the Bible says? This must be worked out!


Ultimately, if Jesus really is Truth personified, then IT CHANGES EVERYTHING.

-Rachel S.