Religion. It looks like a dirty word doesn’t it? To me it
is. It carries with it the combined baggage of our collective human existence, its
origin predating the very foundations of culture. This article does not begin
there. Rather the genesis of this particular rant is found years ago in one
particular song; Imagine by John
Lennon. For so long I had spurned this song as a soulless heathen daydream. How
can one imagine let alone wish for a
world without religion. Friends and family adored this song and I resisted. I
was at the time a self-styled intellectual with deep spiritual roots and happy
in my conservative Catholic tradition. I saw a world so different than what was
ideal, but a world where religion was crucial as a means to bring back that
ideal and create a better world. Imagine
was a childish fantasy I wanted no part of. And then I grew up.
Years of study and living has led me to see the best and
worst that religion has to offer. I could assign the bad to Satan and credit
the good to God. A younger me probably would have. An angry, equally foolish me
would have reversed it ironically. I
choose to do neither, because those two figures have nothing to do with it.
Every action, good or bad, began as a choice. Religion is a mask we use to
protect us from the truths of the world. The best and worst that religion can
offer is also the best and worst that humanity can offer.
It is easy to condemn religion as an opiate or a panacea for
the weak. It would be hard to argue the hate that has originated from all
religions despite the message of love they all seem to convey. However it would
be equally hard to deny the power of love and justice that religions all over
the world throughout time have championed. The cycle of hate must not be
allowed to carry on by condemning believers, nor must the cycle of love be
allowed to end through a difference of belief.
Just imagine it; a world without religion and without
nations. The differences of mankind would no longer divide. These are not the
words of a foolish man. They are the words of a person that understands we are
one. Now I understand that song. I am a dreamer. Are you?
