Faith-Based Emptiness

I must get something off of my chest. It is about religion, but I don’t want you to turn away and ignore my perspective so that you can remain safe and unquestioned in your heart. We all must question religion in order to fully embrace it. If you don’t ask what is in your food or how the car is before you buy it, then you have no one to blame but yourself when things are not the way that you expected them to be.

It is not religion with whom I have a bone to pick, but faith. Notice earlier how I did not say “we must question our faith”, because faith is not an order of beliefs or traditions. Faith is not tangible, printed and bound, hiding in a hotel room nightstand.

Faith is the fuel by which everything runs: your faith in your favorite sports team keeps them playing; your faith in your spouse relieves you of worry; your faith in fellow man keeps the world around you as peaceful as possible.

I recently watched a video on YouTube about a Christian rapper and his song containing provocative lyrics possibly outing himself as a homosexual. As usual, I fired off a muddled stream of anti-religious hatred having never even heard of the artist, let alone hearing the song or caring about the issue. I figured I’d just attack the moral majority for a goof.

The gist of my comment was that the guy should have felt okay to be gay in the first place, not hide behind the facade of a gangster-rapping Christian, and live without the judgements of his holier-than-thou peers. Every comment before mine was either homophobic or some vague offering to “pray for his soul”. I merely suggested that their prayers were worthless and mused about how they don't use religion to share love, they use it to hate people different from them; the ultimate hypocrisy. I also suggested that the rapper, “drop the whole act... (and) not cater to those so blind and afraid they turn to someone who they can't see (that) threatens to hurt them.” Yeah, I’m a dick.

My only intention was to let off some steam, but instead ignited a small debate about another user’s “relationship with Jesus Christ” and “Jesus as Light”, whatever that means. With others involved, this discussion soon extended out to homosexuality. I even had a guy who claimed to be a gay Christian offer to support me through my angry, gay Christian transition. Some people’s kids, I swear...

Religious fanatics love to argue about everything except what is wrong with their beliefs. They could spend hours telling you what some preacher ranted about on Sunday regarding abortion, gays or the GOP and argue those “facts” with conviction, but as soon as they are confronted with the detailed stupidity of what they claim as the “Word of God”, they instantly go deaf, dumb and blind and start spouting brainwashed verse, asking God to forgive the ones who haven’t been had yet.

And this is my point about faith. Where there is science, there is no need for faith. The answers are there in the laboratory. Science tells you what is in your food. Science tells you what is wrong with your car. And science is slowly proving that homosexuality is not a personal decree but of a genetic disorder.

It would be easy to slam religion and God all day, maybe come off like the cool kid in school or a Daily Show correspondent, but that is not my desire. If I had one wish, it would be to turn off all of the Gods and get the people in this world back to believing in each other.

For centuries, man has relied on religious training wheels to hold us upright and unified until we were civilized enough to shed the ”organized” skin and move forward as a human race that loves one another and works toward the greater good, without the assistance of our imaginary friends. But like all good theories, it is prone to human corruption.

Ever notice that the richest, most powerful, most evil people in the world are religious? The senators, clergy and businessmen who vote to help but won’t hesitate to kill, who scorn prostitutes but pay them well, who speak tolerance but slur anyone. They don’t believe in it. But you think they do, and that keeps you in your place. Religion keeps you in your place, not questioning, not looking deep enough, not wanting tangible truth. They play on your faith’s blindness to conceal their evilness and keep you filling up the donation basket.

If I gave you a burger and told you it was chicken, you’d tell me to go fuck myself. If someone hands you a book and says “this is the truth”, will your faith fly blindly or will you keep both feet planted on ground that you can feel, holding hands with the only people you need to be loved by?