Dogma had alot of stuff right.

This was going to be one of my patented rants about so-called “Bible Thumpers.” You know who they are: The Jesus-fish bumper-sticker having, “God Bless You” phone call ending, uber-judgmental types, who “really figured life out” once they started going to church…

But I am not gonna do it.

If someone has found a place in life that they are ok with their relationship with whatever God they believe in, I am not going to knock it. I will just say, “Good for you…but it ain’t for me.”

What I am gonna do is explain why I’ll never be one of them.

For the most part, I am not a fan of organized religion. I love the idea, but I think on the whole it is too easily corrupted by human influence.

Chris Rock, playing the 13th Apostle Rufus, had a line in the movie Dogma that really illustrates my point:

“He (referring to Jesus Christ) still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the shit that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, but especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it…I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.”

I have always thought of religion as a just-in-case scenario. I’d have to classify myself as an Pseudo-Agnostic: One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God…to that end, I also believe it is impossible to know that there isn’t a God.

So, just-in-case God exists, I better get on-board with this religion thing.

My first memories of church where like many others, unquestionably believing whatever was told to me a Sunday School or in the parts of sermons I wasn’t sleeping through. I then attended college where I stopped attending church and came to my Agnostic realization. But since graduating and dealing with the real world, I have moved away from my Agnostic stance and back to Christianity. There is simply too much amazing stuff in this world for everything to be hap-hazard and random. And really, if you live your life by the standards laid-out by Christianity (or any other major religion) you end-up living life as a pretty alright guy.

Really there's nothing to lose. Not a bad situation.

My background explained, I’ll get into my concept of religion and why organized religion is not for me.

I see religion as a very individualistic situation. It’s your mind, your soul, your decisions. So what does meeting with people once a week for an hour really do for you?

I understand the sharing of ideas and attempting to gain a greater understanding of whatever religion/religious text, but when it comes down to it, when you die and face judgment, You are all-by-your-lonesome.

No Pastor to back you up, no Mom to take blame, no church members to share burden.

That being said, I think it’s important to ponder religion. Religion came about as an attempt by man to explain: The “hows” and “whys” of the world.

I am not advocating living willy-nilly and throwing religion and morals to the wind. I am just not sure that paying tithes and being preached-at for an hour a week makes you a better candidate for the afterlife.

It’s what you do that really matters.

For most people church is misunderstood. Going to church regularly doesn’t automatically make you a good person. Being a good person does. And it is possible to be a good person without ever having heard of Jesus, Abraham or Mohammed. Religion is an active, not passive endeavor. It requires research, thought and contemplation...please note that nowhere listed there was the word judgment.

My issue with church comes from those church-goers who think they have accomplished something special by going to church. The air-of-superiority that comes along with being “saved,” is my biggest gripe with organized religion. Being judgmental is so counter to the major tenets of Christianity that is amazes me people don’t see their hypocrisy.

I was raised in the church, and am a better person for it. But when I strayed away from the church, I luckily ended-up surrounded by good people who were educated and religious. We ended-up sharing/debating our ideals, in much the same way a Pastor would sermonize their beliefs.

What I came away with was a better understanding of religion and myself. The overwhelming concept that I garnered from these conversations was that “no one has it figured-out.” That realization really wrecked the house of cards that had been built around religion for me. My Pastor, although very smart and learned in religion, was still just a man, like me, and therefore was fallible. He was the exception to the rule in that he never purported himself to be anything more that a man who was called to God, who was trying to figure the world out just like everyone else.

Which is really what it is all about.

Being religious isn’t about tithing more, or baking the most cookies for the bake sale so that you can note the good deed in the yearly Christmas letter, while noting how good God was to you this year as a(n implied) result.

It’s about living a good, honest, pious life. Religion can offer a roadmap of how to get there, but the onus is on you to make the journey. One great thing is that there is assistance along the way, (churches, books, people) but it’s important to remember these can be distractions as much as aid.

All-in-all the journey is yours alone and no one but God can meet you at the goal.