My Religious Intolerance

My girlfriend brought up my views on organized religion last night, and she actually used the word 'intolerance' to describe my opinion of most faith systems.  This was both shocking and offensive to me; intolerance, after all, is what I get to sit back and view between religious sects, or branches of christianity/Islam, or sometimes even between rival churches within the same faith.  So the idea of my perceptions being seen as intolerance was, at the very least, scary. 

(However, at the time I had been listening to NPR's Mitt Romney coverage, and I might have mentioned that Mormonism was founded by a guy named Joseph Smith...or that there was rumor of a kind of special underpants that they choose to wear.)

This led to me to really look at my beliefs and feelings towards organized religion.  I've always had a relatively anti-church, anti-religious outlook, but with time and maturity I gradually accepted that these things can provide comfort and actually (sigh) improve someone's life, in one way or another.  I do not think that in any way this counterbalances the crusades, terrorism, genocides, hoarding of wealth and control and other horrible repercussions that religion has had - but it does, at least, give it a silver lining. 

Let's start with my upbringing; I was raised without any specific belief system.  My grandparents were catholic, so my mom was raised catholic; my father's family actually was a Mormon staple in the area, and he had some more militaristic religious types in his lineage (we call them 'crazies').  by the time I came into the equation, my parents had both been browbeaten by relatives and the religious community to the point where they no longer wanted anything to do with any of it.  My grandmother put up a fight when I was not baptised, even going to the point of sneaking me into a church and attempting to have it done without my parents consent, which only furthered tensions in my family.  So in summary, before I was even fully sentient, religious fighting had already had an effect on my life.

I grew up fairly ignorant of religion, in general.  On the way into town every day we would pass several churches - one tiny white one that I barely noticed, but one larger, brown building, about the size of a Boeing airplane hangar.  It caught my attention, because it was big and brown and looked somehow chocolatey - and before I could read large words, the printing on the sign literally looked like 'something something Chocolate Church'.  I asked my parents what it was and why I never got to go, and felt jealous when other kids in class mentioned going to church; I imagined that they were spoiled and given treats and eating gobs of chocolate from the moment they walked inside those doors, and my stupid parents were excluding me for some stupid reason.  It was a while before I could read fully, and see that what I read as 'Chocolate' was actually 'Catholic'. 

I grew up celebrating Christmas, and marginally celebrating the other holidays - getting a bunny on Easter, etc.  There were no religious overtones to our holidays - it was really somewhat pure: we were supposed to cherish each other's presents, give gifts, eat, and have a good time.  As I got a bit older - maybe 5th-6th grade - several of my friends in school complained of being stuck at CCD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confraternity_of_Christian_Doctrine), about the boredom of sitting through another class after the school day was done, and wasting the rest of the fading daylight.  I listened intently; thought I was at first happy to not have to endure this torture, I soon was wishing that I was involved in what everyone else was involved in - wishing I could be part of the bunch, and we could experience it together.  But I had no faith to speak of; the only thing I did to represent this, however, was to purposefully omit 'God' from the pledge of allegiance when I recited it every day in class.  I did this originally simply because my family was not religious; but over time I did it because I wasn't sure how I felt about God, or if he existed or didn't, and I really didn't want to pledge something every morning of my life that I wasn't sure I wanted to believe.  As the teachers patrolled the classroom, I hoped none of them would call me out or make a scene over my skipping two syllables.  It was the first social anxiety I exer experienced. 

I began having a faint understanding of religion; there were two Seths in my class, both Jewish, although I was never sure if being Jewish was a religion or simply an ethnicity.  My sister talked about Jewish people a lot - she was reading Elie Weisel and lots of books about the Holocaust, and I learned about it soon in 7th grade.  My sister would always take my understanding a bit further - explaining that Jews throughout history had always held personal hygiene and education in very high importance, which usually led to them making good money and surviving plagues and epidemics - which, of course, resulted in a sort of unified dislike among the poorer folk that suffered casualties.  Since we both grew up without religion, my sister occassionally looked for something to fill that void, and Judaism really captured her interest for a time.  I was beginning to develop a very scientific mind, and so I wanted to know why these flavors all existed, and why people chose to devote so much time and energy to something, when they could be with friends, or learning, or dating, or any of the thousands of other things I would rather spend my time doing. 

My uncle was in his late thirties at the time, and after a very rambunctious, somewhat irresponsible youth, he went blind due to diabetes around age 30.  Shortly thereafter he became a bornagain christian (which was another concept very alien to me; did that involve past lives?).  His relations with my sister became somewhat strained, as he tried to force aspects of his faith onto her.  Other times, he would laugh, joke around, openly mock or harass people, and discuss his past deeds with great passion (or, in some cases, take them up again at the drop of a hat).  He could go from comedian to preacher in very short order; my parents said that he wore his religion "like a jacket," taking it off when it was at all inconvenient.  This was quite apt; he seemed to take the moral high ground when it was useful, but did not espouse those causes in most of his individual needs and actions.  Quite the opposite, he was quick to anger, demanding of others' time, and often people in his life switched from friend to enemy seemingly at a whim.  Overall he was a good person, but for me, it was my first experience in life of someone anxious to convert others to his way of thinking, without regard to that person as an individual. 

Christianity was clearly the country's majority leader, in terms of religous pull; and despite my lack of knowledge or adherence to it, it was everywhere, shaping our laws, our national holidays, our 'family values'...erecting churches on every street, programming on every TV station, represented all over sitcoms, movies, all tax-exempt from the government while collecting money from everyone - money which, upon inspection, already had GOD written on it (bills AND coinage!  holy crap!). 

However, Christianity does not fully embrace the sect I was about to experience head-on.  In my junior year of high school I started dating a relatively nice, nerdy girl that was at the top of all my classes with me.  However, she couldn't go to the prom with me, or go out on dates, or really do anything besides see me at school, or maaaaybe a harmless class event. She had never gone on any field trips, no one in school had ever seen her outside of school, and occassionally she would be excused from some English assignments due to some sort of internal conflict.  I was really interested in what caused all this - health problems?  Was her family a mafia informant, and she was required to keep a low profile?  Perhaps they were immigrants with some old-world religion that I had never heard of - Zoroastrians, perhaps, or even better, Scientologists. 

No such luck - they were Jehovah's Witnesses. 

Now we had another kid in our class when I was younger - Ethan - whose family was JW's, but he never really got excluded from as much.  But sometime before junior year, he had rebelled against his adopted family's strict JW beliefs and fled out west to California, to find his biological father and start a new life.  Sometime after that, I had heard reports that his little sister had become disenchanted with the lifestyle as well; in a snowman made in the family's front yard, she had carved the word DENIAL in big, capital letters for all to see.  So that, in addition to all the popular culture references to JW's knocking at your door, was all I knew about Jehovah's Witnesses.

On top of that, when my girlfriend discussed her religion as a subset of Christianity, her best friend, who was a snotty Catholic, hissed that Jehovah's Witnesses belonged to a cult, not a religion.  After just learning a few thousand years of world history, this was hilarious to me; todays cult is tomorrow's religion, and today's religion is tomorrow's mythology.  Catholicism was widely considered a cult by many - even during JFK's run for presidency, after which that popular belief finally subsided somewhat.  So I was originally on the JW's side there - over time, even the most far-out religions eventually gain mainstream acceptance (hello, Scientology). 

As time went on, I learned more and more of my girlfriend's limitations.  She was not allowed to play any sports in school, or join any groups that would affiliate with non-JW kids.  She was not allowed to see any friends from school; she had a set of friends from church (Kingdom Hall, they called it; my friend Chris mentioned how much more powerful that sounds than 'church') that she could see, go places with, and associate with, but other than that she was kept at home.  She told her parents of her feelings for me, and she told me of the verbal assault they launched at her for the next week or so.  They knew nothing about me, except that I was not a member of their church; that was enough. 

One night, while on the phone with her while she wept, I came up with a brilliant idea; I had no religion, so I would become a Jehovah's Witness.  I could join that faith, and then we could be together, and her parents could stop berating her and keeping her captive.  Maybe I had some romantic notion of self-sacrifice for love; whatever it was, it seemed like a great idea - so I told her I would get whatever books they have - the Bible, right? - and read it and get familiar with the whole thing.  Then I could pass a test or become confirmed or whatever was the next step.

"No, no no," she explained slowly.  "You can't just learn it; you have to be taught.  You have to be in study groups three times a week and learn from an Elder." 

I didn't like that; I learned faster on my own, and wanted to learn it all soon, not three times a week for a year (or years) before I could finally be with my girl.  But she said there was no other way - this was not something I could "pick up" like I did with most of my knowledge thus far.  I had to sit and be instructed; so I said okay, fine, I think there was a Kingdom Hall in Haverhill near my house that I could -

"Not that one!" she said.  Puzzled, I asked her for an explanation; it was a Kingdom Hall, and unless another faith had started taking that name for their churches...what could be the problem?  "They don't do it right," she explained.  "The people at that one...well, they're just not normal.  You have to go to mine...or maybe the one my sister goes to, in downtown Boston...that one is okay."

My head was swirling at this point.  JWs were a tiny minority - she was the only one in my whole school, and two families in my entire town - yet the tiny group that they are had managed to split into warring factions that distrust each others views?  Normally it took centuries for that sort of schizm to develop.  Nonetheless, I committed to accepting whatever guidelines she asked of me, and I went ahead with the process of becoming a full fledged Jehovah's Witness - which for me, first included studying the sect in its entirety, from its starting point until today.  I learned a lot of scary historical facts - things that my girlfriend (and even her family) didn't know, and what's even funnier, didn't want to know when I mentioned it years later.  I read about their formation in the late 19th century by a bible scholar who was obsessed with the thought of hell, and was later diagnosed as a schizophrenic; I read about their predictions of the world ending in 1900...then 1912...then 1927...and roughly every 10-15 years, right up until 1975, when due to huge membership losses, they decided to stop predicting the end of the world - and instead started giving out pamphlets depicting minority JWs for the first time, to appeal to a new sector of Americans and increase their numbers.  A small firm in New York controlled by 12 individuals disseminated a publication called The WatchTower, which regularly advised JWs of what is okay, what should be avoided, and since 1975, had contained more and more vague references to when the world would end and what believers should do in the meantime.

I was scared shitless; this really was a cult, and despite sort of calming down over the last 25 years, it was still pretty damn scary.  But before I could tell my girlfriend any of this, she called me up one day and said that I shouldn't join up after all. "Please: I love you as you are.  I don't want you to change, and I don't want you to join this mess; that would ruin what and who you are." 

It was one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me, and was one of the last moments of selfless, loving clarity she ever expressed.  Over the years she struggled with a great many personal issues, both emotional and psychological, making our 5+ year relationship rocky; eventually she began seeing other people, several at the same time according to what she told me, and basically tried everything she could to put me through hell during a prolonged breakup.  I was in love with her and had hoped to propose soon; I had the ring for some time, but never found a period of relative psychological stability in which to propose.  I was going to do it anyway one night, after she had proclaimed her desire to start sleeping around, but something stopped me.  That love was the best - the only - love I had ever known, but...somehow I thought there must be something better.  Perhaps someone not so scarred by their past, and someone that living with would be more of a joy, and less of a constant struggle.  I convinced myself not to go through with it, and instead began the long lonely road to getting over her.

For the years we were together I fought for acceptance from her parents and faith, and earned very little, being able to take her out occassionally, although she was often treated harshly or even subjected to searches of her car mileage to verify that we went where she said we went.  She also regularly studied movie reviews to have ammunition for movies she could lie about seeing.  Altogether, the amount of lies and distrust between ones own family members that the faith caused, combined with the complete segregation and cutoff from most of society, really had a cultish feel.  Even after starting with an open mind, and disregarding all the history I had learned - I was pretty thoroughly convinced.  Since making some of this known, through various writings, songs, poetry, and other public forums, representatives of Jehovahs Witness organization have approached me and said that the family did not represent the true Jehovah's Witness way, and were part of a sect that is not really Jehovahs Witnesses.  But who knows - their church didn't agree with the one down the street, which didn't agree with the one in downtown Boston, etc etc.  All this took place within one tiny, minority sect of Christianity (although it is not even officially recognized as such by most Christians). 

While in college I became aware of Free Thought Organizations; UMass had a few, dedicated to helping some young people to see more than the religion they grew up in, or what was forced on them by parents or relatives.  I was really impressed; I had seen the damage that can be caused when someone is kept ignorant of the world outside their particular faith, and I truly believed that people should have the right to choose their own faith when they were old enough.  Most religious people fall into one of two categories; they either stay faithful to the religion that they were brought up in, or they initially rebel against it, but come back later in life (my uncle as a Born-Again, for instance).  Exceptions - people that find some new faith that neither of their parents espoused - are tremendously rare, comparitively.  For these people, who make the free-standing choice to find something, learn about it, and bring it into their lives - I completely support them.  As long as they do all the factual research and know what they are heading into, I cannot give a bigger high-five than to these folks.  Perhaps they grew up in one flavor of christianity, but it didn't mesh with their personality; or maybe, later on in life, they found Buddhism or Islam and decided to become part of it.  That is phenominal - it shows dedication, the courage to learn something new, and a free and open mind to embrace it.

People that sort of grow up in one and never leave, or come back to it in their 30's or 40's - they are free to do however they wish.  I honestly believe that a great many of them could benefit from experiencing other religions, and being freed entirely from the ties that bind them to one particular faith.  But that sort of thing is hard - heck, it's hard for college graduates, otherwise stable and successful people.  Now I can imagine how hard it is for a suicide bomber who has never known anything different than his one faith, forced onto him by country, family, tribe, etc.

I think that is where my main fear is; if we all just accepted the faith we were handed, never moving on or experiencing something more, then eventually that faith could count on us to do whatever it wanted - because we wouldn't leave it, no matter how stupid, archaic, or dangerous is precepts became.  This is precisely why Christianity and Catholicism have had to change, to adjust to the times, however grudgingly - because if they don't they will lose their flock, and not have the massive financial and political power that they do now. 

So anyway - college opened me up to many more kinds of faith, and indeed the fact that there is an anti-religious movement, whatever you want to call them - progressives, atheists, agnostics, free thinkers, etc.  It's not organized, or a big and powerful beast manipulating the airwaves or our politicians - but it is coming out with books and slowly making people feel okay with their choice of not adhering to a particular faith.  This is phenominal; I can finally feel like an outcast, with other outcasts, at least. 

I still wanted to learn about faiths though - where they all came from, and where they are all going.  I learn about a new one whenever the opportunity presents itself - maybe I'm browsing Wikipedia, and then go onto the church website (LDS for Mormonism, etc), and then read some historical information, and some perspectives of both current and former members.  You really get a big, broad sweep of information that way - and in addition to Mormonism and Jehovahs Witnesses, I now know a great deal about Scientology, christianity and its flavors, Judaism, and a bunch of others.  As some friends have observed, I can actually discuss the Bible and debate meaning or interpretation. 

One downside to all this study is that it is academic only.  My mind really doesn't mesh well with any of these God-concepts, and I find myself constantly wondering about the universe, and its expanding galaxies and the collisions between them.  Nothing out there answers that, because those questions really haven't been asked by millions of people for years and years (yet).  And a great deal of what religion is (and mythologies were), is to answer questions that many people had, that did not have scientific answers at the time. 

This is extremely sad, both because it points further and further to me never finding religion that makes sens to my mind, and also because if sort of demeans all religion out there to me.  They all take on the same backdrop - when you think of Zues and Hephestaus on top of Olympus, that is how I view just about every major religion's precepts currently.  I know that people fiercely believe in afterlife and Jesus saving people and baptism and saints and all that - but a few thousand years ago, people believed just as fervently in Zeus.  Just because you happen to exist today, doesn't make your mythology somehow more valid. 

I think as time goes on, and science answers more and more questions about life and the universe, the role of religion will decline.  Also, as written and recorded records exist much more now, the chance of new religions sprouting up out of nothing is slim.  For instance, if Elvis had been alive 2000 years ago, we might well have told stories about him to our children, and then a few generations down the chain those would be inflated legends, and then it might turn into a sort of mythical worship - and then today, there would be Elvistianity as one of the world's biggest religions.  Luckily, today we all know that Elvis was just a guy who choked on his own vomit.  A great entertainer, a powerful presence in our culture, but just a guy choking on a peanut-butter and plantain sandwich. 

So some of my opinions on religion are tainted by this storybook view of it all, whether I am talking about the JW's magical number of 144,000 people admitted to heaven, or the Mormon's magical underpants, or Scientology's mystical flight of DC-18s that carried humanity to this planet, and out of the grips of psychoanalysis.  When you examine any one of these faiths from an objective, scientific viewpoint, it can be downright silly.  Sometimes beautiful, sometimes inspiring and encouraging, but more often completely unfathomable to any rational being.  And as someone who is on a search for a greater truth in this life, that is fucking annoying. 

So am I intolerant, because of this outlook?  That is up to you.  I certainly am never openly upset at someone or dismissive of them because of their religion, the same way I don't really discount people because of their race, gender, ethnicity, or whatever else.  Religion is a very personal choice, that some self-righteous asshole like me has no right to dictate to anyone else. 

Personally, however, I do feel that religion is a weight on humanity; it has done more harm then good when looked at over time, it causes division, strife and murder every day, and I feel that people can ascend farther when they divorce themselves from it, freeing their time to learn new things, gain new hobbies, and just be a more well-rounded person.  I will be happy when the religious hold on our country is lifted - when I won't see preachers on TV asking for money, preachers on the national best-sellers list, and a cross around every neck or hanging from every rearview mirror.  I have to toe the line here - I don't want everyone to be or think like me, and I don't want to eradicate any particular religious faith; I just want it to be something that we choose to do, at no personal or societal cost, rather than something that is thrust upon our backs simply because of upbringing or some loyalty to a particular sect.

I think (or hope) that is all I can say.  Now everyone go be nice to each other. 

-EO