Religion Part2

So having further discussed some things with my friend Alex, I decided it was good to mention some things I forgot in the last blog. First off Flow and Flower are amazingly awesome games and I now want a PS3. Sold! Secondly, the primary foundations of my belief system are Buddhism and Christianity, or "Buddianity" as I like to call it.

Alex argued that there is always a best in everything -The top athlete, the top brand, the top sales company, the carrot top... And he argues religion is the same. Yes there are multiple truths and valid philosophies to be found in other religions, but Christianity is the one that has the longest run in terms of time spent on this earth and relevance to our own time, the widest views that are most inclusive, and is the best way for someone to find faith in themselves, life, and God. 

My view: There is no one path to God. Even though I would argue Christianity is one of the greatest religions to follow to find Him, I feel compelled to take the stance that Buddhism is too greatly equal in this matter to not be taken into consideration.

I guess this is mostly founded in my own personal experience. I was raised "Christian". My dad's side of the family was Presbyterian mostly (I actually had a project in college to create a religious family tree around my family). This was due in part from my Grandma Jean. Her family had a different denomination in New York, but when they moved to California my Grandma's mom chose to be Presbyterian because that was the closest church to where they lived. All this to say that once a year we would go to Easter Sunday service for Grandma Jean and then have brunch afterowords. It was nice. My dad...? I know he owns a Bible. I actually took it from him a long time ago without asking. I didn't have one with me at my mom's house a since I was having ghost issues I felt safer with the Bible in my room. But my dad doesn't go to church. I think he's what my sister and I would call a "floater". He's hovering over the concept of Christianity but doesn't really feel compelled to take a stance or make a commitment to it. It's not like he's going to randomly decided to be Jewish, but he doesn't talk much about the spiritual side of life.

Then there's my mom. She doesn't own a Bible or go to church, but she is a firm believer in God, Angels, Miracles, and spirituality in gerneral. She talks about it every once in a great while- certainly not all the time. But she firmly believes evil people go to Hell, good people go to Heaven, and sometimes people get stuck in between (She watches Ghost Hunters and paranormal shows a lot. I do to, but not as often now. My step-dad doesn't believe in ghosts. It's annoying).  So I was rasied with a wide-eyed belief that God existed, plain and simple. I never questioned it.

Then things got crappy. Teenage years suck. For everyone. That's why no adult ever talks about it. They'll say, "When I was a kid...", but never, When I was in high school..." High School was like prison- what happens in high school, stays in high school. For me those were dark days, especially freshman year. I was actually reading a lot of the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. No, it's nowhere near the same as Twilight. Twilight is cute and cuddly compared to those books. The chronicles opened my eyes to the concept that time is vast and long. Life is full of suffering and hardship. Those vamps went through a lot of crap. The way Lestat always questioned his place in things, made me question my place as well. Where do I fit in to life? Where do I stand with God? I don't seem worthy. It's hard to imagine myself in a place of peace and light surounded by this darkness I'm stuck in. Where will I go if I die?... Shrouded thoughts loomned for a while. I feared death. It wasn't the concept of Hell and eternal damnation that frightened me. I as afraid, that worse, there would be nothing. I would cease to exist. I didn't doubt God, I acknowledged His existance, but I doubted that I would exist once I passed away. I felt detached from my spirituality. I had a lot of Christian friends in high school, but I was afraid of becoming Christian because I thought it would mean letting go of things I liked and related to like my music, movies, books. I actually was told to hide the vamp chronicles and some movies when certain relatives were over at my dad's house because they "wouldn't approve". It felt like I was "wrong". Like I was disjointed and screwed up.

Then I went to college. At the end of high school my curiousity for religion had grown and I pruposely wanted to go to  Jesuit college to see what Christinity and other religions were all about. I'm glad I waited to learn about religions this way. Having wiser, educated people explain the complexities of a religion to you is better than hearing it from a friend or someone advocating for a specific religion.

The college I went to argues for you to take 3 religious classes during your 4 years of college. The first is a "Religions of the Book" class. We studied Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I was dismayed to be honest. That was not the right way to go about things. Having, like an idiot, never read the Bible I was a little behind on what was going on. The teacher assumed we had all read it and he sort of did a blow by blow on it. I kept putting hundreds of tiny post it notes in my Bible to summarize the paragraphs so I could keep up with everything that was going on. It was a blur of decendants from decendants traveling through the desert writing down laws passed down to them from on above. It was confusing.

I actually felt more of a connection with Islam. Because the Koran was new to everyone, he teacher took his time explaining it and really stressed us to have an open mind about it. That's what was needed with the Bible. It is good to explain the Bible's history, its contexts, its authors, it passages... But you also need to show its spirituality. That's the whole point of it. You can't analyze spirituality, you have to discuss it and nuture it. So after all of that, I once again acknowledged God's existance, but this time felt like I could never live up to the rules and regulations I was taught. It felt more like a code to adhere to than a philosphy or belief.

The second class was "The Religious History of America". I'd say that paired with the Art History classes I took covering things like the Renaissance covered the major points of all the messed up things that have been done under the guise of "religious duty". The inquisitions, slavery, the Holocaust... just to name a few. At the end of these classes I hadn't lost any faith in God, but I had in Man himslef. It was sad. Not just to see the cruelties people had inflicted on others that they claimed was justified, but also those who remained silent during it all -those who Knew better but didn't Do better. 

The last religious class I took I was sort of apprehensive about. It was on Eastern Philosophy. I don't know why, but I was instinctually resistant to it. But this class was based on Hinduism, Jainsim, and Buddhism with regard to the way they related to nature. I like nature :) That's how they got me.

Hinduism had issues with their "cast system". I don't know how people can really be Hindu today considering it was a primary belief of theirs. According to their beliefs at the time: People get reincarnated. Bad people get reincarnated into bad circumstances -such as poverty or disease. It then became a custom for people to hate the poor and praise the wealthy. Why pity the poor, they're just being punished by the universe for wrongs done in their past life. It was bullsh*t. People who were starving and walking around in wrags "deserved it". It was bull.

Then came Buddhsim! They said, alright most of your beliefs are right and in order, but this "cast system" crap has to go. It's Compassionate Detachment. Be nice to everyone- especially those who are suffering.

This is how I found God. One of the religious offshoots of Buddhism we learned about (not Jainism) talked about the "Green God of the Earth" -which sounded pretty out there until I read the article explaining it. The article focused on the Holocaust and Elie Weisel's book Night. During and after the Holocaust many people lossed faith in God. They asked, How could he let this happen to us? But like Weisel said in the book as a Jewish by was being hung by the Nazis when someone next to him asked, "Where is God?" Weisel wrote, "He's there hanging from the noose." God is within us. God is the concentrated Life Force we all have animating our existance. We are all apart of the same whole. That is how we are One Nation under God, Within God's Light, Within Ourselves, As Each Other. It was like a light bulb went off. I had a mini epiphany followed by a life change. Seeds of thought were planted in my mind that grew and took away the shadows of doubt and darkness. Suddenly I Knew God loved me. I Knew how life worked. I Knew what it meant to carry around "the light within". I found God through Buddhism. Where Christianity listed all the rules and guidlines to find God, Buddhism explained them. The 2 religions were a perfect compliment. 2 Halves completeing a whole. The Bible says "Don't sin because you will go to Hell". Buddhism explains, "When you engage in wrongful acts repeatedly they distract you from reaching Enlightenment (being uplifted) and they change who you are as a person and drag you down as a soul. You then suffer in this life and it is carried into the afterlife."

Anyway, Christianity is good and valid, but Buddhism is equally good and valid. Where people lose themselves and can't find their way through Christianity, I recommend they try the path through Buddhism. All paths lead somewhere.