Don Bowman

In My Opinion…..

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As a friend said to me, “When I hear people go into this insipid pandering , who think they are garnering favor with God, all I can see in my mind is God up in heaven…His fingers plugging His ears and yelling…”will you please shut up!”. I quite agree.

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It is my considered opinion that religion, in all its various forms and practices, has been the greatest detriment to mankind. We hate, murder, target, marginalize, and otherwise destroy anyone who dares to believe anything other that what we profess to believe. Always cloaked in the words of some supposed “messiah”, some ethereal being tied to claimed divine lineage, we have shed rivers of blood and caused untold misery throughout history and the world.

Faith in God has nothing to do with religion. Faith and religion are two diametrically opposed lines of thinking and belief. God exists quite well on his own; constant, loving, forgiving. Religion on the other hand, relies on a false system of man made beliefs, opinions, biases and always contains claims about how God centered the faith of choice is. But religion, just as politics, must always provide you with an adversary who is claimed to want to kill you and harm you, so you must go harm and kill them first. Without this constantly changing enemy, your church would fall apart. That common enemy, (most often the “devil”,) is the reason for all your woes. It couldn’t possibly be that you just made a mistake, or things just didn’t happen the way you intended. No, it must be this evil entity is plotting against you. Or it is some other religious faction that represents some coming threat to you. The same is true in politics. You are being played.

Religion is of men: Faith is of God.

One of the most bizarre claims made by religions is the claim that the Holy Trinity is made up of the Father, the Son, and some ghost?? And if this is true…wouldn’t we all have a penis? This combination, if true, would have heralded the end of humanity. Two male figures and a ghost would not reproduce anything. Personally, I believe the Holy Trinity, should one actually exist, would more likely be comprised of The Father, The Mother and The Child. LIFE!! But that would mean actually acknowledging the female in the creation of humanity! But if we recognized that we would have to elevate women to their proper place in the scheme of things and that by necessity would end their being used as servants and second class beings. Oh! What would we men do?? If we can’t relegate women to a class underneath us, if we can’t bag them, beat them use and abuse them and then force them to wait on us and do our bidding…oh! The horror of that thought!!

While many use the swaddling of women in Mideastern religious orders, covering the head and many times all but the eyes of a woman, they fail to see the comparison until recent years of Catholic nuns who were comparably bound up. They too wore (and many still do) long black robes with their heads wrapped up in something looking like a bed sheet, many times in starched shapes that were almost comical in their appearance. Apparently this was quite acceptable (and still is in some places) but not nearly as reprehensible as say, the Muslim’s religious practices of bagging their women. After all that is what THEY do…not like us who do it our way. And after all, WE are the one true religion and they of course, are not.

And make no mistake about it. If the examples of religious extremism in our own country, such as the Evangelicals could get away with it, they would bag, lock up and treat women miserably. In my humble opinion, they are just a heartbeat away from that now. Personally, I have no desire for a women who is a doormat, especially if she is a willing doormat.

While those engaged in religion love to point to other religions that they have been studiously trained to despise, and claim that the “god” they believe in is a false god, and that their own belief system is the only true form of faith in God, none of it, in my opinion is true. God professed no specific religious system. In fact, God has said not a word to anyone that I know of. Those who claim that He has spoken to them, never seem to realize that this conversation most always reflects what they wanted, how they felt about one thing or another, or in some other way jived with what they wanted or thought about how the world should be ordered. God never appears to reflect His own thoughts or feelings, He just mirrors the thoughts and feelings of those who claims He speaks to them.

And in all of this “religious” fervor, is the constant demand that blood be shed. Someone has to die…all in God’s name of course. See, as I understand it murder is only a sin when you do it for personal reasons. If you are killing in the name of God, claiming you are a Christian nation for instance, or maybe a Muslim nation, and that you must eradicate some other population because after all they believe in the wrong God anyway….well then, murder isn’t actually murder anymore. You are doing God a favor…defending Him so to speak. You can hide behind your blood soaked flag with your hand over your heart, your head bowed ever so slightly, and dismiss all those pesky issues with morality, humanity, and love for one another, because after all the (Bible, Quran, Talmud ..pick your poison)…and GOD wanted you to do it.

My point to all this is this: We do not now, and never did need anyone else to tell us how or what to believe about God, who that being might be or what that being might have wanted. All the religious pandering, the hallelujahs, amens and the simpering words that I have come to loathe especially here in the south, will not bring you closer to God. Interjecting “don’t you love the Lord”, “did you thank the lord for this wonderful day?”, “Our Lord is wonderful”, will not get you one step closer to heaven, or save you from even one of your sins. As a friend said to me, “When I hear people go into this insipid pandering , who think they are garnering favor with God, all I can see in my mind is God up in heaven…His fingers plugging His ears and yelling…”will you please shut up!”. I quite agree.

Bowing, scraping, chanting repetitive prayers nor singing of songs will provide you any favor with God. How you live your life, how you treat others, your compassion, your empathy, your understanding and care of those around you is what matters. Constructing some mortal man’s idea of what God is and wants will get you not one step closer to God. You either have faith in God or you don’t. And if you do have FAITH, you will rely on that and not some charlatans version of it. All the palatial sanctuaries, robes, statues, icons of all kinds, and mythical books written by mortal men who claimed “God told them”, are for nothing. I don’t believe God is the least bit impressed with any of it.

While I have touched upon only a few of the idiotic practices of various religions, there are far too many to list here. I use those as examples of how far out of hand this has gotten. Religion is about controlling you! Faith is about you controlling how you live your life to the fullest the way God would have wanted you to.

In the end, I advocate the end of all religions. Take responsibility…God gave you all the tools. He’s just waiting to see what you do with them.