Part 4 of 5 Part Series
I was raised Catholic--sort of, attended religious school--for a brief time, and went to church as an adult--for an even briefer time. Those things never satisfied me. Christianity never answered my questions, it just brushed them off as the confusion of a lesser species who could never understand the workings of a greater being. I found it surprising that other humans understood this greater being well enough to tell me that I could never understand. Especially since I considered myself (with some justification) much smarter than those who patronizingly brushed away my concerns. Rand echoed my doubts clearly and without embarrassment. She liberated my inner reason, making me free to question the numerous absurdities of religious belief (If you want me to explain those absurdities, ask and I will gladly oblige), ultimately convincing me that religious belief is practiced with four justifications.
1. Those who use the authority and prestige of expertise in religion for their own self aggrandizement. All preachers and most proselytizers fall into this category on one of two levels. Either they are aware of their deception and thus deeply cynical, or they are true believers who have convinced themselves (with a lot of help from society and other enablers) that they are doing God's work and those who question the foundation of their existence are less fortunate than they. Either way, this leads to a conceited hubris and intellectual complacency that I could never accept.
On second thought, I could accept the hubris ;-)
2. Those who use religion as an excuse to avoid consideration and reconciliation of their passions, contradictions, and questions. This is the weekly church attendee who feels roped in and duty bound, this is the simpleton who accepts that people smarter than him know what is best, and this is the lazy man's route to easy answers and a comforting story about life after their wasted existence on earth. This is far and away the largest category.
3. Some people consciously admit that faith is outside the bounds of reason and cannot be argued with evidence. I count some respected loved ones in this category. There is no arguing with this, because reason is useless against the person who has rejected reason as the path to truth. Of course these people are inherently duplicitous because they use reason to guide nearly all of their daily activities, which makes me wonder, of what use is faith? Is it simply to provide an easy justification to those things which I want to believe but reason cannot explain? It seems so. I consider the resort to faith as a total cop out, a stubborn, though undeniably unassailable excuse for preserving cherished preconceived notions.
4. Finally, there are those who believe that an anecdotal personal experience of either themselves or another person is adequate evidence, given the enormous societal pressure, to accept that God is real based on objective experience. For reasons to be skeptical of anecdotal evidence, I refer you to http://www.skepdic.com/testimon.html . It is my belief that a preconceived, socially suggested concept of God is the primary reason that God is credited with so many paranormal appearances, interventions, and revelations in stricken individuals. I also have a close person who counts amongst these individuals.
Though I have rejected religion, and I think belief in God is a mistake, a flaw if you will, I still love and deeply respect some of those who have followed either the third or fourth option above. They may be imperfect, but they are still genuine people who pursue truth in their own way. I believe people should be judged on the whole package and not a single mistake, even if the mistake is ongoing. Unfortunately the God of most people doesn't feel the same way so I'm relegated to Hell (depending on who you ask). But at least I'll be in good company!
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