Tuesday, April 11, 2006

So much church

I know its been a while since my last update, but I've been busy.

I was thinking the other day that this year will more than double my total visits to churches. I've already been to two in the same day and I've got two weddings to go to this summer. I was actually amazed that I survived. I attended the service at Meewasin Valley United Church a couple of weekends ago in order to get some pancakes. I was a little concerned that I had just joined a cult. It was Jesus this and jesus that, it all felt a little too preachy for my tastes. The pancakes weren't that great either but they went to a good cause. Melissa was in Costa Rica some time ago and this breakfast was to raise money for an organization that builds schools and houses. I felt good knowing that I didn't suffer in vain.

You may notice that my writing has a bit of a negative bias towards organized religion and that's because I just can't understand it. I don't get how people can put their blind faith in a book. A book that some person or people wrote hundreds of years ago and for all we know could have been just another story. Its been passed down through many people and re-written who knows how many times. How close could it even be to the original? What would have happened if someone decided to call a different book the bible, would we all be worshiping Santa Claus?

Now I do see a good purpose for the church, but it is not religion. Just look at how many people it brings together and money they raise for good causes. It is just too bad that religion causes so many people to do so many horrible things across the world.

I have long considered myself an athiest or atleast an agnostic but one day I tried to actually classify my beliefs and I almost got lost. There are so many options.


  • Agnosticism - belief that the existence of god is unknown (weak agnosticism) or unknowable (strong agnosticism)
  • Ignosticism - the view that the concept of God as a being is meaningless because it has no verifiable consequences, therefore it cannot be usefully discussed as having existence or nonexistence
  • Atheism - a lack of belief in god
  • Nontheism - is the absence of belief in both the existence and non-existence of a deity
  • Antitheism - a direct opposition to belief in any deity


These seem to be the major ones plus each has a few dozen sub catagories and it all gets quite confusing. Not nearly as confusing as religion itself but close.

After all this am I any closer to figuring out where I fall? Not really, but I would still call myself an atheist because I don't believe that any got exists. I have never seen any reason to belive that a higher power has played any part in my life. I have never seen any proof of existence of a god and I don't think I will ever see any.

This is a dangerous subject though, most people have a problem if you tell them you are an athiest. I could jump out and tell everyone that I'm gay (I'm not) or just about any other crazy news and people would say "Well aslong as you are happy" but tell them you don't think there is a god and there reaction will range from "Really? You don't think there is a god" to weird chanting with a cross and splashing holy water on me.

The worst thing about all of this is people trying to push their beliefs on you. I don't go around telling people that they shouldn't believe in god but for some reason religion gets pushed on me. If its not the JW's at the door its someone telling me that I'm doing something wrong in the eye's of god. Why would I care if god thinks I'm doing something wrong? I really don't but for some reason you think that I should. You have your beliefs and I have my lack of beliefs and thats that. Well I shouldn't say that I lack beliefs, I believe that we evolved from single celled life on earth and that when you die you become worm food. I think that some people need an easy answer for the hard questions so they fall back on religion.

Now before the hate mail starts flowing in remember that I'm not telling you not to be religious. I can respect the fact that people can believe whatever they want to, just respect my right to not believe in the same things you do.

Well that's my rant for today. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned something by following the links. Just remember that science and religion can live together.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

haha I'm half suprised you didn't burst into flames walking through the doors.. lol.. oh and I checked there is no holy water in MY church so yeah pretending to melt is totally off the books there :P..
-Kerri

Zack said...

BAH! Now we can't do it at all. Jim is against us doing it at James' rehersal. Its not even the real wedding just the rehersal and we can't. Its a bunch of BS I tell you.

Anonymous said...

Zack,
Curious. Did you ever do any reasearch on Scientology?

YOur Unclle Robert probably knows a ton about it.

Take care,
Dad

Zack said...

The idea of Scientology seemed interesting at first because it seemed to have something to do with science. Now it looks like it has more to do with science fiction and Tom Cruise yelling at people about psychiatry and anti-depressants. I'm not convinced that a "relgion" invented by L. Ron Hubbard would be a good direction to go in. On the other hand I guess everything has to start somewhere