Trey's Religious Philosophies

On the subject of Religion...

Basically, in a nutshell, I think religion sucks.

People created religions so they could control other people, pure and simple. Almost everybody yearns to understand the larger perspective of what's going on in the universe. We mostly want to grow beyond ourselves. It's part of how our psyche works.

If you examine how most of these religions work, they allow a particular person to have command of a group of people. This particular person can whip folks into a religious fervor over issues as stupid as whether someone should break the little or the big end of an egg (note: obvious Gulliver Travels reference.. if you don't get it, read into the history of transubstantiation.. how England and Ireland have reacted to this issue, and you'll start to see where I'm coming from).

So what do you get from these guys? You get his/her opinions of what some deity thinks, or how s/he thinks the universe works. Or you get someone else's opinions of the same, as translated by works handed down ages ago and written by people who themselves were working out opinions on the nature of the universe. Considering the payoff, it sounds like a very lucrative job to get into.

I think we should be responsible for our own spiritual upbringing. I don't really think Jerry Falwell has any better idea of how the universe works than either myself or you. I don't feel the Christian Bible is any better or worse an authority on the subject than the Bhagavad Gita or the Amiga's ROM Kernel Reference Manual.

I do think we should listen to each other's ideas, because we may learn something from someone that we hadn't figured out ourself. I just think it's incredibly arrogant for anyone to claim to be an authority on the subject. It's simply unreasonable... we're all on this earth together, and we're all trying figuring it out (at least those of us who care). Yes, perhaps some people have figured out more than others, but considering the con games that go on with this issue, you'd be well advised to take responsibility for your own spiritual upbringing, and avoid worshipping other people or their books.

Taking responsibility for one's own spiritual upbringing would also solve a lot of problems associated with narrow-minded practices that cause misery and despair to other people. Most notably, the Christian Right, with their perverted agenda to bring the United States back to Medieval Times, so we can claim the sun goes around the earth, and that planets move according to epicycles (which, in a sense, is already happening, although instead of epicycles, we have black holes).

The Christian Reicht

I used to be a practicing Christian. I didn't go to church that often, but I read the Bible very often, and I prayed every day. I attended church often enough to make my presence known (without being obnoxious), but not often enough to be called a regular at any particular church. I preferred to roam from one church to another, so I could get different perspectives.

I prayed every single day for at least three years for God to make me a straight man, that I might no longer be attracted to other men, that I might be capable of the kind of emotional and physical stuff that could help bind myself to a woman. These prayers were never fulfilled.

In time, I began to figure out that, perhaps, something else was in God's mind. I didn't really know what this could be (after all, I'm not arrogant.. I do not claim to know God's mind in all matters), so I modified my prayer, requesting that God show me what His intentions were.

I fell head-over-heels in love with another man almost immediately. It was one of those incredibly cheesy crushes you hear about in high-school (although I was in my early twenties and in college). I not only thought he was extremely attractive sexually, but I genuinely felt a passionate love for this man. Sadly, he didn't share this feeling with me.

Shortly thereafter, I read something in the Bible that really drove the point home.. God is Love. I began to figure out that a particular Christian teaching that had plagued me for much of my life really wasn't something God was up to at all. And it pretty well cast a lot of doubt on the entire religion for me.

So I read a lot of texts to try to understand if Christians were, perhaps, mistaken in some way, and maybe Christ's message was somewhat different from what they were pushing. It lead to some pretty complicated things, having to do with this translation of arsenokoitaite, David and Jonathan's relationship, and so on.

In time, I learned that Christianity borrowed much of its ideas and precepts from scads of other religions. Christian rites related to communion are derived from some Mithras ritual. The Satan/God rivalry is derived from Zoroaster. Candlemas (from Catholic traditions) falls on Imbulc. I became very suspicious, and generally came to assume that Christians had no better idea of how everything works than anybody else. I may as well be Buddhist, Muhummadan, or Pagan for all the good it would do me.

Reading Godel, Escher, Bach really drove the point home to me. I didn't finish the book (although I intend to), but it demonstrates how closed systems (such as religions, language, mathematics rules, etc.) are always incomplete. Mind you, I don't mean it merely said this.. it proved this, and gave something of an idea of how you could reliably come up with a way to express something that falls outside of a closed system. Since religions attempt to codify who and what God is, and God is supposed to be something without limits, Religion simply cannot be relied upon for guidance in these matters.

Then I read documents like When Passions are Confused and other religious tracts, and I begin to see that something truly sick and perverse is going on around me.. and I don't really like it. A lot of people who call themselves "Christian" seek to modify laws (which themselves are incomplete.. they're a closed system) to enforce their own limited viewpoints, denying other people (who may be just as close to walking in God's way) the rights this country supposedly offers us (basically, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness).

Further, some of these Christian groups practice shameful displays of wanton greed, nastiness, and deception in an effort to promote their perverted points of views, without paying taxes or otherwise following the laws set forth in this country. They want to take advantage of the laws, but they don't want to be subject to them. I'm referring to the Christian Coalition, who claimed a tax-exempt status while engaging in extremely political activities.. a big no-no. I'm also referring to the 700 Club, who thinks nothing of presenting false information to their viewers (a practice that carries on into business dealings, too). PTL Ministries might be another example (although less political), as Jim Baker had to serve time for stealing from the coffers (he recently published a book.. so he's still doing well). I've seen smaller organizations with the same problem, frankly.

These are the people who condemn gays and lesbians as immoral?

To Recap Briefly

Basically, I think we're responsible for our own spiritual development, and those people who abrogate that responsibility to others are guilty of a kind of sin.

I also feel that certain extremist Christian organizations are horribly guilty of the worst forms of corruption known to this society, and are no moral standard to live up to. I find them especially abhorrent, when they attempt to manipulate my life through government laws, all the while claiming folks like me are immoral.

My own belief system

I don't know how to describe exactly what I'm into. I used to be Christian (as mentioned above), but I'm not sure I could properly be described as that. On the other hand, I'm not anti-Christian, either. I kind of think of myself as practicing all belief systems, yet none of them (a very Zen-like approach, I suppose). I'm Buddhist, Christian, and Islamic, while not being any of these.

Which is to say, the underlying principals behind many of the belief systems I've come into contact with are generally admirable, but following any kind of religious organization behind them immediately invalidates them.

So, I suppose, I'm into meta-religion. Step outside the various religious constructs, examine them, and find something that seems to work for me.

With this in mind, I'm an individualist. I believe there's some kind of deity out there. I believe that this deity probably has some kind of influence on man, and certain has its own interests at heart. This deity probably doesn't ascribe to any particular gender (after all, its the sum of all things), and it isn't as unified as people would think (that is, I suspect the older Judaic system of "one god, many names" applies). Yet it is unified, too. That's one of the great wonders about it.. it is both unified and not unified at the same time (thus, Christianity's Trinity concept, extracted to more than a mere Trinity).

I think God is responsible for everything good in our lives. I also think God may be responsible for some of the bad things in our lives. However, most of the bad things that happen in our lives probably represent the effects of a kind of physics: we set ourselves up for pain and suffering by not reacting in the best of ways possible.

For example, if you're nasty to a lot of people, people will start to avoid you, and you start to present a kind of aura that folks find repellent. Thus, when you try to get things done that require the assistance of other people, you find yourself unable to get anybody's assistance (at least not in any cooperative sense).

I believe there are forces we do not understand at work in our lives. I do not know if these forces are sentient, facets of ourselves manifest in odd ways, or merely some kind of physics we're not well-able to understand, but they exist. These forces can cause a wide range of rather amazing-seeming things to occur, ranging from teleportation and telekinesis to having a really good hunch. Some people might call it 'magick' or 'magic,' but I suspect most of it is mere physics.. just a kind of physics we really don't grasp yet. I suspect much of this form of physics has to do with resonance and electromagnetic forces.

For myself, I can often sense things about people. I can tell (sometimes) who I should avoid and who I may get to know better, although I've met other people who do this much more effectively than myself. I feel certain that I've read minds before (it's a strange kind of thing for me, since the way it works isn't very efficient, so I don't rely on it), and I have consistently been correct on long-range predictions (for example, I knew that I would get out of the Army before being caught up in any kind of battle, but that it would be close.. I left the Army one week prior to everyone being locked into it for Desert Storm).

I don't claim to understand or know what's going on, but I have my own opinions, and I try to figure things out as best as I can.