For the love of... God?

When I decided to take PHIL 330: Religions of the East, I guess I thought that maybe I could find some sort of inner peace through a religion. But as of late, I’m going from agnostic to atheist. I’m just having so many problems with religions. I was raised as a Baptist, and I just recently found out that most people hate Baptists. I looked into my own soul and have found that I can’t stand other religions that are apart of Christianity- like Catholicism.

This leads me into my first complaint about religion- there’s too many branches of them. I just don’t understand why there can’t be one simple religion, and if there are so many different levels, why do some hate the other? I know why I hate the idea of Catholicism, but I can’t understand what makes people hate Baptism.

But Christianity offers more disappointments. Missionaries, I swear, are some of the most horrible people ever to have existed. I just can’t get my mind around how they went about killing people in the name of God. In an attempt to destroy Buddhism, they killed the Arhat teachers. This is the final stage of Buddhism in which you are living your final stages of life until you reach Nirvana. However, in order to become an Arhat, you must have a teacher. Christians thought that if they killed the Arhats, then the religion would just die.

When that didn’t work, the missionaries just killed people. They would go into villages, line the villagers up, point a gun to their face and ask if they accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savoir. I’m sure you all know what happens when they say no.

How is this Christian? Christians always want to believe that they’re all martyrs, when in reality… they’re murderers.

Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a “Let’s have at the Christians” I have a problem with the other religions I’m currently studying.

Hinduism is so incredibly complicated and strange. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the holy books for Hindus, we find one human- Arjuna and the “God” Lord Krishna fighting together in an epic war. Arjuna goes into the middle of the battle field and looks at both sides. He recognizes friends, teachers, etc. on both sides. He goes over to Lord Krishna and says that he doesn’t think he can kill the opposing people. He doesn’t see the point to the war- he knows people on both sides and can’t understand why they have to fight.

Instead of agreeing with him, Lord Krishna tells that he has to fight. He describes it as that all of these people’s souls are trapped in their bodies, and that once he kills them, the souls will be free. Because of how I was raised, I just can’t understand that a God would want people to be killed… and that he would be willing to do the killing as well.

Besides that biblical type stuff… In Hinduism, there are two dimensions to God. One dimension is Saguna in which God is personal, and this is who you worship. You can have a loving relationship with this God, and whatnot. The second dimension is Nirguna in which this is the “Real” God. But it’s an impersonal thing. It’s not a being, so to say… just a mass of knowledge and understanding or something.

Outside of that, their view of the world is something similar to that of the Matrix… There isn’t really an “Earth” or “Reality” You’re just here until in this fake thing not realling living. Once you realize and accept this, you can become one with god, and your Atman (soul) becomes one with Brahman (God).

One more thing now- in Hinduism, they have Christian influences surrounding their religion. Instead of staying true to their religion, they try to keep peace with Christians by incorporating some of their ideals into the religion- which is why Hinduism is no longer polytheistic.

Now Buddhism is just play depressing. I mean, I find all religions to be somewhat disheartening, but Buddhism takes the cake. In Buddhism, you reach enlightenment by trying to detach yourself from worldly pleasures. Nothing in this life is permanent happiness. Everything that you love and care about is impermanent. This I agree with. However, all happiness is momentary. You may find comfort in a song or something, but the feeling is over once the song ends… It’s impermanent. You may love someone to death… but eventually- that person will either leave or die, and then you become sad.

All in all- you attach yourself to these momentary things and all it does in the end is tear your emotional state down. In Buddhism, they teach you to detach yourself from these impermanent things. That way, you won’t have to deal with unhappiness when something falls apart.

I just don’t understand it… Yes, all happiness is momentary, but what would be the point of not being attached to something to feel happiness? Happiness is short-lived, but isn’t it typically worth it? What good is it to not attach yourself to things? It just seems that you’ll never be able to take comfort in someone or something. In that sense, it just seems that you’ll never be happy. So what’s the point of that?

And besides that, if all things are impermanent, wouldn’t Buddhism be one too? I asked the instructor this, and he told me a short story. He said, “It’s like a man trying to cross a river in a boat. On one side- the opposite side is enlightenment. The man is standing on the banks of the world, and the river is his life. The boat is Buddhism. The man uses the boat to travel across the river to arrive at enlightenment, but once he’s there, he no longer needs the boat.”

I get the metaphor and everything, but I just can’t see how people cannot become attached to the religion which ends in hypocrisy of the religion. With that, if Buddhists are trying to detach themselves from attachments, wouldn’t they then get attached to detachment?

You see what I mean? I just have all of these questions that can’t be answered, and it’s just leaving me confused. I thought that maybe this class would give me an insight into what I truly believe. I thought that if it didn’t provide me with some sort of religious justification, it would at least help me maintain being an agnostic. But I think that all it is doing is turning me into an atheist.

I just have so many problems with religions, and it just pisses me off. These people are so hypocritical, and I just can’t understand anything about their religion. People have told me before that when you have doubt in something, you just need to replace it with faith.

Yes, some things are going to be unanswered, but if you just have faith that it is the truth, everything will be alright.

Well I can’t do that. It’s not good enough for me. Nothing in these religions are justifiable and I just can’t understand how in the world they lead to any sort of happiness. Did you know that my yammering on about this is a sin, too? To have despair about something (in my case- religion) is to doubt God because God is the source of all hope. If you despair, then you are doubting the hope that is in God.

What a load of shit. It just doesn’t make sense. Religion is just too depressing. I don’t see why people can’t just live.