The Sin of Religion

An observation of how skewed our perception of life has become.

When "Adam" and "Eve" were awakened, they were pure. Their souls were ignorant and without fault, and all of the pleasures of the Earth were theirs. "God" whatever it may be, gave the Earth to them as a sanctuary, where they could grow as a race of sentient beings. They were given a choice, to live in ignorant bliss, unaware of pain or sorrow, war or destruction or to invite discord into their lives. However, it is not solely the tree of the knowledge of evil, but of good as well. So, while they may have been without pain and war, they were also without passion and joy. Their existence was confined to the most basic of human experiences such as eating, sleeping, urinating and defecating. All was provided for them, as the Earth had yet to be ravaged. There were no others like them to enact war. There were no politics, religion, variations in culture. They existed in a time of unadulterated peace.

"God" knew that they would seek knowledge, desire it. It knew the consequences of that knowledge, perhaps from past experience. So it gave them a means of finding it, but warned that it would lead to immense suffering. These first human beings could not understand consequences, because they had none. As desperately as "God" tried to warn them, they could not recognize its intention because they could not comprehend pain.

Just as a parent warns a child not to climb on the counters, and the child - being unaware that doing so could lead to injury - proceeds to climb, "Adam" and "Eve" chose to seek out something beyond their limited experience. In doing so they found great pleasure, sex and flavor and laughter, but also great pain, child birth and cultivating food and rejection. They immediately regretted their choice, seeking to take it back. They tried to erase their misstep, but in doing so only perpetuated their own fear. Every act of repentance renewed the memory of what they had done, eating away at them and keeping them from existing without worry, in the present as they were intended to.

They passed their discord onto their offspring, who in their angst delved deeper into the capacity for darkness. The seed of doubt spread and entangled the entirety of the human race. "God" realized how off course things had gotten and tried to intervene, by wiping out all but a few humans who were less corrupt than the others. Those humans were charged with correcting the situation. "God" soon realized that by trying to avoid the destruction of the Earth and humanity, it had only exacerbated the problem. It tried to assure the humans that it would keep its hands off now, but they were already wary.

From their fear spawned religion, a desperate attempt to atone for sins they believed they had committed. "God" tried to keep out of it, but horrible things were happening. The humans branched into races and creed, enslaving one another and vying to have power, to know all and to be the best human. A few times "God" gave in and put a foot down, freeing slaves and protecting the innocent, but each time it stepped in the humans felt a greater and greater need to please it, to be deserving of its loyalty and love. It tried to remind them that they needn't do that, that they were part of a plan and it had everything under control. They grew in fervor in their beliefs, and those became convictions. War broke out in all parts of society, as the humans who believed they knew best violently enforced their faiths so that they could save the rest of humanity, ultimately achieving peace and becoming the greatest hero and the greatest human.

Their actions led to dissent and rebellion, soon humans were in the throws of confusion. What was "God" and what did it want from them? They wallowed in fear of the mighty being that gave them consciousness, terrified of its wrath, waiting for it to wipe them out for disappointing it.

"God" ached over what had become of its beautiful experiment, and in one last desperate act decided to create the perfect human, to correct the misguided belief that they must abide by a strict set of laws for fear of death. It chose a host that had yet to taste the bitterness of age, and implanted the perfect human. The savior was given the task of convincing the humans that all would be well. He traveled, gathering followers and teaching about what it meant to be human. The others heard him, even liked what he had to say, but they were so set in their ways that they could not let go of their fear. They could not let go of the power they had gained, or the riches they had come into. The man tried to explain that all of these things were without value if the humans did not reverse what they had done. He told them to love and to help each other. He demonstrated healing, meditation, and many other practices to help rid them of their darkness and live peacefully.

They were too far gone. Indignant that this man would claim to be better, claim to know what they did not, the people persecuted him. "God" decided that this would be the last of its attempts to repair its experiment until it was time to collect the results. It gave final warnings to the people and stepped away. The people were caught in a cyclone, letting their lack of understanding fuel their skewed perceptions. With passing of time came the gaining of new knowledge, and the rememberance of old knowledge. The followers of old ways spited the followers of the new and declared war upon them. They killed one another, destroyed civilizations, for the sake of being the best.

We have continued to fall. To this day we bicker without reason, fail to tolerate that which gives our neighbor peace and joy and hope. We insist that we are right and the rest are wrong, and we worry without rest. This was not what we were put here for. Life is not about winning and "God" is not a tyrant. It is not a man in the sky with a lightning bolt waiting to smite down the sinners and exalt the saints. It is not a mobster who pretects those that buy into a specific ideology. It is not a general with an enemy to defeat. It is not a master that demands our servitude. It is not a king that strikes down dissenters.

God is a word that defines a force or entity that does not exist upon this planet. It is something that cannot be described or defined by mankind. It cannot be understood because it is not within the realm of human comprehension. Most importantly it did not intend for us to waste away our life and our home with these endless wars for power. We are made to coexist and to be diverse and to experiece life as it happens. It is not our place to deriddle the past or to predict the future. Our only job is to live and let live.

Unfortunately we have already spun so far out of control, that we now have to worry and have to work harder for fear of being persecuted, not by "God", but by our fellow man. It blows my mind that we put so much effort into living forever, when death is inevitable. When "God" warned us of eternal death, it was warning us of the inevitable suffering that would result from trying to be like "God", knowing all and being limitless. It was trying to protect us from ourselves, already aware that such a pursuit would prove fruitless, and we would waste away what short time we have on the Earth. We can never truly live because we are so afraid of what will happen when we die. We are living in eternal death.

Author's Note

I had an epiphany, and I felt like sharing.

Reviews

[78Jon]

I like it. Interesting viewpoint. You know, I had Holy Spirit interactions as a kid and experienced death. I saw some crazy visions when I was checking out. There's something you didn't add in the story though. The fact that this Creator, God, Spirit, or whatever someone wants to call it is so far ahead of our thinking we will NEVER even come close to figuring things out. There are religions. One religion supposedly calls for the killing of other religions. Ba humbug. Whatever the Creator is doing throughout time is so well planned out we will never come close to figuring it out. You're right though, people are afraid of what happens at death and they're afraid to live. Also, they're so afraid of the repercussions of humankind for things they do. They want to people please. People want to fit in with a crowd, in which they have to seek acceptance from the crowd. Anyhow, I liked the story. Check out my poem and let me know what you think.