God is my Dogma

You don’t need religion to find God. Hear me out. Religion is a for-profit man-made construct to control and divide people. With religion there is a framework of us vs them. The saved and unsaved. The holy and the damned. No matter how you look at it and whatever good is inherently there, in the end it is divisive. Religion breeds condemnation, judgement, and superiority. History holds record of how much war, destruction, and discrimination has been caused in the name of God because of religion. And while followers of those religions may say the aggressors weren’t acting in accordance or on behalf of said religion, they were doing just that. Because that’s what happens when man believes he is the hand of God. Whatever façade of good was in place was just to mask the end goal of acquiring power, money, land and resources. The underlying goal is always wealth and power. Speaking to God doesn’t call for an intercessor. Churches put that into place so they could be the middleman and collect a payment in the process. And if you can’t serve both God and money then you can’t have religion.

What strikes me so uncomfortably about Judeo-Christian religions based on the Adam and Eve origin story is that I find it to be allegory for men assaulting women. The serpent being Adam’s penis and the fruit being Eve’s body. Think about it, Adam blaming Eve for tempting him via the serpent sounds an awful lot like the speaking’s of a predator committing rape and saying it was because of the temptation a woman presented. And this narrative laid the groundwork for blaming the fall of humankind from God’s grace on women and put them in a secondary and guilty place. Even in religions where this isn’t the origin story, there is still an overwhelming narrative where women are secondary and subservient to men. I feel that’s where men defaulted to when they saw that women held the power of procreation. If you’ve ever witnessed a woman in labor and delivery, you’ve witnessed pain and power in unfathomable magnitude. An unexplainable closeness to death in order to bring life forward. And if you take into context that when all these religions were created there was no scientific understanding of biology and reproduction it makes sense why men would have written a narrative undermining woman. They were frightened. And rightfully so. Except fear that should have led to awe and respect instead led to usurping control through a false narrative of superiority that presently continues to cause great harm to women all over the world.

Any religion that claims pregnancy precautions as going against God’s plan or nature are operating on archaic principles. God gave man science to learn and come to an understanding that they can make choices for their greater good. Women aren’t cattle to be bred. Men don’t have the right to control a woman’s autonomy. Pregnancy isn’t a punishment for sex. And no child should be brought into this world without intention and the parent(s) ability to provide. Forcing unwanted children into a trauma filled life is unholy and unacceptable. This trauma will highly likely lead children to grow into adults with mental health and drug issues. This misguided doctrine of forcing people into unwanted parenthood is the church’s way of religious population growth. More parishioners equal more penance and more tithing/money. And it works for conservative politicians because it ensures they get the religious vote.

I feel the first step to finding God is to go within and seek peace and acceptance through meditation and prayer. With those things you won’t desire to judge or condemn others. Judgement and condemnation are hallmarks of a self-lacking acceptance. It is a projection of our own self-rejection. I don’t believe God asked for religion or dwells in the confines of it. How silly of humans to ever think they could create a system to contain God. Or to focus on the afterlife destination while completely disregarding the journey of life and how they care for others not in their same clique. These thoughts are an evolving work in progress as I am as well. But what I will always be is accepting and supporting of humanity seeking to care for one another and working towards a greater good that denounces superiority and promotes equality for all. To me therein lies God.