About religion
by Girlinshadows
I understand the subject I chose for today may offend, bother or upset someone, but I’d like to clarify that that is not my intention. I simply use this blog to express my feelings and thoughts freely, so forgive me if you disagree with what I state.
I’ve been thinking, and today I realized that I was taught what religion I should believe in. All my life has basically been a lie. Up to today, I thought I was a christian. However, I thought of something that truly puzzled me. I was raised in a family of Christian Orthodox people only. I don’t have anyone in my family who believes in a different religion, or who is an atheist. Also, I was raised in a country where definitely the majority of the population are also christian orthodox. In our schools, during our lesson of Religious Education, while we should be learning about several religions (in my opinion), we are only being taught the christian orthodox religion, in a very subjective way, too. And that’s when I realized, I was raised and forced to believe in a religion, which I never chose. And there began my journey to finding out what religion I want to believe in, and a journey in which I got to meet other religions, appreciate and embrace them all in their own way. I never truly knew my religion in depth, only the basics and the things I was taught in school. However, our family and our school only teach us the good.
I decided to do some research on the subject, and so I decided to find out more about Christianity, and other religions. Earlier I mentioned that we are being taught our religion subjectively, and only the good side of it. An example for that is, today, as I was doing my research, I found out that my religion says a woman should be sold to her rapist. That is something I utterly disagree with. My very own religion supports that thought, and I one hundred percent against it. Then I read more and more, and found out many things about my religion that I would disagree with. I’m not saying Christianity is not the “real religion”, I’m just saying it was never the religion for me. Each person can believe wherever they want to believe, however they should choose what they believe in themselves. I also found out that according to the Quran, a woman should always be sexually submissive to men. I disagreed with that statement as well, so Islam was not the religion for me either. Don’t get me wrong, these things may be right to some. I’m not saying they are wrong in general, I just disagree with them personally on certain subjects. Then I read that the satanic bible says that we shouldn’t make sexual advances unless they are reciprocated.I was truly shocked, finding that out, as Satan has always been taught to us as the enemy in Christianity. Yet, what the satanic bible supported was more correct in my eyes that what the Holy Bible supports. So I decided to look into it a bit more, and realized than Satanism never mentions Christ as their enemy. That also made me doubt whether I should be a Christian. We should believe in things we agree with, not things we are forced to accept. However, as I kept finding out more about Satanism, though it had logical points often and so on, I didn’t find it was the right religion for me either.
Finally, after lots and lots of hours of research, I ended up looking into Buddhism. As soon as I finished reading about Buddhism, I didn’t want to find out about any other religion. I knew this religion was the one for me. Every single point made perfect sense to me, I agreed with everything it said. One thing that I didn’t know and truly impressed me, was that Buddha is actually not a God. He never referred to himself as a God, never claimed he is the son of God, a messenger of God or whatsoever. He was only a humble man who managed to find his inner peace. After reading about Buddhism, I felt like my eyes opened. This religion, was the one I was meant to believe in, and not the one people tried to shove down my throat.
The reason why I wrote this, was not to convince you to be a Buddhist. I only want to convince you to believe in what you truly want, and choose to believe in. You mustn’t believe in something just because you were raised to do so, or because you were forced to do so. We have the right to believe in whatever we want to, and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Also if you choose to be an atheist, that’s great. You still stand for what you believe in, and that’s all that matters. Still, religions and atheism are beautiful things, that keep us hopeful and faithful to something. Though sometimes it may seem a bit like they are splitting the world apart, as long as we are not fanatic about them, they should be appreciated, all of them, by everyone.
The wanderess 
Nice post. Of course, the world needs to be more tolerant but in this environment how is that ever going to happen? The thing I like about Buddhism is it’s respect for life. Especially like their saying, “If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.”
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Yes, it is indeed a beautiful religion. The more I learn about it the more i love it. And i do agree that the world needs to be more tolerant, for example, i was too afraid to even post this, because I was afraid of how people would react. It took days for me to get the courage to post it, because I thought people wouldn’t like what I had to say. But thankfully so far there’s been only positive reaction to it.
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The fact that you were afraid to post this article says a lot about religion and those who claim to be religious. The problem emerges when religious thought becomes an institution rather than an individual belief. To paraphrase Jesus: “whenever two or more people are gathered in my name there’s going to to be a punch up.”
Chris
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I love what you just said, you guys are all so inspirational. You give me so much strength and courage to keep on writing. The problem, as you mentioned yourself, is not religion. It’s when people get too fanatic and misinterpret what their religion says. And that’s why I was afraid to post this, because I worried it may seem provocative to some people who might misunderstand me.
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Some people love being provoked and offended. It gives them a sense of purpose. The biggest cowards tend to have the loudest voices. Keep writing. Don’t let them shut you up.
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Same with you, keep standing up to your beliefs. And thank you so much for your kind words, they’ll make me go to sleep with a smile tonight 🙂 As I said in my bio: “I may be afraid to speak my mind, but I am not afraid to write it.” Let us who love to write continue writing, and let’s hope that the things we write will one day change the world.
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I remember worrying about bringing up the income of a civilian that works fast food and military income. The only reason I wrote about it was because a woman was making fun and poking at people asking for higher wages in fast food. Now, I don’t agree with boosting minimum wage but I also don’t agree with someone treating people who are trying to fix an issue like dirt.
Well I posted something about it and one blogger felt the need to harass me. I stuck by my guns though and I was threatened by him. So I went to his page and his title was, “here to offend” So don’t worry about other people’s reactions, stick by your post cause I guarantee you’ll have more bloggers that agree with you than don’t.
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I agree with you. If we can’t speak the truth we might as well write it
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