Tried religion and it didn’t work out for me

religion tried comic

I tried religion and it didn’t work out for me.

I shared earlier that I was raised Catholic. The older I got the more ridiculous it seemed. I wanted to believe,  and it would have made my life easier if I could have believed but I couldn’t.

Why? Mostly because I am capable of critical thinking. This is not a religious bashing post, just an examination of what religion is and why it can affect people so strongly.

I understand why people like religion. What I saw all of my life is that people like the sense of community in their church, and the feeling that they are part of a “tribe.” They feel safe that people are like them, and they want to convert others because obviously they are right and others are wrong. What would be a better compliment than for someone who can choose to believe anything, to believe what they believe?

Do sincere people in religion exist who see the spiritual or mystical force of something greater in nature? I have no doubt. However that is their perception and may not be reality. Humans have a strong tendency to see life in things that aren’t alive, and to mistake patterns in random things. I don’t trust our ability to discern the structure of the universe in this life.

Religious people say faith is belief in what is not seen. Fine. If we have that as the way we want to believe, we really can believe anything and we do. We have untold numbers of cults and dangerous religious practices because once you open this genie bottle up of allowing people to believe whatever they want, there is no way to shut it down.

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You can say, but there was a Jesus and he was real. I am not here to debate religion with you. I am here to share that I found religion to be lacking and more harmful than helpful.

You can believe whatever you want, but don’t force others to act in the ways that you believe. If there is a god who gave us freedom and right to choose our choice, who are you to take that choice away? If God doesn’t interfere why do you?