On The Enigma of Religion

Religion pitted against reality.

I was once at one of the oldest churches in Kenya and I asked myself "Why am I here?'. This has been a question that for long I have sought to find the answer to and I think I finally found out what has been hidden for many. Bear with me, cause I’m about to open a Pandora’s Box.

Is religion a belief or a lifestyle? Religion (from the Latin Religio, meaning 'restraint,' or Relegere, according to Cicero, meaning 'to repeat, to read again,' or, most likely, Religionem, 'to show respect for what is sacred') is an organized system of beliefs and practices revolving around, or leading to, a transcendent spiritual experience. There is no culture recorded in human history which has not practiced some form of religion.

In ancient times, religion was indistinguishable from what is known as 'mythology' in the present day and consisted of regular rituals based on a belief in higher supernatural entities who created and continued to maintain the world and surrounding cosmos. These entities were anthropomorphic and behaved in ways which mirrored the values of the culture closely (as in Egypt) or sometimes engaged in acts antithetical to those values (as one sees with the gods of Greece). Religion, then and now, concerns itself with the spiritual aspect of the human condition, gods and goddesses (or a single personal god or goddess), the creation of the world, a human being's place in the world, life after death, eternity, and how to escape from suffering in this world or in the next; and every nation has created its own god in its own image and resemblance. The Greek philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570-478 BCE) once wrote:

''Mortals suppose that the gods are born and have clothes and voices and shapes like their own. But if oxen, horses and lions had hands or could paint with their hands and fashion works as men do, horses would paint horse-like images of gods and oxen oxen-like ones, and each would fashion bodies like their own. The Ethiopians consider the gods flat-nosed and black; the Thracians blue-eyed and red-haired.''

I read that there are only two pillars that hold this world; religion and the crown and one does not come without the other but if literature were truth then wouldn’t we all be fighting our own King Claudius and fall in love with our own Romeo or Juliet. I dare not insult the works of literature neither do I critic it but I only give my honest opinion.

There is a lot of truth in that statement. The crown does go hand in hand with religion but I believe this statement has been taken too seriously such that we have the clergy capitalizing the church and the congregation falling victim. But who holds this crown that we speak of? Is it not the politicians that see the church as an opportunity to 'spread their own good news' or is it not the lords and ladies who see the church as an opportunity to proclaim their wealth or not the poor who take the church as a medium to announce their poverty?

For this question ''...I know not'' as Shakespeare said.

Is the church religion itself?

Then why must it be made of the most expensive plaster and furnished with the most luxurious marble?

'One can’t prove that God doesn’t exist though science makes God unnecessary.' my argument is not whether or God exists or whether or not we should believe and if you read that from this perhaps you’re the one contemplating with yourself deep inside. My aim is just to clarify on what religion truly is.

To understand what religion is, it’s important to first understand what it’s not. It’s not the Catholic nun that slapped your wrist in private school growing up. It’s not the person who shamed you and told you that you were going to hell. It’s not the yiayia or babushka that harshly judged you for not crossing yourself properly, or having a child out of wedlock. That is not religion. That is the sign of being human and fallen and prone to judging. It’s everywhere, not just in Orthodox churches. But sadly, religion is the target for the anger toward judgmental people, and rigid people obsessed with rituals.

Religion is a way of life is and religion is a choice and not a command but like every choice there are consequences for those who choose and for those who don’t choose.

The lark at break of day is arising; more and more people are getting drawn to religion and for those who still lay in the darkness, isn’t it better to believe and find out that nothing exists after death than to not believe and find out that something does?

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