'Good news! Can I interest you in a Big Issue?'. Those are the words that I hear every morning on my way to class and have become ingrained in my memory to the point where I flinch when I hear them. I'm not going to talk about Big Issue sellers tonight though because I think it's time that I went head to head with a big issue of my own for once. In the time that I've been blogging I've always felt the need to dance around certain issues so as to avoid offending people. Now I feel is the time for me to have a go at writing about something serious and I'm actually really excited about the prospect of what this post could bring. Tonight (for a multitude of reasons) I've decided to put forward my views on religion and how I perceive myself in the light of religion. This should be interesting...
First off: I'm not here to prove that religion is wrong or that certain beliefs are wrong. I do not have the power or the knowledge to be able to attack a religion with any conviction and the truth is that people that attack religion aren't looking close enough to home. From my point of view religion is a lifestyle choice that you either make yourself or you have indoctrinated in you from a young age. Some people often don't choose religion because it has been chosen for them a long time before they even thought about it. People that say that everyone has the choice to be religious and to follow a certain system of beliefs are wrong in my opinion because a lot of the time you are brought up to believe in religion. Akin to the way that people see families, you don't chose religion a lot of the time because it chooses you.
I wasn't brought up under any religion and in many respects I'm grateful for this. The result is that I feel like I've found my own way of understanding religion from a completely neutral point of view. Occasional attendance at church when I was younger (mostly at Christmas) and living in a country which is predominately Christian means that you might think I would be more sympathetic towards such beliefs. My actual position is that I don't believe in anything that is taught or proffered by any religion and, although that might seem like a very blunt comment, it works for me. The way I perceive religion is in its wider, more general form rather than in its different denominations. I find it easier to attempt to understand why people have a religion than to understand the religion that they believe in itself.
I'm sometimes envious of people that have a commitment to religion because of what it appears to do to them. It makes them more philosophical about certain parts of life and in certain circumstances giving them a better (personal) understanding of things. That being said, I think that my beliefs (or lack thereof) make me just as philosophical and thoughtful. I personally don't see the need to link things back to something like religion on a daily basis. My approach is one of practicality and rationality and that is one criticism that I would put to people with a religion. I recently watched the Big Questions on a Sunday morning where they were talking about angels. They had people from different faiths giving their opinion and stating their beliefs, some of which I could understand and others which, for me, were completely mad. I know that extremism has its own meaning but the level of religious belief that I saw from certain members of the debate confused and in some ways scared me.
My view is that people need to be able to explain everything and that a religion is capable of providing answers in the hardest of situations. Not wanting to over simplify (whilst also wanting to make sure this post isn't too long) most people explain things by reference to their God. I don't believe in a God and therefore I have to find other reasons for things. I look no further than people and science when the going gets confusing because there is a rational explanation for everything that way in my opinion. I feel like I'm giving off the vibe that religious people are irrational but my ideology could easily be labeled in the same way. For me, things are explained by people and people explain things and that will forever be my belief.
Sometimes people will catch me looking upwards in a way that would suggest I'm looking to heaven or to a God for answers. I do it quite a lot and recently I've noticed it becoming a common occurrence in my daily mannerisms. I don't believe that there is life after death because I can't explain it and I don't believe in a heaven or any other such place. What I do believe is that people live on in our memories and their memories live on in us so long as we let them. When I look upwards I don't look to anyone in the way that people normally would. I look upwards to the sky to try and remember people that aren't with me anymore and people that I don't see a lot to try and hear what they would say to me. My greatest inspiration in a daily basis comes from the people (both living and not) that I store in my head and I look up at them to help me when I need it most.
The conclusion that I can draw from what I've spouted above is that I believe in people. I believe in people who have religion and respect what they choose. I believe in people without religion because of what they choose. I believe that memories of people are greater than formulating an afterlife. I believe that life only moves forward because of people. Most of all I believe in myself and that, for me, is a something higher than religion can ever provide me with.
Thanks for reading tonight and I actively encourage comments below, on twitter, on Facebook or via carrier pigeon.
Martin
