"Be excellent to each other" and "Party on Dude!"

I was talking about religion today with a friend. I've always had a problem with organised religion, though not all aspects. I don't have a large sense of conviction that god doesn't exist, or that religion at it's core is inherently wrong. Perhaps it's because in the era in which I was doing most of my growing up I saw a lot of examples of people using religion as a way to control or judge others, as a way to exclude or make people feel inferior. People use religion as a way to make people feel guilty about things for which no guilt should be felt, and to excuse behaviour that can cause lasting harm. It is perhaps this, and the fact that I saw Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure many many times while I was growing up that I have a fairly humanist approach to life, or possibly just that I've screwed up enough times in my life to understand that people do things and behave in ways that don't always reflect who they are, or do them justice.

I think religion has it's place, for sure. I understand that common belief can create a unification, a common understanding of the world and humanity and allow for a cohesive society. And please note here the distinction between religion and God. I don't deny anyone their gods, and I don't believe or disbelieve in some kind of higher plain. And I don't deny anyone their religion. But I find the idea that people take religious texts and teaching strictly as the word of God to be a difficult one. There is some kind of notion that God spoke to people once, and they wrote it down, accurately and without any self serving notion, and God said all there was to say, and then shut up. Forever.

There are several problems with this perspective. Firstly, different religions although not completely dissimilar in their basis and teachings, do have strong, and in some cases quite fundamental, differences. For those who believe in many gods this is less of an issue than for those who believe in only one. Those who believe in one god often tend to fall into two camps, those who believe that everyone worships the same God, but under different names, and different (though they comfort themselves, likely incorrect) faiths, and the other camp tends to discount the gods of other religions entirely, believing that only they and their fellow worshippers are the chosen, the saved. Another powerful discreditor to this idea is the Bible, or the library, the collected testimonies of witnesses, careful selected to exclude contradictory statements or those by women. Exclusions that only recently are coming to light, and offer a much wider perspective of the history and teachings of that time than patriarchal society would have had us believe.

I could go on a huge rant here about patriarchy, and how women have been demonised over the centuries whether as witches and as manifestations of evil or agents of the devil (one only has to read the thoroughly entertaining, and deeply disturbing, Malleus Maleficarum), or simply as feeble minded and childlike in order to maintain a patriarchal society, but that's not relevant here. I can see the logic in the idea of sexual union existing in a marital set up in an economic era in which women were considered property, and generally had no means of supporting themselves economically, and especially in an era without contraception and washing machines and labour saving devices and prepackaged food and childcare, where women would be unable to support themselves and their offspring without the structure of the family unit, with members all playing their part. Economically, sociologically, it all makes sense for that era. And there is logic behind a religious mentality that would educate its followers that sex outside of the safety net of that socioeconomic structure is wrong, because, lets face it, the best way to ensure that people are provided for is to ensure that there is a socioeconomic structure present to provide for them, and the marital unit or a similar set up largely filled that role for a long time and across many cultures. Dare I say it, I can also understand, in the confines of a model where women were considered as such, a model that afforded the model of the same sex relationship little social currency - where women were unable to protect or provide for themselves, a social model was created to provide for them, not a model based on human relationships and feelings, but on simple biological procreation and economic stability. Men were able to support and protect themselves as single entities, women were not, thus from a social and economic perspective a union of two men could be considered selfish, while a union of two women could be considered intensely vulnerable. But the world has changed. The labour market has changed, our life styles have changed. Unhappy or abusive marriages are no longer an economic necessity, women no longer compelled to continue with pregnancies that would destroy them physically or emotionally, and people no longer have to forfeit the right to a happy relationship just because they got unlucky having a teenage fumble. People are thankfully more self sufficient, and this allows the freedom to love who you want, whether you or they are man or woman, it doesn't really matter. Family these days can be considered a much more fluid concept, with open adoptions, multi-parent families paving the way for a model built on flexibility, honesty and openness, rather than a man, woman and 2.4 children (or whatever the Mormon equivalent is). Again, I have no problem with marriage. But it's not for everyone, and not for anyone to judge those who choose not to. They have their reasons.

This is turning into a rant, and it was never meant to be so. I just had an urge to write down how I try to live my life. I regularly fail, but I persist in trying all the same.

Be kind to people. When you aren't, whether intentionally or otherwise, try to put it right. Try to understand people. When you can't, remember that it doesn't mean that you are right or that they are wrong. If something about someone elses behaviour makes them happy, but goes against your own beliefs, step back. Look at the bigger picture. If their behaviour, actions or beliefs don't offend or cause harm to anyone then it's not your place to judge them. Just because you don't understand doesn't make it wrong. The world is bigger than you or I, and it's full of things we don't understand. More over, we are all unique, and it's unlikely that you'll ever walk in my shoes, any more than I'll ever walk in yours. We may have similar experiences, but not the same. We are not the same and should not be judged as such, but as individuals. Be openminded, because life is vast, and have fun. Basically, "Be excellent to each other" and "Party on Dude!"