After studying and analyzing the religions of the world, and observing the behavior of religious people in my life, I have come to the conclusion that Gandhi was right: God, per se, has no religion. It is the people who subscribe to the institution of religion, in whatever form it may be, who assign religious preferences to that divine being whose existence has been in dispute for millennia. Thus, it is the rigid structure of religion that decided (or decreed, to be more truthful) the "law" that one must attend church to be a true member of the creed and imposed it upon innocent people. (It is true that factions of Christianity have torn away from the original establishment, thus creating in schisms new beliefs that have their own interpretations of things, but the primary [and probably most populated] institution demands that people show their love for God through church attendance every Sunday.)

But I digress. The real purpose of this entry was to show my opinion on the "truth" (or lack thereof) in religion. Without exception, the religious people I have known (predominantly Christian, I'll admit) have not only believed in but demanded that their beliefs, and only their beliefs, are Absolute Truth. Personally, this really irks me. The suggestion that someone, based on no hard evidence (the Bible doesn't count), can so casually condemn anyone who does not believe in his or her religion is appalling to me. The general message seems to be "If you don't believe in what I believe in, you're going to hell." How can anyone, especially with such an allegedly pure thing as religion, simply pigeonhole all those who are not exactly like them as hellbound?

Gandhi's belief was that all religions, regardless of their disparate proponents, comprise a mountain, with God (or Allah, or Ganesh, or Zeus, or whomever people think controls our destiny) at the top; each religion has its own path up the mountain, but all reach the top, and none is more "true" or "good" than another. Why is this such a foreign concept to people? Has no one read Plato, who said that the wisest man (or woman, to make him politically correct) is he (she) who realizes that he (she) knows nothing? Why must people insist that their beliefs are the one and only Truth? Is it conceit? Stubbornness? Or simple ignorance?

As far as religion itself is concerned, I agree with Karl Marx, who called it the "opiate of the masses," a mere imposition of morals upon an otherwise louche and libertine species. Although many would like to think that human beings are above the animals (read my "The squalor of the soul" entry for more details), the truth of the matter is that Homo sapiens is as much an animal as anything else; humans simply have larger and more complicated brains than, say, a dog.

In the animal kingdom, such atrocities (as humans are fond of calling them) as incest, sodomy, and adultery are common; before religion and its rules came along, it is likely that ancient humans thought nothing of those now ignominious activities. (This is not to say that I advocate incest, sodomy, and adultery; my point is that humans are just as susceptible to the wild impulses of the libido as animals.)

Thus, religion was created to lay down a set of laws that would bring civility and order to the world, but that would not be accepted from any mere authoritative figure. Nay, only a godlike being beyond comprehension, whose power and nature transcend all else in the universe, could impose these rules, could possibly compel the unwashed masses to adhere to Ten Commandments asking that humans ignore their urges. So the Christian God was created; the Pantheon of Greek mythology, headed by Zeus; the Norse Odin, Loki, and Thor; the Muslim Allah; and thousands of others, sundry deities created for the sole purpose of keeping people in line. From there, it has spread its tentacles into every aspect of human existence, its influence tainting all that it touches, proselytizing, evangelizing, and growing constantly.

To be perfectly truthful, I admire religious people for the bond that holds them together, for the unity and joy they seem to share, for the hope religion gives them. But, inevitably, I cannot help but feel that they are simply deluding themselves into happiness, attempting to assure themselves that something everlasting and indescribably wonderful awaits the faithful after whatever tragedies might befall them, after the superficiality and sin of life are washed away.

Is not then religion truly an opiate of the masses?

[Exit Orpheum.]