On Organised Religion (to SNOWY)

Blue Wall Protects Against 'Evil Eye'

Thanks to VOX, I’ve been having some very interesting philosophical, social and religious discussions with some of my new “netpals” from Australia. Their perspectives got me thinking about something I wrote in my memoir, Harlot’s Sauce, which has just been completed and which is being shopped around to publishers as we speak. So for this week’s blog I’m taking an excerpt on religion from that memoir and dedicated it to my new Aussie friends, most especially to one very deep thinker, Snowy.

I expect an extra drink from that still of yours for this one, Snowy. ; )

                                  On Organised Religion

                     
I was raised Catholic, as were many people I knew growing up.  But, I had a few friends who were Protestant and then there was my friend, Margie, who was Jewish. When we were in high school, just for fun, we’d tag along to each other’s worship services occasionally. Even though Margie married a Catholic later on, ( another intriguing story, that) she was overwhelmed when she first walked into my Catholic church as a teenager. The depiction of Jesus nailed to a Cross terrified her and the smell of the benediction incense nearly gave her an asthma attack.

 
Despite that, Margie wasn’t as affected by Catholic services as much as I was affected the first time I attended Protestant services. Having attending Catholic services all my life, the Protestant Church seemed too... well…comfy. The service too upbeat and brief, there was nothing daunting about the altar and there was no forbidding priest looking down from a godly height.

In fact, the officiator, who was actually smiling from the ground-level pulpit at the people attending worship, was allowed to be black or even female, I was told. I also thought the parishioners’ role was too easy. They didn’t have to kiss the hands of priests, nor kneel in supplication when he started his wailing. (Which in this church, he never did.) After all this cheerfulness in church, I just didn’t feel browbeaten, as I was supposed to, after I’d left. Therefore, Protestant church couldn’t truly be church…could it? Not to me, at least. I was a “first-generation American” and our priests were from the 'old school.'

If you don’t know what it means to be a “first-generation American,” you’ll probably never understand the wide gap there was between those of us whose parents or grandparents had immigrated  from other countries and those whose ancestors had been in the United States since the Constitution was signed. There are many differences between us, believe me, but they’re especially evident in our religions. Things might be different today, but when I was growing up, we first-generation ethnic groups had much more grinding religions than our more assimilated counterparts. As children, these religions kept us awake nights, terrified, our thoughts circling furiously. As adults, some of us became crushed followers or bitter atheists. Others tried intensive psychotherapy, but it didn’t help. Our spiritual educations were like deep moles in our skin. They were impossible to remove and could go bad at any moment.

 
Don’t misunderstand. I believe all religions based on the teachings of Abraham, Mohammed, Christ, or whomever else you’re partial to, started out as marvellous ideas. But here’s what I think happened:

One fateful day, Satan said to his minions, “I’ve just had a thought that might make this religion stuff work for me.” 

With that, he went out and hired:

  
Tony Blair’s tailor

Sylvio Berlusconi’s plastic surgeon

 
The British Council

 
The U.S. Senate

The O.J. Simpson trial jury

Michael Moore’s film editors

Three tenured high school teachers

Six class valedictorians

Nine widowed old ladies who’d never had orgasms

Twelve zealots in pursuit of a cause, but who wanted to wear fur and eat meat and hadn’t read Orwell

He hit the jackpot when he signed on these last three:

Rupert Murdoch, Karl Rove and Bud Selig

Together, these dynamic disciples, whom I’ll name, “The Revelation Delegation," brainstormed a business plan, which re-scripted all the religions of the globe.  Somehow, (here my theory needs more research,) they sold us the revised versions, through which we learned:

a) to memorize lists of sins, degrees of sin and the punishments for them.

b) which foods are “clean” and which foods are “dirty.” 

c) that our babies are born permeated with vice and in order to purge them, we must pierce, peel, oil, splash, dunk, paint, decorate or bind them.

d) anything that’s too much fun or feels too good will send us to hell. (“Bingo Night” is okay, though.)

e) if we don’t do what they tell us with our hair, beards and head gear, our souls will stay soiled forever.

f) that shame, remorse, hunger, pain, abstention, untreated illness and Irritable Bowel Syndrome, are all virtues.

g) Good people follow our religion. Bad people don’t. We should try to change the bad people’s minds and make them be good, but if we can’t, it’s better for them if we torment or kill them.

h) Last and most essential, that when all benevolent religious leaders of the world stated, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” they did not mean, to quote from Bill and Ted,  “Be excellent to each other” and “party on, dudes.” What they actually meant was, “Do It unto others before they Do It unto you.”

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And, that’s just a portion of what I’ve learned about organised religion. If you’d like to read more about this, go to www.harlotssauce.com and click on the Writings Excerpts Page. There you can read all about another aspect of certain religions, a thing some of us have never even heard of, but many of us know know well. It's called, “The Evil Eye.”