Disclaimer: This is open for discussion, and is my opinion. Anyone who replies with a "Reyde suxs" type of post, WILL be intellectually mauled. You have been warned.

(Might as well call this Reyde's Column #0)

Okay, religion is definitely something that's been pissing me off lately. You've already seen my views of the "coming Apocalypse", and that's only one side of the coin. There's the whole "pious Christian"... and that annoys me more than anything on the planet. In case you didn't know this about me, I'm from a predominantly Seventh Day Adventist family.

It's a religion that's kinda like Jews+Christianity. They've got the whole, holy Sabbath thing going... so Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, you can't do shit cept pray and watch movies about Jesus. And go to church on Saturday the ENTIRE FREAKING DAY. When I say the entire freakin day, I mean the entire freaking day... 9:00 AM is the Sabbath School service or whatnot, 11:00 is the whole preachy part, which technically should end at noon but often ends way past 2. Damn overzealous preachers.... After that, people go to someplace within the church and eat... and then, the Afternoon activities pretty much last until sundown, when, Sabbath is over, technically.

Now, I must admit, I owe very much to the Seventh Day Adventist church... Once upon a time, my parents met at church. So I essentially owe the church my life. So to speak. It's probably the only thing I'm grateful to that church about... I do occasionally have to go to church, though.

My parents are no longer in the church(general disillusionment, I guess... my Dad ain't that big on religion anymore, though he's still on good terms with all his old friends from the church), but the majority of my Mother's side of the family is devoutly Seventh Day Adventist... For example, I spent a week in Puerto Rico (8 days actually) with pretty much my entire mom's side of the family. It was only the second time all 6 of my grandmother's daughters had been together in the past 15 or so years, the first being in 2004. 4 of the 6 daughters and their families are Seventh Day Adventist, with the two "weirdoes" being my Mom and my Aunt Miguela, 3rd and 2nd oldest respectively. Hilariously enough, they're the two that are in pretty much the worst economical situation, though that seems to be short lived, cause things are looking up for both families.

My main, point, and what pisses me off here, is how this affects the relationship between our two families and the other four. It's annoying, because no one says anything on the surface. The problem is, our two families are pretty much outcast from the rest. Less so from my Aunt Esmilda... though that's just due to geographical proximity. We used to live a block away from her, so it was common for us to be rather close to her family moreso than others. My cousin Dwight, also easily my lifelong best friend, is my main contact into Seventh Day Adventist land.

I can't really say that relationships are entirely cold though. My mom and aunt are on relatively good terms with the rest of the family. Most of my mom's side of the family comes to my mom for advice a lot of the time, because my mom's

It's really annoying though. In Puerto Rico, I was respected, feared, and looked down upon at the same time. Why? Because I don't conform to something I don't believe in. As long as my mom's around though, I'm fine. My mom is highly respected anywhere. She's just the type of person who commands respect, from ANYONE. Dude, Dick Cheney would probably grovel before my mom. But then, as soon as she's gone, BAM, super missionary mode. EVERYONE, except my cousins from New York... they know the deal with me pretty well, starts going commando missionary on me! I just want to yell out "FUCK YOU ALL!" and leave, stay at a hotel or something like that, but I know, I just know, that to see such disunity in her family would break my grandmother's heart... So I just have to sit there and suck it up.

I hate how there's that question, "Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour?" The problem is, to most people, accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour means joining a church and being baptized or something similar. Why can't you just accept Jesus as your PERSONAL Lord and Saviour without being judged by others as to the genuinity of your acceptance of Christ? Doesn't Jesus himself teach not to judge, for all men are equal before God, and only God may judge men?

And this is my beef with religion. It breaks people apart, it pits people against each other... It puts belief before love. Faith before thought, it just kills me. Don't get me wrong. I am not an atheist. I believe in a higher power, a force that guides the course of history. Of course, I don't believe it's controlling us like marionettes... If it were, that is one sadistic force. Still, religion just pisses me off, and overzealous fundamentalists all the more so. I've got nothing against my family, I love them all... yet religion has me looking like some sort of sinner, or heathen, or something like that in their eyes... and I hate how that "lessens my value as a human." Of course that's in quotes cause it's pure bullshit... but stilll...

Well, that was my weak attempt at a column.... Sure, I'm no grondy, but I think I hold my own. I might possibly write another one of these pretty soon. Or maybe I'll just come back and kinda touch this one up, it's pretty bare...

I don't go to church. I personally think church is just a way to stick Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Buddah, or even Zeus in front of everything. God is not everything, people. You should make your own choices, do what you want to do, and accept the consequences. I'm pretty sure 7/10 people on Earth will end up in Hell from choices. Choices make up our lives, not God.

That is all I have to say.

small counter point: sorry Reyde, but this means you

people like you really make me mad. I can understand your point of view, assuming one is absolutely self-centered. otherwise, think of it this way for a second: your family (or whoever for everyone else) cares enough about you that they'd like to make sure you don't spend forever in someplace you'd rather not be. the least you could do is thank them for caring and send them on their way. imagine if you didn't happen to make it to heaven (or whatever cool place you believe in after death) and they had the chance to change that. I'm sure there be more than just a little guilt involved with that.

that being said, you can go to far trying to be helpful. I understand that it would suck if they're pushing too much, but all you can really do about it is try to hang out with your mom more often. it's just a shame that people like that blind so many to the people that really want to help in a productive way

You have no reason to apologize. You make a good, point, and I know that's pretty much what they're trying to do... but they go too far. Call me a bit self-centered, but it bothers me. They seriously take it too far. It's one thing to try to convert someone, yet it's another to harrass a person non-stop, look down on them somewhat, preach non-stop, and make unneccessary comments about how unholy your life is. That's all I'm trying to say.

A bit late perhaps...

Well, I really dislike it when people use that as an excuse. "Oh, you must devote certain times to pray just so you won't go to hell..." I am a Hindu and my family goes to temple every once in a while, for special occasions (they got buffets!) and normally we pray at home. Even so, I do not see what "belief" and "support" in a deity is going to do about anything, if they are so "all powerful." I agree with Reyde when he says that it is what you do, not belief, that determines everything (or something similar).

If you would not mind, I would like to discuss more with you in PM, LOZfan...

To quote an excerpt...

Look at Israel/Palestine. Look at WWII Germany. Look at the main part of Russia and Communist China. Look at 1830-1850 American history. Look at modern secular France. Look at many of today's prominent terrorist groups. Look at the formation of the Church of England (1400's?) as a tool to make England and the king more respected than the Pope. Look at the revivals of religion prior to and after that. Look at Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, etc, great minds unable to express themselves due to religious opposition.

I could go on.

I have two points here. First, I don't think any religion should do that. I don't think anyone can do what you say there and honestly say they believe in good will to all and respect to their deity(-ies). But I also don't think that the strife you have over this is... very important. I know that's sounding very haughty, but check out what I just said a paragraph back. Those are cases where religion has "caused" problems for people. You have condescending lectures about your life. If I may take a stab, your "unholy" behaviors are probably the kinds of things any average teenager does, things that the average parent would call "bad" behaviors anyways; whether or not it really is bad is up to you. You probably get more condescention (is that even a word?) from your relatives because religion plays a role, too, but I don't think it's highly out of the ordinary. If I did what most people do, my parents would hound me to death, religion or no. It's a part of their culture. Their morals are a part of who they are, and while that is shaped by their religion, it is broadly shaped by how and by whom they were raised.

I guess what I'm saying is that your complaints seem to be the sort of things any family member with particularly higher morals would be saying anyways. It's a common price for disagreeing with someone else's morals.


Point two is that religion is, over time, deeply ingrained into the culture of any body of people. Given a time frame of several generations, three perhaps, the overall religious feel of that time has a massive impact upon the moral fiber of the people. America in the early 1800's went through a massive religious revival, one that has yet to be rivaled in this nation since. It focused on Christian religions, and these various parties became essentially the only religions in America. There was little else. Since they all shared a belief in Jesus Christ and His teachings of mercy, love, brotherly kindness, charity, etc. as taught in the Bible, those commandments became widespread and commonplace; even those who did not believe in any of these religions became expected to live by them, and they did... since "thou shalt not kill" is a pretty widely accepted moral. And so, certain aspects of the religion that were shared by all of the people became the social norm, the social moral.

As a result, these highly devout families taught their posterity all about the morals their religion had given them, combined with the morals their parents gave them. Over time, the religious morals became the bulk of what the 3rd and 4th generations knew. And since these morals fit with the overall culture of the land – ie, there weren't vastly different moral disagreements between regions – things worked out just fine. It wasn't until 1860's when the Civil War erupted; it was initially started on an issue of state's rights, but it quickly became based on Slavery. That was one issue where different regions disagreed in the morality of slavery, and since that belief – on both sides – was not only a part of their personal morals but also the full-on culture and way of life of the people, it became a serious issue that didn't fully get resolved until the culture/mindset of the people could be modified enough to accept one viewpoint – that of the North – by the 1950's and 60's. You see, the conflict came in that the cultures and morals conflicted; these are things so ingrained in human social life that it can take 100 years to alter it.

And that's why religion "causes" the things you and I have mentioned. In many cases, a religion or a religious belief becomes concentrated enough such that the region adopts those beliefs simply out of majority rules – in governmental policy and in social norms. Religious conflict comes when two of these religious/moral/social regions conflict. People begin to see other religions as enemies, not brothers and sisters, not children of God, because they have disagreements in moral views. Of course, any disagreement, no matter the subject, leads to contention. Given enough time, stubbornness, and human tendancies, that ultimately leads to violence, hatred, and "breaking people apart, pitting people against each other", to loosely quote you again.

You see, religion is a part of culture, and a different culture left untollerated always leads to contention. It is not the religion that breaks people apart. It is the people. I sort of have a flow chart here...


Concentrated religion ––> Regional morals through majority belief/social norm ––> Region of unified morals ––> (can) ––> Conflicting morals between regions ––> alienation/hatred/strife sparked by human frailty and misunderstanding.


The way I see it, it is very easy to blame religion as the thing that rips people apart. But I think that, again, few religions teach us to hate each other; I know of no religion that does so. I believe it is the nature of man that allows such things to become problems.

It is man, not God, that causes this strife. It is human nature, not religion, that causes this strife.






And there's my $2.50.

Ronian, how you type that much amazes me.

Me too sometimes. I'm a bit wordy. I suppose I could be more concise, but I like discussion.