Anti-Religion Pro-God

What is our Purpose?

This website is not about bashing religions. It is not about comparing the negative aspects of any one religion to another. It is not about the comparative values of religions, the comparative evils, or the comparative histories. It is about learning to look critically and as openly as possible at our personal and collective beliefs, fears, and search for truth.

It seems to be part of our humanness that many of us feel a need to search for some power that is greater than we are. If we, in our smallness, in our fragility, in our pettiness and narrowness, are all there is, then for some of us, life would not be worth living. In order to find meaning in life, we have to find a way to connect to something, someone, who is bigger than we are, smarter than we are, and not trapped within the confines of a physical life.

So the question becomes, "Can we find 'God' on our own, without the help of religion?" Immediate doubts flood in! Aren't we too small on our own? Don't we need the wisdom of centuries of wiser men (Yes, men!) who went before us to be able to ascertain the truth? Who are we to think we can find truth for ourselves?

And yet, the most basic, self-evident truth of all, the truth that jumps from the heart of each person intuitively and shouts to be heard, is that if there is a higher power, this power surely deals with all beings equally and fairly on the merits of their hearts, not on an accident of the family or religion they were born into or exposed to. As small children we all recognized this truth at one time or another, and may have had to tamp it down or push it away in order to accept the teachings of our family, culture, or religion. But this truth will never go away for many of us. It's simple. It's clear. It's the basic premise upon which any truth must surely be grounded. The highest truths cannot be exclusive to one group of people or another. In fact, the highest truths surely cannot be exclusive even to one group of living beings! The highest truths must transcend human pettiness, intolerance, exclusivity, and culture.

If we start from this premise, then no religion can pass the test of "highest truth." All religion is steeped in human exclusivity and culture. Yes, there is good in all religions, and equally there is evil in all religions, just as there is both good and evil in all humans and groups of humans. Religions are simply a reflection of the human heart within the context of culture. But the danger of religions is that the exclusivity becomes institutionalized, carved into "The Word of God" or some other kind of holy writ. A limited truth from a limited time becomes a "holy truth" for all time, and if we do not blindly accept this limited, biased, culturally-dated "holy truth," we will not reap the final rewards that our religion promises us. So we hedge our bets on the off-chance that the religion is right, and we try to make sure we're religious enough to hang onto those future benefits.

But what are the benefits? These benefits are the most exclusive of all parts of all religions. In order to reap these benefits, we must embrace, endorse, and support the very thing our hearts tell us is wrong about religion - exclusivity. Our hearts tell us any supposed benefits based on this kind of exclusivity cannot be real. This can't be "truth." Is it worth spending our entire lifetime defining who we are by guidelines that offer us hope for some kind of future benefits that our own heart tells us can't be real? Isn't it better to search for our own concept of the future - a concept that embraces every aspect of truth for every living being?

That is what this website is about - the search for truth that springs from our heart and from the simplest, deepest truths within us. My heart cannot tell your heart what its truth is. My heart can only support your heart in its search for truth. My heart can work for a world where all hearts support all other hearts in their individual, personal searches for truth. That is what this website is about.

It takes courage to let go of religion, to walk away from the "wisdom of the ages," and to try to think for ourselves. It takes immense courage. It takes courage to throw away those future benefits we have been taught to believe in. It takes courage to reject the beliefs of family, friends, and society. It takes courage to listen to our heart and follow what we hear. What if we are wrong? What if we do something stupid? If we leave our religion, we can't fall back on the solace that it was our religion's fault that we did what we did. If we leave our religion, we become completely responsible for our own thoughts and actions. It takes courage to accept that responsibility. It takes a great deal of courage. It takes no courage whatsoever to blindly follow a religion, even as a martyr. Martyrdom is easy. Responsibility is hard. Leaving the herd is hard. Searching for our own personal path, even when it goes far from or directly against the herd - that is hard.

But you are not alone. The hearts of many, many human beings cry out for the need to do just this. Many of us search for the courage to stand on our own, to think for ourselves, to search for truth without religious intermediaries. We are not alone in the search.

 

But what if religions are right? How do I know what is true?