anti-religious??hmm…

Many people assume I must be an atheist who hates religion.This is not the case.

But i admit, i did go through an anti-religion phase.

I hated the way people who claimed to be religious behaved, I find the arguments against religion very compelling, and I thought that being an atheist is a sign of being intellectually “tough” (of course I enjoyed the smug feeling that I was better than the fools who believed.)

But as I grew older (and wiser I hope), I stopped being an anti-religious. One reason is that I achieved a better understanding of the arguments for and against religion. I tried to be rational and after reading and grasping arguments put forth by thinkers such as Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke and others, I find it difficult to dismiss the idea that God (or a Supreme Being, as I prefer to call Him) exists. It might be the case that there is no Supreme Being, but the case against the Supreme Being is far from being a certain one and there are powerful arguments for His existence.  Another reason is that I achieved a greater degree of personal maturity (and also intellectual maturity, I hope). Believing something to seem “tough” or because it made me feel superior now strikes me as “foolishness”. I am still angry at the way some allegedly religious people behave. But I can now distinguish between a belief and those who claim to hold that belief. I do oppose those who use religion to justify their evil, their hatred and their prejudices. But I oppose them because they are evil–not because they claim to be religious.

In all honesty my religious beliefs are not settled yet. I have never had a definitive religious experience that convinced me of the truths of faith. I cannot believe just because some person in a fancy costume waves a book around and tells me it is true. I cannot believe just because most people do.

Naturally, I do want to believe. I would prefer a meaningful reality in which the wicked are brought to task, the good are duly rewarded and an afterlife awaits us all. I want that very much. But, I know that what I want (to believe as “TRUE”) and what is true are two distinct matters.

At this point, I reject the hateful dogmatism of the extreme atheist and the fanatic theist. But, I do not really know what I believe. Of course, neither do most people. When I talk to people about their faith and their God, I observed that they tend to speak empty words and have no real understanding of what they claim to believe. Worse is, they often seem completely uninterested in learning anything about their alleged faith. It does strike me as ironic when they smugly judge me for my lack of faith when I am far more interested in what they believe than they are.

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