Blind faith.

I don’t like Christianity. It’s a set of religious ideas and doctrines that demand adherence, where disobedience is the worst sin. Where people are constrained to do what is deemed ‘right’, and justify everything as ‘God’s will’ or ‘waiting for a sign’.

You have free will, use it. Saying ‘I surrender my free will to God to do whatever He wills’ is a cop out. You relinquish responsibility for yourself. In a sense, you reject that gift of freedom of choice. ‘I choose to not have a choice’ is not a choice, it’s escapism.

Too often I’ve seen people not take action because ‘it’s not God’s will’. Who are you to presume what ‘God’s will’? Even worse is when other people say ‘you must do this’, or ‘this will happen to you’ because it’s ‘God’s will’. Who are you to presume to prescribe ‘God’s will’ to anyone else?

To be fair, what I really dislike is the idea of stiff, structured, organised religion. The kind of religion that breeds doctrine fanatics, conservative fundamentalists, and ignorant bigots who assume that ‘their way’ is the ‘only way’.

Too often I’ve been confronted by such overbearingly smug beliefs. Mormons still occasionally knock at my door to preach ‘their way’ as the ‘only way’ versus my ‘pedestrian’ Catholicism. Friends sometimes impose their judgements of morality on me as being ‘un-Christian’ and ‘wrong in God’s eyes’. Who are you to presume to judge? Whatever happened to ‘let he who has not sinned cast the first stone’?

Religion is a human construct, a way of proliferating and maintaining a set of moral and spiritual behaviours. It strikes me that religion, as it were, is almost a means of man trying to constrain and limit God to our own understanding. It’s like saying ‘God will do this because God is good’. Isn’t that almost telling God what to do? Isn't that saying 'God is this'? Defining the inherently undefinable and indescribable?

And some seem to be utterly convinced that ‘God will do this for me because I pray and because I do good works’. Isn’t that creating an expectation of divine benevolence? Who knows what God wills? Whatever happened to ‘let Your will be done, not mine’?

Christianity is a way of life, not a set of rules. I’m not saying don’t live in faith. I’m saying live in faith, live free, but open your eyes. Don’t be blinded by religion. Don’t subscribe to cop outs.

This is your life. The life God gave you. Stand up and live it.