Religion? What it means to me, or thereof?

Religion

               The subject I don’t speak of, for fear of getting into fights.  We are all born into this world, and most of us are ingrained that something made us.  There are a few I’ve met, some lonely dark souls whose parents told them there was nothing, there was no God, no Allah, no higher-power, and these friends of mine were so lost.  This particular friend had no idea, no grasp why I believed in a God that would never appear to me.  But one Christmas, as he spent the holidays with me and my family, he expressed that he want to go witness a mass, a eservice to see what made religious people so stronger. I didn’t want to bring him along, because I thought he was only making fun of my family, but he confessed that he found it intriguing, that I could believe in something, have faith in something I’ve never seen.  He told me he wished his mom had raised him differently, because he felt so alone in the world.

               I myself grew up a Christian, but I saw from an early age, that many Christians hated each other.  We had Catholics hating Baptists hating Presbyterians hating Jehovah’s witnesses hating Mormons hating Lutherans hating episcolepians hating Methodists hating so forth.  The sad thing was we were all Christians who believed in Christ, but each faction had the “right way to heaven,” so all others were going to hell.  But is it not Jesus, peace be unto him, who said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’ This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Matthew 22:37-39

               To love your neighbor was what Jesus Christ taught, but all these Christians did not know how to love each other nor their neighbor.

               So I studied other religions.

               There was Buddhism, which I greatly admired, for the teachings were the same, to love others as you love yourself.  To give, because that I all there is to life.  I don’t know much about Buddhism, but I’ve seen many books arguing over Buddha like the Christians argue over Christ.

               And Al Islam, I have nothing but respect for.  Muhammad brings the same qualities as Jesus or Buddha, but Muslims get a bad rap because they have been viewed as a violent religion as a people who will kill you if you don’t follow their faith.  But this is not true; it is the humans, those that practice these religions with their upbringings, with their values and beliefs that make religions bad.

               One evening I came from studying Islam with my Muslim brothers, and one of them being black sat at the table with me as were talking.  He trusted m, for having a good soul to understand him.  Shortly thereafter, another black man, a Christina, came and sat down with us.  He told me of an instance of what was troubling him and I helped him. (The Christian man with his matter.)  Once the Christian left, the Muslim took ahold of my arm and told me “I don’t trust that man, hush up around him because I don’t trust him.”  I heard what he told me and I was befuddled in my brain.  We had just come from a spiritual teaching where we were taught that Muhammad, peace be unto him, spoke that we must love our fellow man, no matter what.  What we had just heard and listened to, not even 30 minutes before, was out of this man’s head for he had his prejudices on again.

               This is the problem I have with religions.  They all want to be right and they all want to go to heaven, and it is okay to damn those with different beliefs because they are all heathens.  No, this is not okay, because I believe to love your fellow man, no matter what.

               It doesn’t matter what color you are, what sun you pray to, it doesn’t matter what animals you sacrifice or what animals you don’t eat.  It doesn’t matter what God you praise, what Allah you revere, or what Buddha you want to be like, the only thing, the only action that religion should teach, for it doesn’t matter what religion is and what it means or conveys, the best thing us humans, the only action us humans should partake in, is loving each other.

               Religions only breed hate among us humans.  Rituals and practice are good because it helps the man remember what we are praying for, but mainly religion tears us humans apart when we should love each other fully and completely.

               Now you should practice and have faith in your religion, because it is good to be live in something, to believe in this higher power, because without the higher power, we humans would be so lonely.  But don’t go hating others for having different beliefs. 

               We are all stuck on this ship of life and the best thing, the best action we can take is care and love each other, because we all live on this planet.  Forget about religion, but take the core beliefs and love one another.