Enter Religion

Let me begin this post by saying that if you're easily offended by differing opinions on religion you may wish to stop now and turn back...

While I was raised in a Christian family, my views have evolved as I've grown mentally and spiritually. My children range from believers to atheists and I'm somewhere in between. 

I lean more toward believing in science and science tells us we're made of energy and that we are conscious beings. 

I believe the essence of that energy to be pure love. I also believe in a collective Universal consciousness which I suppose could be translated into the divine Creator of all things. So by that rationale I suppose it would be accurate to say that we are the Creator and that as individuals we are also the sons of God/Creator/Universe you get the idea... We're going down the rabbit hole a little I know but stay with me. I absolutely promote unconditional love between all life forms. I believe that the energy of living things never dies, only changes form. I believe we've had throughout history some enlightened masters who were aware of these things (Jesus and Buddha for example.) I believe there are Universal laws that may have, over the years been twisted into various religious teachings. For example intention and gratitude are sometimes viewed as prayer and giving thanks to God. And that's fine... until we start harming our children by instilling fear into them, shaming them for just being human, dividing them into imaginary groups, pitting them against one another and fostering hate and violence all in the name of religion. Then no, at that point I have to go with organized religion was created as a means to control the population and is a great source of pain and suffering for humanity. It's not so much the salvation we can sometimes be sold on in the shiny pamphlets. Which brings me to this...

Sitting around the lunch table a few days ago, I asked the children and their friends which they thought came first, consciousness or matter. The conversation soon took a theological turn at which point Tristan asked how some people could be so gullible as to become religiously indoctrinated. 

I explained to him that such beliefs are passed down through many generations as absolute truth. Most "God fearing" Christians would never question the authority of their parents, teachers or church... precisely the purpose of the whole thing. He was beginning to see where I was coming from.

We respectfully discussed each child's take on religion and the early influences that shaped those beliefs. Tristan expressed gratitude to me for giving him the freedom to develop his own beliefs and Miss Evan threw in that she always thought her Catholic school was simply giving her the facts so she's not entirely sure what to make of it all. She never thought to question it (the main reason we decided to leave the school system, she was so obedient it was affecting her ability to think for herself.) Their older brother, as far as I know, remains a believer largely due to a strong Catholic influence from his father's side. Evan's friend, bless her little cotton socks, is pretty much up for anything conversationally so the subject held her interest well enough. 

As we chatted, I recalled the movie Zeitgeist containing some interesting history on the subject so we conjured that up and took it all in together. Ooh's and ahh's occurred throughout and we even went on to watch part of the sequel. (Well, until uncontrollable laughter broke out at Tristan's impersonation of Jiddu Krishnamurti!)

Aside from learning that we've been deceived when it comes to so many things, the point of all this is once again, freedom... freedom for kids to research, to learn and to form one's own opinions. It's huge, I mean who are we to impose our own beliefs on our children? It's difficult to avoid a certain amount of collectivism in society but I think being more aware of all the ways we unwittingly enslave our offspring is the first step toward change. 

My three children, each with their own twist on our origins and the meaning of life would never blindly accept my version of things just because I am their parent and I couldn't be happier about that.