RIDICULOUS RELIGION

Am I saying that religion is ridiculous? No way. Religion is or should be, in my opinion, the most important part of our lives as it can help us to cope, to enrich ourselves and to be a guide as to how we should live. So If I'm not saying religion as an institution is not ridiculous, I must be saying a particular religion is. Nope. So just what am I saying? I was raised a Catholic and now I am a Christian Minister. For that matter, I hold the title of Bishop. Yes, I spent many years studying in order to be ordained. Much of my training was with the Catholic Church but I also spent a year studying in the Lutheran Church. Still more was done in independent schools. Having said that, my point is this, I firmly believe that no one denomination is the religion, better than all the others. Yet within Christianity, that is exactly what we have. Catholics bash other denominations, everyone bashes the Catholics and so on. Yet when you look closely at them, as I have, there is so little difference between them. They all believe that Jesus is the Lord and that through Him, we can enter Heaven. That is where we should stop. Right there. Everything else is man made.

Jesus gave us one big commandment: Love one another. Very simple, is it not? It sounds simple but here we are in the 21st century, with all our technology. We have computers that show a frightening intelligence. We have aircraft capable of servicing satellites and gliding back to earth. We have medical breakthroughs that one never dreamed possible. More wars have been fought in the name of God than for any other reason. Yet we haven't mastered the simplest concept: love one another. Could it be that it is too simple for our sophisticated minds? Hardly. As bizarre as this seems, it gets even more so. If all Christian denominations refuse to accept each other, what is that saying? In Ireland, the Catholics and Protestants have been at war seemingly since the dawn of time. There is likely no end in sight. They both believe in Jesus Christ and the Trinity. What about all the little independent Christian Churches? Nobody wants to accept them even though they all preach from the same book.

The issue of Saints comes up often. Many believe that Catholics worship Saints and behaving a statue of one, they are worshipping false icons. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can love a Saint. You can pray to one to ask for their intercession with God. This is not the same as worshipping them. The purpose of a Saint is to show how a human did remarkable things for God. They are role models. Instead of bashing them, we should be trying to emulate them. The world would be a much nicer place to live in if people tried to live like Saints. They understood Christ's message: love one another. Read about some. Marvel at what they accomplished and what they had to go through. Is this something to be ashamed of? Should it divide those who believe in Christ? The same issue is raised when it comes to the Blessed Mother. To some Christians, she is nothing more that a women who gave birth to the Savior. Excuse me! Isn't that a pretty special honor? Should we not love the women who bore and raised the Savior? She has appeared many times throughout history with special messages. Doesn't that count for something? At one appearance, a young girl mentioned to her that she did not know why Mary chose to appear to her since she was not Catholic. The Blessed Mother was said to reply, "Neither am I."

Does that mean we should write off the Catholic faith? Of course not. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that anyone has to believe in a particular denomination. All it says is to follow the teachings of Jesus. Interdenominational fighting is nothing more than greedy, power hungry humans attempting to keep whatever power and money they have. It is no different than it was in Jesus time. The Pharisees, the Sadducees. And what did Jesus say to them? "You follow the letter of the law and fail to see the heart of it." Very little has changed since His time. That is amazing. With all we have learned over the centuries, we still act the same way they did back in Christ's time. That is not something to be proud of.

We live in a time where so many people have no religious beliefs whatsoever. Who created the universe? How did we get here and where do we go? People use the atrocities in life as being evidence of no God. Man creates the atrocities, not God. He gave us free will and while we have surely proven we are not worthy of it and are clueless how to exercise it, the fact is we have it. Could we try to use it a better way? If we could, our whole view of religion would change. This interdenominational rivalry is of great humor to Satan, no doubt. It would seem that way to aliens too, one would imagine. Let's hope they are not watching. We are in enough trouble as it is.

All religions must band together if any are to survive. There is no room for denominations knocking each other or for people feeling "holier than thou." We are in this together folks. That is something we had better accept soon.

© 2009 T. Cooney

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