Religion can make fools of us all, inspiring conflict and separation.

Stumble into any modern congregation, and find a group of recovering alcoholics dancing with raised arms in delusional madness saying, “We’re glad you’re here!” as they pass sacks to collect your wealth to support blind faith, silver teeth glittering through insane smiles.  They promised me that a poor Judean revolutionary defeated evil some two-thousand years ago, slain on a cross and reborn as a glowing invincible fairy, yet darkness enshrouds the land more than ever.  They said that the way was narrow, that only a few would pass, yet billions of religious fanatics claim their truth is blessed from on high above all other philosophies and creeds.

Long ago terrified Nerandathals shivered in fear as lightning storms raged outside.  The next morning they wondered what had angered the gods, deities born of fear and awe.  Intelligent people got together to codify it all, saying “We alone control the mystery.”  And oh how the gold filled their treasuries as commoners got burned and tortured for speaking out against them.  After centuries of organized strife, the good gods had been arranged like flavors of ice cream so neat and precise, and wars spread on massive scales over whose version was right.  Some masses claimed that theirs tasted great, while others screamed that theirs was less filling.

Then an Egyptian pharaoh had a unified vision.  What if we had one supreme deity that contained all the forces we see, who tasted great and was less…demanding?  And the Age of the fishes came crashing against our shores.  The menu called for the deification of the Martyr-syndrome.  The more you suffer the more spiritual you are and the more you will be rewarded in our fairy-man’s heaven.  You won’t ever have to do any dishes after the great feast.  You can all be gluttons with no consequences forevermore.  Live for that eternal life, not this foul here and now.  Its evil you know, look around.

For centuries the advocates of the new wine were thrown to the lions.  “Roar!” they cried, as they died, eventually claiming political power as the old gods waned.  The gods of one age always become the devils of the next.  If I wrote this then, I would have burned at the stake.  Funny how creative, critical thinking and imagination are often labeled as heresy by the power elite.

For over a thousand years their might grew, although even monotheism cracked and was divided, God torn apart by the masses.  It seems that people preferred different crumbs of the one unified cookie.  And some got angry and left.  Colonists landed in the New World trying to escape religious oppression of the Papal decree.

They told the nature-dwelling heathens to convert to their version of the faith they just fled or die.  And the red man ran away to the ominous west, only to be captured in the end and forced to live in desolate demarcated zones.  If they didn’t fall for the anointed dead-living guy, then they took to the bottle and casinos hook, line, and sinker.  As long as they were inebriated on something, the ones in power didn’t care.

Then something really bizarre happened.  “I think, therefore I am!”  And a new religion based on logic began, the mighty faith of science.  Jesus and Buddha were bumped in pop culture for reason as generations of haunted logical minds emerged, slaying trees for skyscrapers.  Engineers and scientists became the high priests, leaving poets and artists hungry on the streets as they paved over the world in equations of rationality.

And this is the bright world we live in today, deifying the mad-scientist syndrome, worshipping computers, television, and the most flashy advertising.  The God-eyed geeks don’t even knock anymore; instead AT&T calls three times a week so sure their persistence will convert me to their frequency.  They can’t even think of a creative names for their new corporate gods, MCI, AT&T, just log onto www.dot blah, blah, blah…but wait, their’s Sprint…”AHHH!” as I run for the door to go spend some alone time in nature.

If Jesus walked into a church he would barf.  He wouldn’t even buy a shirt with the corporate Christian logo WWJD.  There’s another way we can keep them in line.  He would raise his arms in desperation and cry out, “Mother, Mother!  Why did you even give birth to me if it was become all this?” and run out the door shouting, “Always look on the bright side of life…”

If Buddha walked into a temple, he would bang his head on the gong and cry.  He would grab the monks by their ears and fling them through the temple entrance back into life, shaking a fist at them in chaotic glee for their self-imposed isolation.

If Mohammed went to Mecca he would rage, break out his Uzi and rage at the hypocrisy of the Jihad and the so-called sacred page used as every other religion uses it to slay unbelievers.

All this sad killing in the name of eternal being swells my heart with grief.  It makes me want to just end it all, this breathing, this consciousness, just jump off a cliff.  But just as approach the edge, ready to leap to escape this mad world, a mysterious voice echoes in my heart, pervading my mind and freezing my bones.

It says, “But wait, I love you.  I am love and I created you to create.  I challenge you to reclaim your joy, to walk through this orchestration of life with the vision of your heart.”

My foot slides back from the edge and I collapse in tears of revelation.  That’s it; I know it, the last straw.  I will live inspired.  I refuse to be discouraged by the world.  I will do my part to make it glow.  Nothing can stop me now!

The next morning the Jehovah’s Witnesses pound on the door with renewed ferver.  The phone bill is torn open on the kitchen table, glaring in the hundreds.  The lone neighborhood monk walks down the street beating his drum peacefully.  My computer is on the fritz again and my head aches from coffee withdrawal.  I reach for my bedside tattered copy of the Prophet and open to a random page to read,
“Your life lived is your religion.”