Why I believe in higher power and not institution of God.

   I normally don't attempt to touch any controversial topics on my blog, things like religion, politics, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc, never enter my topics here. But once in a while it's nice to stir things up a bit with a bit of controversial topic. Let's talk about my views on religion. It is not a big secret that I am a very liberal person, for the most part. But many people assume that because we home-school our kids we must have super conservative views on things. Many people assume that in our family the man runs the house (for all of you who know us you know that this is far from the truth!), women are expected to obey, we don't believe in science, are highly religious, don't associate with people who are "different" from us, and generally eat granola and walk barefoot (OK, the last one might be a bit exaggerated ... ). The truth is far from it. I believe in equality for all people (no matter the gender, race, sexual orientation, political views, etc), I believe that everyone is entitled to live a happy life, I believe in conservation of our planet (yes, I am an environmentalist), and I am not religious at all. But why not religion? 

   I grew up in a very conservative, Roman Catholic family. As a matter of fact most of people living in Poland are Catholic. We celebrated all religious holidays, spent all Sundays at church, we were baptized and received First Communion. Nobody ever questioned the way things were done. It was almost part of routine. Everyone did the same. 

   When my parents came to Canada, we continues to attend church on Sundays and even upheld Polish Catholic traditions like blessing the food for Easter at a Polish church. I guess it was a bit of normalcy for my parents in a foreign country. Once I was a teenager we moved to a little city and the only church near by was a Canadian Roman Catholic church. It didn't matter; we were at the Church every Sunday. The church we went to had a great priest that never touched on, or lectured about topics like gay rights, and marriage of priests, although everyone knew the Catholic Church’s stance on those topics. But the priest wanted to concentrate the efforts of the church on helping others rather than alienating some. The church had numerous fundraisers for natural disaster reliefs, collecting winter clothes for homeless, or collecting money to send youth on pilgrimages. It was a very wholesome environment. 

   When I entered post-secondary education I was very interested in history. As a catholic I was never taught the true history of the church. We were brought up not to question anything about the church as that was alike to questioning God. I also took many classes in sciences and psychology (psychology ended up being my major and history my minor), and I became more dubious about the way that church conducted itself. Gone were the days when medieval priests used natural occurrences like floods or solar eclipses to tell people of the wrath of God, and yet many churches still used nature to further the fear of God. 

   Once I learned the history of Christianity, and how not even Christians living close to Jesus' time were able to agree on the events of his life and death, and how during the Council of Nicaea they basically took a vote on what the new, legal religion was going to believe in, it was even harder to think of the so called "divine" events as true. Even the date of Christmas was not what I originally thought of it! But breaking tradition was much harder to do. I was still used to going to church on Sundays, observing all Holidays, and fearing the wrath of God if I didn't. As if God was taking attendance every Sunday and if I missed going to church I would have to go and confess it to some random stranger in a dark booth who held the pass to God's gates. 

   When I met Daddy I discovered that his family was Presbyterian. Since I was always very liberal I held a view that his religion was his and mine was mine. I never once tried to convert him. I didn't believe that you got special privileges for converting more "unfaithful"! So when we got married in my church (he was a little less stuck on religion than me), the priest married me and not him. That's right, under the church law I received the sacrament of marriage, but since he was not Catholic he could not receive it. (I basically married myself then ...) When Funky Monkey was born 9 months later I hurried to get him Baptized, since that was what we were brought up to do. But once Girly Monkey was born I lacked God-parents to go through baptism. And in Catholic Church only Catholics were fit enough to stand as God-parents. I offered to bring in my other friends who were Christian, but not Catholic, but they were viewed as inferior! So she never got baptized and neither did her younger 2 brothers. I did not believe that there was some original sin that my newborns were plagued with. The church would not even welcome my new baby without the "In-crowd" to vouch for them.

   That was the last straw. I have long questioned churches views on Gay marriages right, women becoming priest, Priests marrying, equality of people, and all the other views that irked me. I had many Gay friends who I did not see as inferior or sinful, I believe in women being just as good as men at being spiritual leaders, I also think that if priests are to be good leaders of families, then they should have families of their own. (Yes, I do believe that Jesus was married and possibly had a child.) This combined with historical knowledge of church and it's beginning, and I finally confessed to myself that I was not Catholic. So we started looking for a new religion. But a religion that is purely formed on loving others, equality, taking care of our earth, and just making sure that we help those less fortunate doesn't exist. I realized that for the most part religion is about "Us" vs. "Them", about separating people, about elevating oneself above others. Religions spark wars and hate not love and unity. Religions give people the idea that Earth is at our disposal to do as we please as opposed to taking care of it because it belongs to everyone. Religions are the product of people's power struggles and not something ordained from God above (which, by the way, is where ...?) Religion is an invention by people for people. 

   Does that mean that I don't believe in God? Far from it. I believe in higher power. If you ever watched a smile on a baby's face, or saw a sunset, or felt love, or marveled at the beauty of a flower you would understand that there is a supreme being that is responsible for that (whatever you choose to call him/her/it). It's something that doesn't conflict with science, quite on the contrary. Stephen Hawking, a brilliant scientist, is looking to discover a theory of everything. In his quest he is really trying to prove that there is a higher power, God, if you will. So I will never deny my friendship to you based on what you believe in or who you are, and I hope that you will accept it without judging me. Until the day comes when we prove that God exists, I will still believe in Love, Unity, Equality, and Respect, and not because some religion dictated that but because I am human that was born this way!