Thursday, May 22, 2014

Running From Religion

I have been asked why I didn't hate my father for his fits of rage in which he would beat his children until he drew blood. The answer is a simple one; he closely resembled the God that I had been taught to see in the Bible on which I was raised. I was sure that righteous fathers were supposed to cleanse our sins by demanding blood sacrifice from their own children, as had God.

In modern times, we are told that God is love, as if the God that made children simply to slay them had never existed. How convenient the memories of people can be, that they forget the pain of the past rather that face it and seek to winnow out the truth from all the actions that make up the present. Abuse changes the brain into an animal brain by overriding judgement with raw animal instinct to fight or flee. Most of life is coping as victims, unless we own our human power to make change in our thoughts and actions.

This power that we call "free will" is what I believe instills full humanity into our animal bodies. This is what I refer to as The Sacred Spirit, which has nothing to do with the vengeful, jealous gods that early homo sapiens saw all around them. The God of Cain and Abraham seems to have nothing to do with The Sacred Spirit; it is, rather, a god of animal rage. This is the God my father followed. For this reason, I have had much compassion for the situation he was in as a father.

My mother was married to the fathers of her Roman Catholic religion. She tortured and neglected her children to purify us, and neglected her husband in order to purify herself and her children for her entry into heaven, where she would be forever married to God and his son. Apparently her God approved of this, as her church honored her with medals for her faith. I have little compassion for her, as she fed her family to the abusers in order to protect her own virtue and standing in her church family.

I feel greatly betrayed by those who act as if the abuses of this version of God and his religions never happened to anyone that they personally encountered. These fine folks want to say that those still suffering flashbacks of the trauma inflicted by this God are ill or unforgiving. How can we forgive or forget what still wakes us screaming in terror?

I have read the Book of Job. I see how this God rewards those most faithful to him, and I want no part of a God who would kill my children to prove his own power to a demon. I want no part of a God who tells fathers to kill their own sons and makes a son to sacrifice to himself. I want no part of a God who chooses, for eternal life in his heavenly family, only a few of the billions of people continuing to be created.

This was the God of my father and mother. Is it any wonder that my parents felt they should sacrifice their own children to this God? Is it any wonder that we have turned away from their God and his religion?