I'm about fed up with religion and religious nuts. I have not followed any religion in years. Like 10 years or more. Closer to 15. I just gave up. Didn't give up on God, gave up on man made B.S.
I grew up a Jehovah's Witness, never liked that end of times shit. That particular religion is cold and emotionless. Ever been to a Jehovah's Witness funeral? Sounds like the dude is reading from the McDonald's drive thru window. The meetings they have are just torment to a child, hell they would be torture to me as an critical thinking adult. Everything revolves around doing God's will while preparing for the inevitable end of the world. They would harp on that shit so hard that every time it rained or stormed real hard I would be looking out the window for the four horsemen! I just knew Jesus was coming to whip somebody's ass!
Evangelicals, Catholics, Baptists, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Protestant, name it, any of the sons of Abraham I can do without. I'll put it this way, if the religion involves a book written in the bronze age of man's development and curses anyone with hell or gives written instruction on how to treat a slave then I am not interested in your religion. I'm liberal but I'm not tolerant of that horseshit.
I'll define tolerance for you: A fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.
Being open minded does NOT mean I respect everyone and everything. I am most certainly not that type of liberal. I'm not a fiscal conservative, I'm not an activist or any of that stuff. I am a Latino/Native American but that is like the 4th thing that's wrong with me.
I am a regular person who knows that there is a God and it is not complicated or as simplistic as some, me included, think it is. Vine DeLoria Junior, one of my all time favorite writes wrote in his book 'God Is Red' that if you took all of the religions in the world, the 'Red Road' included and removed all of the dogma, all of the cultural aspects of it, the 'tools of the trade' so to speak. Remove Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddah, Ganesh, the White Buffalo Calf Woman, all of them. Take them out all together, what you would have left is what The Creator's message to us would be.
Pretty simple really BUT there are some, not just some but MOST, who would flip their collective shit if you dare to do that. I have been told in my face that to separate out the White Buffalo Calf woman from the pipe or sweat lodge is a direct slap in the face of The Creator. Now here is my question, what exactly did people do before we had the pipe or the sweat? What did people use before we were taught about laying tobacco? What did people do before there was a Torah or Bible? THAT is a question that confuses the hell out of most. Now because I take this stand I get all types of unwanted feedback of how I am not "walking the Red Road"
What if I don't need ceremony or literature to have a personal relationship with The Creator as I (mis)understand her? What if I have witnessed too many giving lip service to a higher power that keeps them in mental turmoil and acting like a savage? I mean to use that word in the sense that a savage is a person who does have knowledge of themselves or kind. I'm talking about people who get caught up in the ceremony of things and if they are or are not getting it right that they forget why they are in that ceremony in the first place. I know of guys who go to a sweat-lodge at the drop of a hat for any and all issues that come up. Why can't you take the lesson from the last sweat-lodge and make it stick? You think actually smoking a pipe and going to a sweat changes you? Obviously not if you have to run back into each time the same damn issue arises. "I drink too much" so you go sweat but keep drinking and falling into "old behavior". Here's a small insight that has obviously alluded you. It is NOT old behavior if you are still doing it. If you continue to act the same way and it leads to problems with others or yourself and you pray about it constantly what does it say about your God? You can go to a Pow Wow once a day for the next year, you can smoke a pipe three times a day, sweat until you're down to six and a half pounds, but if you don't make your relationship with The Creator personal. Everything you are doing is for nothing.
Before you argue that you don't want to offend a spirit or The Creator I ask, "WHY would The Creator get offended?" Isn't that a puny little human emotion? If we call him/her THE Creator, using the positive participle THE to define everything that comes after is defined by that, how can we assume that offense is ever taken by an all powerful, loving, omnipotent being? Help me out there.
What good is religion if it offers no "re-linking" as the original word meant, to the Source? Why even attempt to practice anything if relinking or re-aligning if The Creator is like second on the list of how to contact that energy? I know about this because I remember going into a sweat trying to prepare myself for what I was going to pray out loud about when it was my turn, and I do know for a fact I was not the only person to ever do that. I know some brothers that thought it was a damn game to make it as hot as possible so they can chase some people out of the sweat. I know some who go to Pow Wow, dress in the most beautiful regalia and pray, when others are watching, very humbly. These same people will turn around and try their damnedest to snag someone they are not married too. How good is your religion if you can't control you own self morally? How strong is your personal relationship with God when Native Women have to face this? :*1 out of 3 Native women will be raped and 3 out of 4 will be physically assaulted.
*88 percent of the violence is perpetrated by non-Native men, and Tribal courts have zero authority to prosecute them.
*The murder rates is 10 times the national average.
*Native women are more likely than any race/ethnicity per capita in the U.S. to be victims of violence.
*Native women are more likely to be stalked than any other group of women.
*Between
2005-2009, U.S. attorneys declined to prosecute 50% of all Indian
country matters referred to them, 67% of which involved sexual abuse and
related matters.
(Save Wiyabi Project)
What good is religion if we forget who and what we are and if said religion does not guide us on the proper path? What kind of God do you have if you can belong to a religion/culture that provides no safety for children, elderly or women because you're too busy trying not to offend ancestors who lived and died so you could have freedom in the first place? Freedom to make a mistake AND then correct yourself, freedom to come and go as you please, freedom to worship or not worship in your own manner, freedom to gather and assist each other, freedom to support one another. DO you think ancestors will be pissed because the pipe song you sang was off key? Or the rocks you used for sweat were not as big as you could have gotten them?
I doubt it but that's just me.
