Religious fanatics

(Originally posted on Sunday, 2 December 2018)

I am a religious person (Latin/Roman Catholic), but it bothers me when some people (from ANY religion) say that “their God” is the “true One”. There is only one God, by definition. For every person and for every religion. I believe in God who loves all good people, not only good people from a particular religion.

Yes, different religions “define” God in different ways, but at the same time they point out that we can't really understand the true nature of God. In my religion it's the true nature of the Trinity that cannot be understood. I have no trouble with that at all, but it also makes me realize that people from other religions, as well as atheists, can have their doubts concerning my religion.

What really matters, however, is the fact that in ANY religion there are people who seem to blessed and who are universally seen as “living saints”. Unfortunately in every religion there are also people who are fanatics. The number of fanatics and their inclination to violence is different in every religion, but it only really means that some religions can be used for political goals more easily than others. Nothing more.

In every religion the most important thing is the belief that the spiritual world really exist and the good part of that world (God) tries to help us. The thing is that we still have our free will and this is why some of our deeds are not really good (to say the least). It also explains why some good people suffer greatly from deeds done by other people (other people have their own free will too).

I believe that there is also the evil part of the spiritual world (demons?) that tries to make us do things that are more or less bad for us or for other people. Or both. It explains why some good people from time to time do bad things or have some very strange thoughts/fantasies that even they can’t explain. Or why some good people turn into bad people over time.

I myself sometimes feel as if I were being torn – on one hand I know/feel what is good for me (long sleep, healthy food and some physical exercises) and what I should do (my everyday duties), but on the other hand I can’t help myself and I do other things (spending too much time playing computer games or browsing the Internet). Moreover I sometimes react so nervously and/or so out of place that I don’t even recognize myself. Freakishly disturbing feeling.

Many people can't understand why the world is not perfect, forgetting that the reason for that is our free will. However there is also a kind of good side to this fact. A person can be judged properly only in an environment that is NOT perfect. If we were living in a perfect world then there would be no way of judging us by our decisions made in difficult circumstances, because there would be no such circumstances at all.

I will never believe that God likes when people hurt (or even kill) other people in God’s name and this is why I believe that a truly religious person (a person who listens to the good side of the spiritual world) will never interpret his (or her) Holy Book in a way that allows such things.

By the way, please notice that punishing people for their crimes is not done in God’s name, but in the name of the law. God wants us to forgive our oppressors, but it does NOT mean that God is against any punishments. Without appropriate punishments the world would be a very bad place indeed. At the same time we should not allow punishments for PURELY religious reasons. The crucial word is “purely”. When arguing about things like abortion a religion is only a side-issue that is used to divert the attention from the most important issue – the well being of the unborn baby. The interest of the parents of the baby is only one side of the story and we shouldn't ignore the other side! Please notice that the baby and the mother are two different organisms with two different sets of genes!

In most cases religions help people handle their own weaknesses as well as difficult situations caused by other people. Unfortunately religions have always been used by politicians who are quite often very far from God. They steer some weak pseudo-religious people into doing evil things apparently in God’s name, but in fact they do it in the name of their own political and/or personal gains. Sometimes they use the mass media to steer the whole societies and/or religions into waging wars against each other. That’s pure evil.

One of the most important people who advocated for the respect and peace between religions was John Paul II and I must admit that the longer I live the more I think he was a truly unique person. Of course he was criticized by some of the Catholics for some of his symbolic gestures, but a person who is truly religious should understand his intentions easily.

Now let me give you my own explanation of the fact that we can’t even “detect” God. Obviously it's a huge simplification, but I use it just to show you my own feelings about this topic. Imagine a 2-dimensional person “living” on a page of paper. Can he (or she) see the third dimension or detect it in any other way? No – his eyes and his tools are 2-dimensional and it is impossible for him to see nor detect higher dimension, by definition. However, he can see the results of some things done in higher dimension, for example he could see an item drawn on his page of paper by a 3-dimensional pencil. For him it would be a miracle, but for a “3-dimensional god” it would be a piece of cake. Except maybe that the “3-dimensional god” would have to know how to actually draw the item using the 3-dimensional pencil.