My Religion.
I don't have any religion. “Non religion” is my religion, I mean that I believe in not to have any religion. Some people ask me why I don't believe in anything. My answer is because I believe in myself, instead of praying for gods for everything in my decision I make.
People are so religious because people need someone to support them. In this case, emotionally and psychologically. If people believe that there is always someone who's looking down for you and try to make thing good for you, people can be so strong. People will have confidence if there is always someone who's on your side. And also people can be honest and sincere to whatever they do when they think there's someone who knows you and judge you.
To me, I don't want to depend on anybody in my life. If I got a problem, I like to solve it by myself, not to beg for god. If I was depressed, I have to make me feel better. I know that I'm the only one who can control my life. I'm not saying that believing in god is wrong. But to me, this world is pretty scientific, I don't think there is no one who can do anything or one special person or power which is extraordinary. Every movement we make has reason and cause. I don't want to blame or switch the meaning.
In ancient world, religions were used for the power of politics. The first reason for religions might be good and modest, Christ's or Buddha's beliefs sound sincere, and their first reasons were not to conquer the world. The ugly thing is that, smart politician took advantage of those wonderful ideas, and used it to make the public believe in them. They associated themselves with Gods. At that point, the meaning of the religion changed. Romans took total advantage of the power of the Christianity, and tried to take over the world. Chinese used the power of Buddhism to make people believe in the politics.
Sometimes, when they went to far, people can't see what they are doing. For example, when priests asked them to make donations, they have no doubt doing that, and moreover, they make extremely high donations. I think the idea of donating is sincere, because that money might help some other people who are suffering from poverty, or starvation. However, there is no necessity to pay like ten thousand dollars for church unless you are a millionaire, or in a group. When my father sent his mother three thousand dollars because he thought that she raised her with many struggles, and now, he wanted to help her as much as he can. We know that she's having hard life, and she's depend on my uncle. At my uncle's house, they are not that rich, so they appreciated my dad. However, she spent it all on donation for some kind of mysterious religion. We are not saying that the donating was wrong. But we don't believe in the religion at all, and we often had talked that what the religious group is saying is cheesy and so on. We are pretty sure that the money were used by those priests. We don't blame on her because for her, it was totally right thing. But we wanted her to spend the money on her direct life. If she is happy with it, we shouldn't say any thing any more. But donating for religious group is something we are really suspicious about. I heard many tricks that many religious priests did, basically, unnecessary waste on money. That's why I decided not to have any religion. In this society, we hardly can trust on anybody, nor even on religion. (Not all the time, of course, however…) Some people might say that we can't trust nobody, that's why we need to have religion. But for me, I rather stay by myself rather than try to find some place where I can belong.
I don't have any religion, but does this mean that I don't have to have wedding ceremony or funeral ceremony? Basic idea for those ceremony have something to do with religion. It is ridiculous to have any type of religion's ceremony, but I still think that I should have some kind of party. If my husband was so religious? I wouldn't mind what he believes, but I can't just follow his religion and do cerebration in his family's way because my belief is not to follow any religion. I respect all the religion in the world, but it also means I don't accept anything.
Religion is a complicated thing. My friend is Jews, and her boyfriend is a Catholic. His mother asked my friend to have a wedding in a church, but is means a rejection to her religion for her. She could insist that she wants to have a wedding in a Jewish way, but she also know he wouldn't want it. So she thought that they could have in a neutral way without having any religious meaning. However, his mother said if they don't have a wedding in a church, they can't accept her in their family. It is so ridiculous that we must know that there are millions of people who believe in different idea in the United States. We know it, and we talk about it, but when it comes to you, people can't accept it.
When I went to Buddhist funeral, I was so confused. My friend way praying for body and for the God with some kind of religious movement. He sit down and bowed couple times, and stand up and do some ritual movement, and he repeated several times. I wanted to pray for the body, but I was the only one who were not in the religion, and I had no idea how to cope with it. I just prayed in neutral way. It may look lacking in spirits, or whatever, to other people in the situation. When we across the religion, it is hard to define the line between the respect to the body, and respect to my religion.
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