Religion

Easter is a Religious holiday and, like Christmas, has become quite commercial. Tacky plastic eggs filled with candy and trinkets, chocolate bunnies, and peanut butter filled chocolate eggs. Yet, to me, that is just as much of the holiday as the religious aspect. They are intertwined - even though one has nothing to do with the other - Jesus's resurrection and Cadbury caramel eggs? How did THAT happen?

I posted what I thought was a lighthearted quote on Facebook the other day about this very irony, but that was offensive to at least one friend (and perhaps others who haven't told me?). And I felt badly at the time. Yet it also got me thinking over the past few days.

I am a big proponent of everyone believing in whatever they choose. And that is up to them. It may not be what their parents, children, or best friend believe. It may be a different religion, a different God, or none at all. But that is okay because I believe that ultimately, "religion" is about the relationship between a person and their God (or Gods if that's what they believe).

I'm also a big believer in acceptance of other religions. I grew up Catholic - and will probably always consider myself Catholic, despite my now practicing and raising my kids in the Episcopalian faith. I have friends and family who practice other religions, and some who don't practice any religion at all. And I LOVE it. My children and I can embrace the faith and beliefs of others as much as our own, or learn why those who don't follow a particular religion have chosen not to.

It is troublesome to me that some organized religions promote the belief that others who are not followers of that faith will suffer at the gates of Hell, or that they are immoral, or that they are not doing God's work. The idea that one type of faith is superior to another is something I just cannot grasp. To me, that is completely contradictory to what religion is supposed to be. I believe that God (my God at least) loves all people, whether or not they go to church every single Sunday, or are hetero or homo sexual, or on birth control or not, or have had an abortion, or volunteer at the soup kitchen, or quotes the Bible, or shouts "AMEN" during the sermon on Sunday. Does God really look at a Catholic, a Jew, a Muslim, a Greek Orthodox, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Mormon, a Buddist, differently?????? Does he value one over the other? Does he give one a better seat in heaven? I can't believe he does.

(How God deals with truly evil people - Hitler, child molesters, Osama Bin Laden is a much larger and much more philisophical question! Perhaps another post...?)

Thanks for reading, and God bless.