What the hell is wrong with organized religions?

I have been thinking of religions lately. Partly because of this entry (I was linked by my friend Vlad, who apparently has rather good grasp on things I like), partly because couple of Jehovah's Witnesses came to visit the Residence the other day. I was not around, but apparently they knocked on each flat door and asked from which countries the inhabitants are from. They then gave Watchtowers and Awake!-magazines in the languages of the countries mentioned. So now I have religious magazines in Finnish and English on the kitchen table.

I don't much base for organized religion. I trust the scientific approach as far as our normal life goes, and I quite agree with the idea of evolution and Newtonian physics (yes, I know they only apply as long as the objects travel slower than 10% of speed of light). When we step outside the area that can be observed and verified directly by our senses, I get a bit unsure. They say that it all started with a Big Bang, which seems like a sensible conclusion from the known facts. The same goes for post-Einstein physics. They say it allows pretty much everything from time travel to reaching distant stars in days. This may very well be so, and I do know that CD-players would be impossible to manufacture without Einstein's theories.

But when you start to think about it, REALLY think about it; the universe is so huge and big and infinite. There are no borders but it expands all the time. And every material is coming from the same spot and has just spread around. There may be evidence to support it - and I do want to believe - but it's too big. And the same goes for the religious alternatives.

But to be honest, I'm not very concerned. Some days I feel that there might be something out there, and on some days I don't. In general, I feel that it's more important to know what's inside than outside. And whatever you believe, they are your beliefs and don't really belong to anyone else. If I discover something that works to me, the last thing I want to hear is that I'm wrong. Incidentally, Lutheran church (at least in Finland) is pretty cool with the subject. Apparently they (we?) have priests who don't believe in Hell. And priests that only believe in God as a symbol for human goodness. And priests that don't believe that women can be priests, which pretty well shows the other side of the tolerance-argument, but I digress.

I do read about other religions; believes often tell something important about the culture and the person itself. And so I was reading Finnish Awake! at the kitchen table, while I was eating my breakfast müsli. I admit that I dont know much about Jehovahs Witnesses, other than they go from door to door and nobody seems to like them. It's all very vague.

There was a longish article in Young people ask-series titled Why is it wrong to date in secret?. It was basically the moral story of Jessica, with additional quotes and explanations from the Bible. Jessica's story goes as follows;

Jessica had to do a choice. Everything started when one of her classmates, Jeremy, told he was interested in her. Jessica says: "He was very good looking, and my friends said that you will never find a guy as honourable as him. Many girls were interested in him, but he only had eyes for me".

After a time, Jeremy asked Jessica out. She tells: "I explained to him that I am a Jehovah's Witness, and that I could not date anyone who was not a Witness. But then Jeremy got an idea; we could date without telling my parents.

[...] Surprisingly, Jessica accepts Jeremy's idea. "I was sure that if I dated him, I could make him love Jehovah", she says. [Then] Jessica [...] heard about another Christian girl in the same situation. "When I found out that she had ended her relationship, I knew what I had to do", Jessica says. Was ending the relationship easy? No! "He was the only boy who I had ever truly cared about", Jessica says. "I cried every day for weeks."

Jessica also knew something else: she loved Jehovah, and even if she had gotten sidetracked, she genuinely wanted to do what was right. In time, the pain went away. Jessica tells; "my relationship with Jehovah is now better than ever. I am really thankful that he gives to us at the right time the kind of guidance we need."

(From Herätkää!, June 2007)

The girl cried for weeks and imagine what the boy felt like. I don't really know what the teaching of the story was - other than "cults are bad for you, mmkay?" - But I'd like you to imagine what it would be like if there is no Witness community on the area. The article also mentions that dating is forbidden altogether if the people aren't old enough to marry and prepared to do so after relatively short dating.

Religion is what you make of it, what you believe in. You can try to convince others to believe in the same way, but it's rather inhuman to make people live in a way that makes them unhappy. Denying something purely because somebody says you should does sound a bit perverse for me, just because somebody may have probably said something against it, possibly, 3 000 years ago. As such I really like the relaxed attitude of the ground-level Lutheran church; the higher ups are not as much fun (few years ago they fired an employee for being gay).

I am, of course, a product of my society, and of my generation. People talk about traditions, values and history. Personally I think that for them to carry on, they should have some other things for going for them than just age. And not everything old is bad, but that story sends chills down my spine. Actually, I felt pretty bad for few days. The worst thing is that they didn't even think Jeremy's feelings were worth exploring. The only important thing is that Jessica had gotten closer to God!