What is Religion?

“Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?”

— EUGENE O’NEILL

The Native Americans were bewildered by the white man’s religion, which focused on worshiping one day a week. They viewed tithing to the church as little more than trying “to bribe the Creator,” a concept they found ludicrous. They did not understand the white culture’s view of a punitive, vengeful God, who gave man one life to get it right in spite of so many temptations. Robert Roskind

Do we feel free to be human in our Western religions? I for one always felt watched and criticised for being me. I found myself trapped in an unloving and unforgiving system, always in danger of “sinning.” Looking around at other systems, Buddhism for example, I began to suspect that the beliefs I grew up with were unnecessarily repressive and narrow.

Who is primitive then, us or those from other cultures and races? It’s hard to look in the mirror sometimes.

Life is to be lived, but we can forget that if we buy all the “Thou shalt nots.” The principles I live by encourage kindness, forgiveness, beauty and intelligent questioning. Administering pain, even if it’s…