God? Jesus? Huh?!

religion is a weird topic. sometimes, people get really defensive about their particular religion - either that, or persuasive, trying to convince you that what they believe is the only "right" way.

if someone asks me my religious beliefs, (or the more common phrase, "what are you?"), i ususally answer as "uhm...i don't really know." which is true - i really don't.

religion is kind of a funny thing to me; growing up, my family hasn't stayed in any one church for all that long. i've been christian, catholic, lutheran, methodist, even mormon...and i don't know what half of those things even mean.

when i was younger, church was a dreaded word. i used the excuse of being uncertain in my religious beliefs to get me out of going to it - i told my parents that i could better pray and preach from inside my own home. in reality, i just didn't want to get up early on a sunday morning.

as i grew up, religion became less and less mentioned around my house. we stopped going to church, except for on the special holidays. sometimes, we would switch churches; one day, we went to Trinity instead of Redeemer, and we never went back to Redeemer again. then the days rolled by...and we just didn't even think about church anymore. we stopped going. period.

a couple of summers later, i flew solo to california to spend the summer with my cousins. i hadn't thought about church - and when i got there, i was treated with a surprise. my cousins? they followed a religion i hadn't tried yet - mormon.

the biggest shock to me wasn't the religion itself - it was the setup. church went for three hours - and for someone who hadn't been conditioned to attending such a thing, i was wiped from all the religion by the time we got home each sunday. it was interesting, though - this was the closest i'd ever gotten with a religion, and i had discussions with my aunt about it. i told her how now i was starting to feel terrible for not attending church all these years, when they were here putting in three hours every week, not even counting wednesday nights. she encouraged me to talk to my parents about it, and she told me something i'd never known before: my dad had been a mormon.

it's a long story. basically, here's the gist of it:
while he was growing up, my dad's entire family was mormon. mormons have this thing called a "mission" - i don't really know all that much about it, but it's basically when they take a year or so after high school and go around in a certain location trying to spread the word of the mormon church and to recruit new members. my dad's sister, heidi, went on a mission to hawaii after high school. while on her mission, she contracted pancreatic cancer, and had to hospitilazed. it was severe, and she was very sick. the church refused to help pay the medical bills for her. heidi died that year, still on her mission serving her church, and my dad turned his back on the mormon church. he doesn't necessarily hold the church responsible for what happened; it's more like his faith in it had been broken. my dad hasn't been to any mormon church services since.

all of this was news to me, and i didn't blame my dad one bit for his decision to leave, and i still don't. i didn't not become a mormon because of what happened - for all i know, i still might pursue that religion later on in my life. i didn't become a mormon because it's not right for me, right now.

i came back from california with a new, interesting outlook on religion. i still didn't have one, but i had experienced a new one that i hadn't known existed - how many other religions out there have i yet to try?

it was ironic. that year, i met a kid at my junior high school who was mormon. he didn't talk to me about his religion, but i know a lot of people made fun of him for it, due to the whole "mormons having multiple wives" thing, back in the olden days. the irony continued when my dad married his high school sweetheart, a mormon, that following summer. shari has tried to convince me to go with her to church many times, but i haven't yet. at least she has enough good sense to not even offer that to my dad.

religion started getting mentioned more and more as i grew up. i went to OneFest that year with some friends; a concert type thing where christian rock bands played that advertised and promoted prayer to God. i didn't come back "changed" or anything; i still believed the same things. i visited my grandma, a diehard christian, and attended church with her (she doesn't respond well to the whole "i don't know what i believe in" thing). i still felt the same exiting that church as i felt entering it. i've been involved in several debates with friends, them going head to head about God. "how can He actually be there if people are getting raped and killed everyday? What kind of God does that?" some say. "It's all part of his plan," others argue back. "He's got a plan for us." Me? I just sit there, mutely. i try and take it all in - and when asked for my views, i draw a blank; for i don't have any to offer.

today, i was attending Lunch Bunch, a christian religious group at my school. it meets once at lunch every week - basically it's just a bunch of teenagers and one adult who brings free food for everyone, then 5 minutes of quick prayer before being dismissed to go to class. i usually only go for the food - the free pizza is a much better alternative to the expensive inedibles in the cafeteria - and i only go if Irene goes. i feel bad going just for the food, so i always try and keep an open mind during the prayer/sermon - technically, i am still searching for a religion. anyway, today's sermon thingy was talking about how Jesus died on the cross, for he had sinned. "God was punishing Jesus for his sins," the lady who provides the free food and gives the sermons says. "Jesus had sinned - he was a crinimal, a drug dealer, a homosexual, and God was punishing him for it."

at the words "homosexual", my head jerked up from its bent in prayer position. Irene, sitting right next to me, is bi-sexual. Irene is undecided in her religious views as well, and her face showed shock and slight hurt as the lady finished her sermon. amen was said, we were dismissed, and as we left the classroom, i was at a loss for words. what do you say when words can't solve?

(in case you are wondering, Irene did feel better about it later - i told her this was one of the reasons i didn't believe in religion.)

but that statement angered me too. not just because of Irene, but because of the mere stupidity of it all. some religions say that homosexuality is a sin, and that they actually believe that disgusts me. they say you have to be a certain way, or that God won't love you. if God was really all that great, He would love you the way you are.

there are other things besides that, too. way back in the 1600s, maybe, the astronomer Galileo was imprisoned by the Roman Catholic Church for believing and stating that the Earth was NOT the center of the universe, but that the Sun was instead. look who was right...and look who was imprisoned until his death.

sure, religion can bring people together to worship - but it can also tear people apart. it can ruin so many things - friendships, relationships, futures, lives; but create so many good things, too. but is something that is so destructive even worth having?

religion.
your guess is as good as mine.
are you there, God? it's me, Confused...