Religion in (my) school
Religion keeps confusing me. I know I’ve been at this before, but it is something so incomprehensible to me that I want to address it again.
When I was 15 or 16, which is quite a while ago, I made sure the catholic church removed me from their subscription list. I’d gotten into arguments with the priest who, in school, taught religion and got thrown out of the classroom quite often ‘for asking the wrong questions’. Even at that age I was aware that, if someone who is supposed to be a professional at his job (priest is a job, right?) and he can’t answer the most obvious of questions, then there’s something wrong with the background of his job.
It was around that time that I discovered nudism (as it was still called back then). That was the straw that broke the religious camel’s back: I asked the priest why Adam and Eve had decided to put on clothes when being naked was so much more comfortable.
This was the result, as it were. Words like ‘insolent’ and ‘blasphemy’ (that last one threw me, still does) were the last ones from the priest before I left that class forever.
The library was my friend after that.
Because of this ‘
Since being naked felt much better than religion, I read up a bit about the combination. Since the priest had gotten fired up so much, there had to be something.
Religion: the practice of shame and guilt (a.k.a. control)
Religion, for me (and many others), is the ultimate form of controlling others through shame and guilt. In Christianity, everyone’s born with guilt. The original sin. In Islam the body has to be covered all the time as that is ‘the law’ (of Islam), and exposing one’s ‘intimate parts’ is sinful.
Sin, according to Wikipedia, almost always refers to religion. Almost always? Yes, there is a trigonomy function written as sin as well, but that’s not the one on display here.
So, sin is a human invention. Sin is an offence to a God or divine law. It’s interesting that there are Christians and also Muslims who are naturists, despite their godly laws of sin and guilt and shame and what not. And the good thing for them is: their god hasn’t struck them down for being disobedient. Insolent. Shameful. Guilty. Any ‘striking down’ so far has come from people who stick to their holy books, be it verbally or literally (using techniques involving throwing rocks etc.).
Rocks should be used to hike over. Naked. Without the burden of some religion or god hovering over you for doing ‘the wrong thing’. Because being naked is natural. It is how we’re born.