Religious Belief vs Personal Integrity

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Unless you choose a monastic type of lifestyle, chances are your religious beliefs will at some point conflict with your inner beliefs. What does it take for us to admit these conflicts, without resorting to notions of our fallen nature or being sinful or imperfect? Can that conflict indicate a different truth?

When I was a Christian, perhaps the most glaring example of such conflict was the notion that sex (outside marriage) was sinful. My inner self did not see it as truly sinful, and years later I was glad for my earlier sexual experiences. My inner belief about sex (as expressed through my actions) was at odds with my religion, just as my inner beliefs about a number of things were at odds with my religion. Yet at the time, I believed (as I had been taught) that this was a conflict between my fallen nature and true godliness.

Hence, my inner integrity was frequently in conflict.

After decades as a Christian, I left the faith. It wasn't an overnight thing. But one of the unexpected results was that my inner integrity began to feel whole, no longer in conflict. My inner beliefs could now be expressed outwardly without any feeling of conflict. It took a few years for me to comprehend this. In my mind, I no longer see us as fallen. And we are not sinful in our imperfection, just human.

Sinful or just human. Perhaps you have a third option.

During the course of my life, I have finally been able to see life in many more colors than before, and not try to impose perfection on an imperfect existence.

People are imperfect human beings, and to understand that of them is the potential for the appreciation of both the complexity and imperfection of all culture and religion.

However, people do things per human reason and survival, and religion still serves that purpose in many areas of the world that offer no better ways of binding the social unit together by a common purpose, social interaction, and assistance in time of need.

I haven't missed a day of Catholic church in over a year, as I enjoy the social interaction, including singing with human beings and if you really talk one on one to most anyone rarely does anyone dogmatically practice the religion per what it says in the 'manual'.

People, overall, are there to share companionship and love and to treat their neighbors as their brothers and sisters, and nah, the technical parts of the church do not always agree with reality, but most people look past that and focus on love instead.

I have no problem just not speaking the parts I do not believe in but never the less there are over a thousand kind and caring human beings there overall, that do care about each other as human beings, and that is where the prize is in love, not technical details, that no longer make sense that most people do know do not make sense, and just tolerate like all the other imperfections in life.

People are the prize not facts in my opinion.

But from an adult stand point it's much easier to tolerate the differences as they did confuse the hell out of me when I was younger, not knowing that one CAN accept what doesn't make sense simply as it doesn't make sense, and move on, in fellowship of what is REAL AND BENEFICIAL per Love AND THE HUMAN CONNECTION IN ALL ITS IMPERFECTION AND BENEFITS AS WELL.

But truly in my local area that once held the title of having the most churches per square mile in the Guinness world record book, I WILL NOT ATTEND REGULARLY any other church regularly as people of other religions are ostracized as well as people who have alternate sexual orientations, openly, freely, and sarcastically and it makes me want to spit nails, and yes I've been know to do it, metaphorically speaking, and documented as such too. :)

My priest who is a monsignor is an old Tennis buddy of mine from high school, and he simply will not TOLERATE IT AT ALL, and that is why I still go, regardless of what the technical manual of all the LABYRINTH OF IT SAYS, THAT I do not agree with.

GOD = UNCONDITIONAL LOVE to me, and at least in my LIFE I can prove GOD exists SPECIFICALLY PER THIS EMPIRICAL MEASURE OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE = GOD.

But HELL no, God does not exist, per UNCONDITIONAL Love, in many folks lives, particularly these days as science shows that human empathy has dropped off approximately 30 percent in empirical measures per the last several decades, among college age adults.

Part of the reason why I'm not religious is because most religions contradict my personal beliefs. I have my own morals, beliefs, and values, and I'm not going to abandon them just because some ancient work of text says I should believe something else. I mean, I'm not a stick in the mud, my values do progress and change over time, but they are MY values, not someone else's. I don't think of myself, my actions, or my moral compass as being infallible; I have encountered many occasions where something I believed to be a certain way, was in fact the opposite. C'est la vie. I don't know everything, and I'm not in control of everything either. The universe is a crazy, unpredictable place, and as much as I like everything to be sensical and orderly, I just have to deal with things being the exact opposite.

There really doesn't need to be any conflict between religious faith and personal integrity, as long as you don't take as literal truths the ancient texts that were written over a thousand years ago. Even the pope today has questioned some of the Catholic doctrines on homosexuality, position of women in the church and evolution. Belief in God doesn't necessarily contradict Darwinian evolution and the cosmos. Religious bigotry and fundermentalism is the greatest threat to modern civilisation today and if not defeated, will send the world back into the dark ages. Having faith in a God is a noble human quality which serves as a moral code to treat our fellow human beings with respect. One can not believe in a God but still lead a life of respecting our fellow human beings. It comes down to the personal choice of the individual.

My own faith went from literal to non-literal. Having studied theology, I know in great detail how evolution and creation are superficially compatible (Documentary Hypothesis et al). But the more you understand this in detail, the more you see how the non-literal approach undermines Biblical integrity. At best, Jesus was an imperfect parable of a philosophical ideal. And having faith in God? Unless you allow all faiths, you have to be exclusive. And if you allow all faiths then you diminish each faith. Morality predates religion, and only religion can add the carrot and stick of sin and the afterlife. And yes, living nobly comes down to personal choice.

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