Faith

Religion stopped working for me quite a while back. It wasn't the idea that there is something greater than ourselves but rather it was the human inner workings which made it increasingly unpalatable. As I became older it was more difficult to reconcile the black and white infrastructure imposed by each religion against the reality that we know absolutely nothing. We are walking around in the dark without so much as a flashlight for guidance. 

Thus marrying my critical thinking with a structure that discouraged it wasn't going to work; especially when the human ignorance contained within each institution threatened to derail their essential message of love of self, of neighbor and reverence for our creation. The more I reflected on the human elements which encouraged divisiveness among the world population, the less attractive the idea of following any one religion became. 

Atheism wasn't right either because it extolled certainty without possessing all of the information. We are ants imagining concepts we do not fully comprehend and our hubris threatens to derail us. In that case we are better off agnostic. 

Unfortunately many people need black and white to sleep at night which is why the worst instincts of some religions are allowed to continue. Greys are not appealing because not being sure enough sows doubt which could lead to abandoning altogether. For these people the Thomas Aguinas marriage of faith with reason becomes wholly unnecessary while for me ignoring it is anathema. 

What works now is the resolute knowledge that I do not possess the ability in this body to fully comprehend. Instead I defer to a complexity that will always elude me while relying on a brain that still permits glimpses of what could lie beyond. The essential message of do not judge lest ye be judged resonates within me and I leave it at that. I will try to make my slice of the world a little better and wait to find out what may come next. 

Much of the world operates on Einstein's three pillars of fear, stupidity and greed but not everyone falls fully for these traps and, as we work towards self-improvement, we remove impediments to enlightenment one day at a time. 

We forgive others but also ourselves and quite often this is more than enough.