A NEW YEARS RESOLUTION
This is the time of year when forward-looking men and women make resolutions—they reflect on their life, who they are and who they want to be; and they resolve to change it for the better. Now few among us have ever adopted "Say Buh-bye to Jesus" as our New Year resolution, but many people of faith have long felt uneasy with the religious doctrine forced on them, and for years, they've been giving themselves excuses for why they cant move on.
More than ever before in history, the assumption that faith is a necessity for leading a good and moral life has fallen to pieces. In 2008, the well-financed intrusion of corporate religion unto the national political scene has raised the eyebrows of millions. Others have been poisoned by the outcome of eight years of prayer-based politics in the White House. Others feel that the most touted religious values do less to improve society than to corrode the fundamental human values of kindness and fairness that truly moral people espouse. Faith-based constraints impede medical research, reducing the quality of life for the living. The intrusion of scriptural literalists into the domain of science would be comical if they weren't so serious; their efforts will undercut the ability of our children and our society to compete in science and technology on the international stage.
Meanwhile, our village philosophers stand on the public square and ask us to contemplate why we ever began to believe in the first place. That suspicious line between religion and myth has now been breached, and faith is making a hasty and ill-prepared defensive. On its merits, religion has no inherent mechanism to keep up with the tsunamic discoveries from history, archaeology, philosophy, biology and astronomy.
Being skeptically non-religious is now just as fashionable as being religious was during the Crusades. And the great part about internalizing skepticism as a way of life is that you don't need to belong to any club; in fact, the best skeptics are highly skeptical of each other.
So if you are looking for a great New Year resolution: might I suggest this. Plan to say buh-bye to religion this year. Start by reading the books that have been written on the subject by all sides and try to think outside the box that your family and society forced you into.
If, come January of 2010, you don't like life without religion, resolve to be re-converted. But to know if such a resurgence is worthwhile, you need to take a hard look at your life and your faith, and that's awful hard to do from the inside looking out.
Resolve to give faith-free living a try.
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