Wisdom in religion and why it is hard to see past it.

First off I would like to establish that I am about as much an atheist as you can be.  I have been through the reasoning and find that we have rather soundly reasoned away the idea of a god and the existence of a spirit. This effectively destroys any religion's authority and allows people to dismiss any access to a god or spiritual connection. So I only view religions as social organizations that are filled with nonsense and ideas on how to act, and they confuse emotions being triggered as spiritual experiences.  For an incredibly concise and damn near perfect argument against religion, I recommend What Are You Without God?: How to Discredit Religious Thought and Rebuild Your Identity by Christopher Krzeminski 

This brings me to the point of this blog. Although I see religions only as man made organizations that should be replaced with reasoning and that are built upon the foundation of people believing bullshit, I see that they often touch on some profound truths of human interaction and self realization. Religions are filled with stories of people who thought outside the box on things like forgiveness, self-improvement, and how to treat your enemies. They mix it in with mythology and the claim that it can only come from a supernatural source, and then demand loyalty and money. I will share a story from my mission to better explain myself.

I want to make my stories accessible to everyone and not just people familiar with Mormon terminology and organization, so a little explanation of a Mormon mission first. In the mission you are assigned a companion (the totally not gay sounding term they use) who is with you 24-7 unless you are in the bathroom.  You sleep in the same room but different beds.  They are afraid of missionaries having sex, drinking, or doing something else (this happens on occasion because the missionaries are in their early twenties). The idea of a companion is to have you watch over each other and keep each other in line. They also assign you to a certain area that you preach and live in.  Every 1 1/2 months new missionaries come into the mission and old ones leave and they rotate the missionaries as needed.  You often have two companions per area and then change to a different area.  You usually are with a companion from 1 1/2 months to 3 months and an area from 3 months to 6. Your first companion is called your trainer and has had a lot of experience in the mission. Missions last 2 years so he would usually be almost about to go home.

I had been in Venezuela for 3 months and was still rather new to the country and language. I had spent the first 3 months in one city called Barinitas and had 2 companions who were both American. At this point I was sent to a rather large city called Barquisimeto and placed with a Venezuelan companion that didn't speak English. Often you will live with another companionship, so there will be 4 in an apartment, but it was just the 2 of us in a 24th floor apartment in the heart of the city.  This was quite a change from a house in the small city of Barinitas. Barinitas was a beautiful city located on top of a mesa surrounded by jungle. I have fond memories of both the people and the cities themselves. 

Throughout the mission they have organizational and spiritual promoting meetings with other missionaries and, at times, with the mission president (he is a married adult who is responsible for the whole mission and you are supposed to obey any rules he gives you). During one of these meetings the mission president shared a story about Joseph Smith (the founder of the Mormon religion). The church often dilutes stories down to these happy little storybook lessons that always reflect the leaders as better then they were, but for all I know this one could have been based on exactly what happened. It doesn't matter for my point because, like I said, when you dismiss a soul and god you see religious stories as men adding the supernatural to anything that moves or scares them.

Anyway, I don't remember the details, but the president shared a story about how Joseph Smith had a fight with his wife about something and he went outside to cool off. He prayed and then went back inside and apologized and they made up. It definitely had more detail, but that is the general plot of the story.  Then the president asked "Did you see the point I am trying to make?" and I thought to myself that he was saying after fighting you calm down, invite the spirit, and make up. And then he said forcefully "You apologize!"  That surprised me. His point was that each person has a part in an argument and you find what you did wrong, no matter how small, and apologize for it. This was profound for a 19 year old boy who had never lived outside his home before. I really took it to heart.

A few weeks later, I was with my Venezuelan companion and we had just finished a meeting with the local church leaders in the city and were heading to get lunch when I brought up something about our schedule that day and he snapped at me. He told me about how we already discussed this with the leaders and I realized that he thought I was talking about something else and that he misunderstood me. When I tried to explain, he yelled at me and looked like he was about to hit me.  I was startled and we continued home in silence. After we got to the apartment I was annoyed and rather angry and that is when the words of the mission president came to my mind, "You apologize!". I thought to myself, "What could I possibly apologize for? He misunderstood me and was a jerk." I took a second to calm down and I prayed for help (this is the old religious me. I now think prayer does nothing more then allow self reflection and analysis). I started to think about how I didn't speak Spanish very well and I may have just not explained myself well. It was the only thing I could think of so I gave it a try. I walked up to him and told him I was sorry for not explaining myself well and that it was probably the Spanish barrier and then I let him know what it is that I was actually talking about.  At this point he softened up and started to cry. He told me that he was having a hard day and the pressures of the mission where wearing at him. He apologized and gave me a hug.  It was a really emotional and profound moment for me.

This is my point. It is so easy to have these moments (they are being had by church members around the world) and assume that there was a supernatural force behind them. I felt that the president was inspired by god to teach me that and that god lead me to say and do those things. It was touching and beautiful and helped me grow up and understand the world a little more. It was so easy to feel that this was something orchestrated by a loving god to make me a better person. The experience happened, but the supernatural aspect to it did not. As atheists, it is easy to forget that people are having moments like these. We see the logical problems with religion and are confused as to why they can't see past it. It is these moments combined with social pressure and fear that keep people trapped in a church. It is important that we remember that this is why people are so sensitive about religion. They feel we are telling them that these experiences didn't matter and that they were a waste.

There are amazing lessons to learn about this existence and it does matter because we experience it. The point is to be able to separate the supernatural aspect while taking in the experience.