Forgive me….

“Forgive me, for it has been 47 days since my last blog post…”

I know, the two things that should never be discussed; religion and politics.  I am going to anyway!

I am taking a religion class, and I love it.  Being someone who was not raised with a religion per say, I was quite apprehensive about this particular class.  Or shall I say, more apprehensive than usual!  The class is Understanding World Religion, and boy, was I ignorant!  I think most Americans are, and I don’t mean that as an insult.  There are so many stereotypes and misunderstandings when it comes to religion.  I am just as guilty as most.

Our first religion covered was Judaism and this one was by far my favorite.  It may have something to do with our guest speaker who was a middle-aged woman named Amy.  She was infectious and so knowledgeable about Judaism.  Her father was a rabbi.   She is someone who I would just love to sit and talk to for hours!  The class time went by so fast and everything that she explained about her religion and beliefs just made sense to me.  It felt, well, right.  The first words out of her mouth; “We are Jews.  They tried to kill us.  Many times.  We survived.  Let’s eat!”  Sounds good to me!  After the unit on Judaism, I called my Mom and said, “are you sure we are not Jewish, because I think I am?”  My brother  just loved that!  He proceeded to tease me about this and told me he was going to buy me a dreidel and then next Christmas while they were all opening Christmas presents, I could go in the corner and spin my dreidel.  He assured me that it might not look good to declare myself Jewish, with exception to the month of December, then all deals were off!  Whatever.  That is what brothers do, I guess, even when we are in our forties!  I can assure you that should I ever decide to convert to Judaism,  being Christian one month out of the year would not be something I would do, not even for the presents!

One of the Jewish principles that has really struck a chord with me is something I learned that was a teaching from an ancient Jewish scholar, Hillel.  Hillel the Elder taught from about 30 BCE to 10 CE, overlapping the life of Jesus.  One of Hillel’s duties was the delicate task of interpreting the Torah (Jewish “bible”) and apply the ancient scripture to a more modern-day understanding.   Hillel was known as a humble scholar that stressed loving relationships, good deeds and charity to the less advantaged.  His flexible interpretation of the Torah is this:

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor:

that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn it.

~Hillel the Elder

How beautiful is that?  Just be nice!  Be kind, apply the Golden Rule to your life.  Simple.  Why is it so difficult for people, of all religions, to live this way?

After Judaism, we covered Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.  Now, I know I will probably get a ton of backlash, negative comments, and general disdain about what I have to say about Christianity, but I am going to say it anyway.  Of all the religions that we have studied, the only one that made me cringe was Christianity.

We were required to come up with questions for all of our guest speakers.  One of the questions asked to each was “If I am not a Jew (or Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu) and I die, would I still get to go to heaven, your version of heaven (or be re-incarnated…) if your religion turns out to be the “right” one?”  Each of the religions, with he exception of Christianity, said YES.  If your live your life with kindness towards others, you have not murdered, you strived to be a good person, then yes, you will go to heaven or be re-incarnated.  You will have an afterlife.  When we asked the Christianity guest speaker the same question, the answer was NO.  You must follow Jesus.  That is the only way to get to heaven.  Now, here is where I have a problem with that.

Let’s say, for example, Joe Blow rapes children, and murders them, but he was also a practicing Christian.  When he is getting ready to die, he asks Jesus for forgiveness of his sins.  Jesus forgives him, and good ol’ Joe Blow now gets to go to heaven.  Now, take Jane Blow.  Jane Blow is agnostic.  She is not sure what she believes in, and cannot be sure that there is such a thing as heaven or a God for that matter.  Jane goes every weekend to a soup kitchen, feeds hungry kids, then reads to them and plays games.  Then, she goes to the humane society and walks homeless dogs and brings them treats.  She visits with the elderly, helps her  handicapped neighbor with yard work and does errands for him.  Jane lives every single day of her life with kindness towards others, with love in her heart.  She is honest, hardworking and has always been faithful to her spouse.  Jane dies, and does not go to heaven because she has not spent her life following Jesus?  Really?  It just does not add up for me, sorry. 

 I might also add that there are twenty people in my class.  Everyone has been incredibly respectful of our speakers and of all the religions.  Nobody was judgemental, with the excpetion of one person, a Christian.  She argued, she judged, she made faces, she let out loud sighs throughout each presentation.  She was rude.  It was her way or the highway, and she let everyone know.  She even had the audacity to email a classmate and tell him he was going to hell because his review of the movie “The Passion of the Christ” was less than stellar.  Mind you, this classmate’s mother is the head of the theology department and teaches many religion classes.  He is knowledgeable and had the guts to speak out about it, plus the meat to back it up.  Plus, one other interesting piece of information about my friend that thought The Passion of the Christ was a joke.  He was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school.  His mother, the head of the theology department, was also a Catholic her entire life.  When she went to continue her education and become a professor of religion, she left Christianity and Catholicism.  Guess what she is now?  A converted Jew.  I am just sayin’.

The class had opened my eyes to a lot of things in life.  As my friend said to me in class one night, (the one whose Mother converted to Judaism), we could all be wrong.  Who knows?  At the time of death, we may all realize that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been right all along!

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