Adulthood: A Bigger, Scarier Schoolyard

I remain undecided in a lot of areas that, historically, have offered up danger and pain to people. God is one of them. I think I believe in some force greater than what I can see, but organized religion has nothing to offer me. I was raised Catholic but can not grasp the idea of an angry/judgemental god. If you were capable of creating something this beautiful and this intricate- would your mind really be on whether people are having sex outside of marriage or were gay? Also, would you need middlemen to tell the world this? I would think you would be more concerned that people were ruining the world you created – but littering and oil spilling does not appear to be a sin. How do we decide?

We are living in a world where, in politics and religion, if you make the most noise, and come up with the best insults against another organization, then you must be the one that is right. It’s like our political and religious leaders are in a pissing match. Since when did bullying become the path to ruling the world? Oh wait, that’s right, it kind of always has: Be the most feared and dangerous and you will actually get somewhere. It seems to be shifting almost entirely, though, from physical bullying to psychological manipulation. It occurs between social groups/classes; pretty much everywhere we look, and can be blatant or indirect.

When I grew up and found (yes, found) myself in adulthood I thought I was finally free of the school yard mentality. In reality, I’ve just entered into a bigger, scarier one where people pretend they are something different. Let’s call a spade what it is – a big fat bully who plays the “who can scream loudest to scare the most people into being on their side” game.

I chose to talk about religion, but this can be applied to most areas of adulthood.

So I question: why are we so easily distracted by fancy suits and words . If we are ALL created, we ALL have a right to believe in the things that inspire us- not the things that drown us in manipulation and accusations that we are someone bad even if we are good-hearted people.