I have always believed that religion is a healthy part of being human. Since a young age, I've always been passionately fond of discovering the religious traditions of the world. I grew up in a Hindu household, but my parents never crammed dogma down my impressionable throat as a child, and I am greatful for that. I grew up with exposure to many different religious ideas and cultures - Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, the many flavors of Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, and even the occasional Wiccan. I delved into the religious literature and scripture of many of these religions, and am fascinated by what they all have to say.

It is interesting to note that scripture is read in an almost reactionary attitude. We read them to remove ourselves from the contrivances of modern society, and to connect ourselves with the inevitable facts of life - such as death. Scripture is not read casually - it is read at those moments when there is something missing from our own lives. I am convinced that the Bible is he world's most popular therapist.

During high school, I did a research paper on the African-American movement in spirituality. Here were people who had the ground itself taken away from them - they were taken from their homes, treated as dispensible commodities, brutalized, and denied their own humanity. As a result of their desolate circumstances, they were looking for what had been taken from them: they were looking for validation, for recompense, for hope, and for identity. And where did they find it? In the American Baptist movement. The words of the Bible became what they wanted - what they so desparately needed. As a result, the church became a major gathering post for the African-American culture - it became a foundation from which the Civil Rights movement could gain power and influence. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a reverend, after all.

Can you call these people WEAK? I refuse to do so. If nothing else, these people were incredibly strong - and religion gave them their strength, because they could get it nowhere else.

Whether you will admit to it or not, all of us do indeed need to find some means of strength in our lives. Some find strength in science. Some turn to material wealth. I have found that it is when these things are not available that religion enjoys a resurgence. Throughout history, times of great oppression often precipitate times of great relgious devotion. Religion is often a last resort, but it has always existed as an option and a very good option at that, I believe. That is why religion continues to thrive to this very day, and will probably do so forever on. It is not weak. Only HUMAN.

That said, I do believe that being human makes one fallible - and a tool such as religion in fallible hands can go wrong. I do believe that religion has gone awry much of the time, and is being bastardized for the sake of self-promotion, self-satisfaction, and mere politics. This is not a new phenomenon either. As religion can be a source of great strength, it can also be a source of great destruction. The Reconquista in Spain, the Crusades, the Muslim-Hindu divide in India, the Muslim-Judaic divide in Isreal, the Catholic-Protestant divide in Ireland, the list goes on and on... religion can be used to take away anything that it gives.

I myself believe in the existence of a higher power - the nature of that power doesn't really seem relevent to this life, but I acknowledge it but don't pretend to know more than I do. I believe everything emerges perpetually. That we dwell in a cyclical spiritual realm of void and existence - thought itself is the most eloquent example of this. Thought emerges, but from where? And how? I, like most people, will often read scripture to heal - I consider it nothing more than my human needs expressing themselves.

I am an INFp, BTW.