Unity or Uniqueness?

There are many reasons why we love religion: purpose, meaning, security, community and so on.

One reason, that I find is overlooked to some degree, is a desire to unite humanity with common beliefs so that we can all get along and live loving, meaningful lives. We think that if we all believe the same way, we will have world peace.

This is, in itself, an understandable and noble goal. In fact, in a way if we really did have the same religious beliefs it would solve a heck of a lot of problems.

In the real world though this will never happen, although most Christians believe Jesus will return to rule the world and everyone will become Christians or burn in hell (or something to that effect).

To embrace this idea however is lazy – really lazy. In fact it’s everything that’s wrong with religion!

We cannot all believe the same thing no matter how hard we try. There have been, and still are, thousands of groups trying to create communities and organisations that all believe the same theologies and doctrines. Every church’s main focus is to make sure everyone is on the same page, faithfully shaping people’s lives to match their particular denomination’s rules.

Religion demands (overtly or extremely subtly) that we all become clones. Like it or not that’s the bottom line. Sure, we can have varied lives and roles in our community. As long as our belief system matches everyone else’s we can do whatever we like.

Solving the world’s problems and creating a better world however, requires hard work – just not the type of work Christians (and all other religions) think.

It requires that we actively go out of our way to encourage uniqueness.

You see, even in a tight church group, no one has exactly the same beliefs. They can say they do, but it’s impossible. Every mind is different. The way we all process information and our environment is different. We respond differently to everything, with different emotions. The variations are limitless. And yet we pretend that we are all in unity – until someone expresses the fact that they see something differently. We give them a certain amount of liberty, but if their thoughts run too far off track we have to bring them back into line. We have to help them force that unique thought process back into our particular group’s mould.

History has shown that this never works – ever! And it never will. It’s like “whack-a-mole”, eventually the moles always win.

The key to growth is through accepting our uniqueness, and helping each other discover our own unique approach to spirituality. We need to help each other discover how to live with integrity (the “concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions.”). It doesn’t matter what we believe if we do so with honesty and integrity, and that, most importantly, we display love – for ourselves and others.

To force uniformity of beliefs is to bring death.

To encourage freedom of beliefs with personal integrity brings life.

When I say to Christians (and all religious people) “it’s time to grow up”, I get slammed for being arrogant and patronising. And yet, after thousands of years of religion, it’s clear for those who really want to see, that unity through religion has failed. It’s failed in a way that is horrific. It really is time for all of us to grow up as a species.

Time to love each other for who we are, not who we think we should be to appease any religious expectations.

(Originally published 13/9/17 on Jim’s Awesome Blog)