Religion is a Construct That Needs to Be Deconstructed

First of all, let me say that I understand that there will be millions of people who will disagree with this post. It took me a long time to get to this point, the point of discussing this, and I’m okay with people not agreeing with me.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand: my message…my mission, if you will, is to help increase the consciousness of those in my sphere of influence. If you are reading this blog post right now, then you are in my sphere and you are not here by accident. 

In increasing the consciousness of those around me, I must speak to this issue because it has become a stumbling block for billions of people.

The Black Church 

I first began receiving these messages about 11-12 years ago. At first, I thought this was a message for the “Black” church only. 

You see, I’d spent 10 years in the Black church and every time I looked around, I saw people in bondage and if I’m honest, I was there at one point or another. 

What I witnessed were people “standing still” or what they call “waiting on God” to deliver them and set them free and give them a few extra thousand dollars to pay their rent and car note. 

I remember looking around thinking, “this can’t be it.” This doesn’t sound or look appealing. Therefore, I left the predominantly Black church for a predominantly white church because I felt like there was something more. 

The White Church

What I witnessed there was more bondage. Except, this time, they weren’t “waiting on God,” they were too busy trying to BE the savior! Instead of recognizing themselves and others as human beings, they looked at themselves as superior, even superior to God.

For them, it seemed, going to church was not the result of reverence, but rather, a sense of obligation to show others just how superior they were and how much money they could give or how close they were to the Pastors. 

Of course, I’m not speaking about everyone in the church. I’m speaking to my experience and my interpretation of my experience. 

Anyway, I realized that my message was NOT just for the Black church, after spending seven years at the predominantly white church…it was for all churches.

More Than the Church

After I made the conscious decision not to become a member of any church and after I decided to deepen my relationship with God, I noticed the most beautiful shift in myself (I’ll talk more about my personal journey in another blog post).

My eyes were open, never to be closed again, after I began meeting people from different religions and reading books on other religions. I noticed that our beliefs in who God/Allah/Yahweh/Jehovah is, were pretty much the same and then I realized one important thing: 

RELIGION IS A DIVIDER

Religion is a divider! Think about it, how many sects of Christianity are out there? There are hundreds, if not thousands! What about the sects of Islam? What about Buddhism? Hinduism? Confucianism? Taoism? Judaism?

And these are just some of the major religions of the world! 

The reason why there are so many religions is because someone disagreed with someone else. I know that’s an overly simplified reason but it’s true. Take, for instance, the Reformation.

The Reformation

The Reformation was a 30-year political and religious challenge to the Catholic church, led by Martin Luther, which killed eight million people. In the 16th century, the “good ole” church folks had become so involved in political affairs and, according to Luther, lost it’s spiritual authority. 

But the driving force behind the movement was theological. Luther didn’t believe that people were saved by works, like some in the Catholic church had claimed, but by faith. 

Again, this is probably an overly simplified explanation but for the sake of time, it works. If you’d like to learn more about Reformation, click here. 

This is just one example of the division within the construct of religion. There are so many other division within Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.  

Clinging to Religion

The fundamental question becomes, why is there so much separation between groups of people who claim to serve a loving God? 

I believe there are three reasons why people cling to religion. These reasons may not be true for everyone and neither is this list all-inclusive.

Sense of Belonging

People want to feel like they belong to something. It’s in our nature to desire to belong. While there is nothing wrong with this desire to belong, when that desire isn’t healthy, meaning that we have several unresolved issues, we have a tendency to gravitate towards the unhealthy. 

Conditioning 

Honestly, this reason alone could take up 3-5 blog posts to cover but for the sake of time, right now, I’ll keep this brief. I personally know a lot of people who are Christians or Muslims because their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents are. 

What’s so messed up about this is that, these people don’t even fundamentally agree with the doctrines being taught neither do they actually live by the concepts or precepts. And this leads to guilt and shame and so many other low vibration emotions. Most of them want to “get out” but they’re afraid of the messages they will get from other people like, “you’re going to hell” or “God will punish you if you leave.”

Pain

For the record, this pain can be spiritual (lack of direction/purpose), mental (non-physical origin), emotional (depression), or physical (disease). Society has been conditioned to believe that the only way to be healed is to believe in a power outside of ourselves, therefore, religion seems like the obvious answer.  

Because people look for a power outside of themselves, they read the same verses, listen to the same preachers and teachers, and go to the same places of worship week after week and still have no healing. However, they remain hopeful because they are expecting healing outside of themselves.

Consciousness Not Religion – The Deconstruction

So, what is the answer to religion? To our own healing? To love? It’s consciousness. 

What is consciousness? Y’all know I like to make things simple so let me make this simple for you. Consciousness is an awareness of your internal and external existence. It is an awareness that your external world is shaped by your internal world.

In other words, everything has a cause and an effect. The things that are present in your external world first began in your internal world. What you see is the effect. What is unseen is the cause. Thought is the cause.

Consciousness allows you to see things for what they are, like the fact that God is LOVE and love is the only thing that is real. Nothing else exists outside of love. That being said, there is only ONENESS not separation like the many religions purport. 

I know that this may sound “new age-ish” to some of you and that’s okay. What I would ask for you to do is to think about what I’ve said throughout this post. You may want to reject it because it goes against what you were taught. But what I’ve learned throughout my journey of self-discovery is that the truth has a way of making itself known. 

I’d love to know your thoughts. Make sure you leave them in the comments. If you’ve found this blog post helpful, please share it with your friends!