Find Religion

I’m out soaking up the sun at the beach for a week, so a number of my bloggin’ friends are guest posting for me! Today’s guest poster is DaveP from PopBuzzUK. Enjoy!

I was brought up vaguely Christian. By that I mean my family were Christian, and I went to a Church of England school, but I never really attended church. In Religious education, we were taught about the world’s major religions, although we were always brought back to believing Jesus was the Son of God, and that if you didn’t follow him, then you’d go to hell.

All the way through school, I had two problems with this. One was that straight after R.E. class, I’d walk in to a science laboratory and be taught about atoms, molecules, and the nature and origins of the universe. Hang on I thought, how could both of these theories I’m being told as gospel be true? I personally have as many problems believing in the big bang theory as I do believing that God made the world in seven days. There was clearly a man named Jesus around at that time, but are the stories attributed to him true, or legends passed down wrongly through many generations? I had a questioning mind at that age, and pondered these things often.

The other problem I had was the fact I saw religious conflicts happening on a daily basis around the world. During the day, I was being taught that Judaism, Christianity and Islam were all peaceful religions, and that harming other people was a major sin. Then I’d go home and watch the evening news where images of religious zealots were killing innocent people whose only crime was being different. Why has believing something different from someone else become a reason to hate and a need to wipe people off the face of the planet?

So my schooling had a big impact on me, and I now have my own beliefs that don’t really fit in to any particular mould. I believe in the evolution of our species, as discovered and explained by Charles Darwin. But I still don’t know how it all began, and I don’t even think we’re meant to know. I don’t believe in heaven and hell, but I do believe in an afterlife. If this is it, then it all seems a bit pointless, and my instincts tell me there is something far better on the other side of death. Or is that just hope? I don’t blindly follow any religion, but I do respect everyone’s right and ability to believe what they want to, so long as it doesn’t inflict on my life.

And the point to all this? I’m grateful that I received a rounded education, which gave me the knowledge and capacity to make my own mind up about these things. Surely that is the very meaning of educating children? And I’m fearful that with the rise of faith schools, kids will be indoctrinated in to one way of believing, without being taught there is even an alternative.

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