How do we identify ourselves spiritually and religiously?  Most importantly, does this identification match up with the way we live our lives?  The process of spiritual empowerment has much to do with how we answer these questions.

It has come to light recently that the Catholic Church has begun using Facebook in an effort to recruit potential priests to its fold.  Their slogan in this effort is “Why Not Me?”

Let’s look at some potential answers to that question, not only for those who might be considering a religious vocation of any kind, but from the perspective of one who may be questioning religious labels by which we identify ourselves.

From the outset, let me be clear that my premise in this article is that the vast majority of all religion as we practice it in our world at this time is spiritually counter-productive.  If we are, indeed, in the process of communally evolving into a more harmonious and loving planet, then the purpose of any worthy religion would be to lovingly unite and empower us.  Most religion divides and weakens us, casting non-believers as inferior, seeing proponents as superior and falsely creating a god that is schizophrenically both all-loving and quite wrathful.

Religion as we know it today is dying, and with good reason.  People’s allegiance to religion is the cause of more death, pain and suffering than any other social cause.  It has been the central cause of most wars and persecution.

Why do we identify ourselves with any particular religion?

Why We Continue With a Current Religious Identification

For the most part, there are three reasons that any reasonably intelligent people stick with a religion in which they were raised.

(1)Fear of Eternal Damnation or Extended Time in Some Purgatory

In the months leading up to the passing of my mother last year, my father experienced much emotional challenge as she descended into dementia, still holding on to half a lifetime of resentment and anger.  For well over a year, she was continually embarrassed about her “bladder problems” and had little interest or capacity for communicating with anyone.  She had stopped eating anything except ice cream and crackers.

The doctors put her on appetite stimulants.  It seemed to work.  She was eating better and putting some weight back on.  Yet, she was “vacant” almost all of the time.

After months in this semi-vegetative state, her doctor approached my Dad and suggested he might consider taking her off the appetite stimulants as a way of letting her go.  He and I talked about it.  He was going to think about it.   Soon after, we talked again.

“I would feel guilty for the rest of my life if she died after the medication was stopped”, he said.

It was his decision to make, yet I was compelled to explore:  “Dad, you know that the whole guilt thing and the eternal damnation stuff that your church puts out is a bunch of crap, don’t you?”

His response, “Well, yeah, but what if it isn’t?”

This is the kind of thinking so many religious people carry like a weight around their shoulders.  For fear of frying in eternal fires, we live a life that makes it fine to shoot a horse to save it from pain, let we cannot let our people die a natural death.  Such thinking is simply ignorant.

(2) Fear of Rejection by Family or Peers

High up on the Fear Meter along with eternal damnation is the prospect of being disowned by family or friends.  If all your family and friends identify themselves with a given religion, you risk their rejection if you decide that the religion does not really work for you.

Maybe you’ll continue to go to church, temple or synagogue on the weekend, but outside of that little show, you don’t really practice the religion, live it.  This is a most destructive and prevalent example of cowardice.

Maybe you have agonized over the conflict, figuring that you will stick with the religion you have until your parents have passed, sparing them the disappointment of your “betrayal”.  You are willing to wear a false mask in the name of family peace and harmony, all the while realizing that you are not being true to yourself.

This appears to be a major factor in, for example, France.  While 41.6 million of France's 65 million population identifies itself as Catholic, only about 2 million attend church each week, according to Jacques Carton of the Bishops Conference in France.  In the United States, the numbers are not so striking, apparently due in large part to the fact that our society here is much more focused on appearances and guilt.

(3) Laziness or Simple Distraction

In lives that seem to be more and more filled with financial challenge, responsibilities and daily pressures on many levels, it’s easy to forget the spiritual aspects of our lives.  Given the oxyomoronic nature of most religion---the fact that it is literally anti-spiritual---it can easily be just another item on your list of things that pull you in two different directions at the same time.  When it comes to making a change in how you see your religion, your mind tells you that there are more important things to deal with, so you sit with the status quo.

You have got other things on your mind, and at least your religion lets you fit in and also feel morally superior to other people, so long as you think about it selfishly, without much compassion.

We are living in a world of change at increasing speed.  For many of us, it is a time in which we are being challenged to shed the old ways of thinking that have not worked for us.  For many, this is the step now being faced in finding true spiritual empowerment.  Is it what you are being challenged to deal with in your process of enlightenment?

Non-religious self-reliance: It's a mouthful you do not hear much.  We have not been taught to rely upon ourselves but upon institutions that do not want us thinking for ourselves.  Please explore within yourself whether it is time to let go of your religion, time to ask, "Why not me?" when figuring out who should be responsible for your own beliefs?  Isn't this what "The Shift" is really all about--trusting our own loving power?

Coming soon: The Case for Letting Most Religion Go: Non-religious Self-Reliance--Part Two