“A Treatise on Religion”

You die. I die. Life is fatal. Life lives on death. Is that “religious?”

Religion at its best is the attempt to codify awe.

Religion is as old as language. There is nowhere on earth devoid of a religious backdrop, be it ancestor worship or displayed deity symbols, like crosses every so many blocks. Religion will never go away. It provides an escape from accountability, and of course, death.

All religions, including Christianity, are imaginary. They are made up. Nothing about a religion’s tenets can be proven. To attribute a phenomena, be it physical, like sunrise and sunset, or biological, like birth and death, with religious purpose, is fantasy. Fantasy is enticing to explain phenomena not comprehended. Religion is useful to create plausibility. Accept that “God says” and a book like the Bible and a denomination like the Church of England can become state-sponsored absolute authority.

Whatever “good” comes out of religion is incidental, driven by leveraging those institutions for what we may look back on as positive social change.

Bob Lamonica
Santa Cruz, California
November 2023