Am I chained to Zion, a Camera in my hand. I hear people crying dying for this bloodstained land. The streets of old Jerusalem are lined with souveniers and those buying them. It sounds cold but I can not see how this theme park has shaped history.

Cause virgins don’t have babies, and water, it isn’t wine. And there’s a holy spirit maybe, but she would never enter a room with walls built by mankind. Mary and Mohammed are screaming through the clouds, for you to lay your god damned arms down, rip your bigot roots up from the earth and salt the goddamned ground.

That’s the first verse and refrain of Goddamned by Jay Brannan. It’s the best song on the album, and one that is getting a lot of play on my iPod lately. I’ve been thinking a great deal about our religious and mythological beliefs, and how they make the world a better or worse place to live.

The subject is, of course, far larger than I could comfortably cover in a dozen books, let alone a single blog post (no matter how verbose I can at times be). But I strongly believe that there is no single religious belief that is innately better than any other. I know people who are convinced that monotheism is the bane of humanity, and others who think my poly-panentheist bent is degrading to the human spirit. I don’t disagree with either viewpoint, but I don’t agree either. I think there are equally valid arguments for all of the above.

Something I’m coming to believe a great deal, is that our religious or spiritual beliefs do not shape our character as people. Try as I might I can’t find a strong connection between religious or spiritual affiliation and the type of person you are. There are lots of assholes in the world, and I often count among them. There are also lots of genuinely good, sweet people. (On a side note, I may be ‘good,’ but I think it unlikely that most people who have met me could possibly describe me as ‘sweet.’)

I’ve met just as many polytheistic assholes as I have monotheistic assholes. Further, try as I might, I can’t say that organized religion is an evil either, since there are a great many very good people who are members of large religious groups.

I am beginning to believe, that some people are just assholes, and others aren’t. I don’t know why this is, or whether it has to do with their spiritual nature or disposition. I only know that it’s pretty clearly true.

This isn’t to say that I believe all religions are created equally. They are all equally valid, but personaly I believe that religions which preach damnation, intolerance, and divisivness are not good religions. Note that I distinguish between the religion itself and the people who practice it. Sadly, it is often the assholes who have the loudest voices, desire to become leaders, and place themselves into positions of moral regulation.

So to look at the world from a religious doctrine regarding good and evil doesn’t make much sense to me. There isn’t any good measure by which to define what is good and what is evil. We can certainly default to some absolutes, such as murder being wrong. I think the vast majority of our society would probably agree that killing another person is wrong, even evil. Given that, I do wonder why so many places still have the death penalty, but that’s an entirely different topic.

I’m not interested in getting into the good/evil discussion at the moment. I’ve let my views on it be known plenty in the past. I will say, that I think that our cultural concepts of right and wrong are, in general, pretty fucked up.

But thinking about religion some more. If we recognize that religion, or lack thereof, does not make us inherently good or bad people, and that no religion is inherently good or bad at base principles, why do we spend so much time fighting about it? If we ignore the various fundamentalists of our religions, I have trouble believing there are that many people who are so busy trying to make the world a less pleasant place by insinuating themselves into the religious beliefs of others.

I think the people that confuse me most are atheists, who seem morally enraged by the thought that people would dare to believe in a higher power. In their own way, many atheists are as rabidly fundamental and damaging to their fellow men as the religions they think need to be destroyed.

One of the things that I believe very strongly, that I am rather insistent about actually, is that the value of a religious or spiritual belief is revealed in the lives of those who believe it. The value of religion is in what it adds or takes away from the lives of the people it touches.

I try to take this belief and apply it with great precision to my own religious and spiritual practice. When I am engaging in religious rituals, or choosing to do something (or not do something) based on my religious beliefs I often challenge myself about that choice. Is adhering to this tenet of my beliefs benefiting me? Is it harming me? What about others? Is my spiritual bent leading me to make harmful, unethical, or indefensible choices?

In the rare event that my principles are leading me in a direction I don’t think is good, I have to take a long hard look at those principles. I need to decide if this is really something that I want as part of my beliefs and practices. I need to change and adjust accordingly.