Do I Hate Religion? Or Do We Just Not Mesh?

I spent my entire childhood attending religious Jewish private schools and hearing the same refrain from every adult and spiritual leader around me: I don’t like religion, I am not spiritual, I am young and ignorant. I experienced many conversations that held a demeaning tone of “Oh, you’ll understand with time, little one…” And in fact, like everyone does, I did begin to understand with time. Just not in the way that they would have liked.

As an individual who has always been committed to my own growth, I constantly questioned and examined the religious obligations placed upon me. As a child, the obligation that bothered me most was observing the Sabbath. In Orthodox Judaism the Sabbath is a 25 hour timeframe from Friday night to Saturday night where you may not interact with anything electric. And as kid who’s number one hobby and interest was playing video games on a computer, you could probably guess I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Sabbath.

Back then, my opposition against religion stemmed from disliking how my freedoms were being restricted, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my initial objection to the Sabbath’s restrictions planted the seeds for my deep appreciation of freedom today.

From an early age, I was at odds with the environment around me. But did that mean that I “hated” where I found myself? Did I hate my religion? Does my lack of religious practice make me dislike religion and spirituality?

Even though I am still young and ignorant to many, I would argue that it is through my open-minded perspective and secularism that I have grown to love my religion and religion in general. I acknowledge and am extremely grateful for the morality and ethical thought that my religious background has provided me. And yes, if and when I start a family, I intend to bestow the same moral compass to my children as I believe it to be a very positive one. But that does not mean that I feel the need to actively practice the faith and obligations.

Religious structure and obligations are a useful tool for teaching a strong sense of community, morality, and ethics, especially to children, but they are not required. The Atheist child does not think murder is more acceptable than the Jewish child. To think that would be the case would be to argue that two people of different backgrounds cannot hold the same moral values as each other. Something I know very well to not be true.

And so while I identify as a spiritual person, and not specifically a religious one, I consider them to be two closely related parties. My spirituality and internal philosophy could easily be described as my own religion. I practice the tools that I’ve learned from Judaism the same way that I practice Taoist philosophies that I’ve learned and picked up over time. My combination of the different practices and philosophies that I have been exposed to throughout my life have given me the ability to create a lifestyle for myself that does not feel forced upon me.

Not only does my lifestyle no longer feel forced, but I genuinely love where my current philosophies stand, and my ability to continue to shape them as I learn more about life.

The strictness of religion, while somewhat understandable from a religion’s point of view, often times limits personal growth and progress and can make one feel extremely trapped. And furthermore, my childhood spiritual leaders’ inability to validate my genuine religious questioning caused me to really struggle to find the appeal of religion for many years.

As I have aged, I have grown to understand that no single perspective can fit every individual. One’s ability to question their religion, culture, and obligations, should never be prevented. Many would strongly benefit from a more open-minded approach to life. And by being more open-minded, those of us called “young and ignorant” might still feel comfortable with, and a part of, the communities we grew up in.

Every river, no matter how different, still leads to a body of water. Lets not make our own river the only one acceptable.