Do you remember the day you found out Santa Claus wasn’t real? It sucked, right? I remember staring at my parents and desperately waiting for them to say they were joking. Sure, I had suspicion, but it wasn’t until I was explicitly told that my beliefs were false that it really sunk in.
At first, it seemed impossible. If Santa wasn’t real who made all those presents? Who ate the cookies I left out for him? And why would we celebrate something fake? As I reflect on this moment in my life, I believe there were two major reasons for why this was so hard to accept. One, because I didn’t want it to be true. And two, because I had rationalized the hell of out it. I read books about Santa, heard stories about him, and even met him at the mall. All these experiences were fun and led to the seemingly absolute truth of his existence.
Yet none of that mattered because the truth is that he is not real. He never was, and never will be. And as you have probably already guessed by the title, I would argue religion is not so far off from our joyous Santa Claus.
Religion has been around for thousands of years. Far before Christianity or any other widespread religions existed, almost every tribe of humans had their own form of religion. They had their way of explaining why the rain falls and how fire rises. These tribes, and humans as a whole, need these answers because we hate ambiguity. We hate uncertainty so much that there is an answer to nearly any question you can think of. Even for things we have no means of understanding or measuring, there appears to be some theory or common answer we have desperately created. I believe this desire to eliminate ambiguity from our lives is why religion was inevitable for the progress of the human race. This is what leads me to believe it was not necessarily a bad thing for the advancement of humanity.
Religion in many ways was great for humanity because of how it let us evolve. It not only gives an explanation of the world around us, but it also served to reinforce good behavior. The formation of large communities led to what I call, the second phase of religion. Once the human race started building towns and cities, there was a need for order. This is where the first set of laws and religion came in to reward good behaviors and punished bad ones. In many ways this was both essential and beneficial for humanity to evolve. We stand here today because of religion. Basic morals have allowed communities to grow together in a mostly ethical and orderly way.
** Keep in mind that I only address one of the two main philosophical ideas of the origins of religion. Rather than morals and need for order leading to religion, I will be assuming that religion led to order and morals. Which truly came first? Well that is as controversial as the chicken and the egg story.**
The problem with religion is that it focuses on bettering its own community, and not humanity. With the exception of a few religions, they all have the basic mentality of helping its members and screwing over the rest. We see this in the worldwide fight for LGBTQ+ rights, where millions of individuals are denied basic human rights because of who they love.
This fight is grounded in the idea that homosexuality is a sin, and quite frankly, it has to stop. It must stop because like every advancement and tradition, there comes a time to move out with the old and in with the new.
Religion has been humanity’s Santa Claus for far too long. It has told us what is right and what is wrong, and we have listened willingly for quite some time. But just as we grew out of Santa, we must grow out of mainstream religions. As humanity has gotten older we are seeing religion’s limitations and inability to keep up with the times, and we must recognize this.
We live in a globalized world with intense identity differences and huge wealth inequality. The best way I see us handling these problems is to do it together. Not by throwing our morals away, but to instead spread them to everyone. We need to realize that a member of the LGBTQ+ community is a person like you and me. And to understand that that individual deserves the same rights as everyone, regardless of what an overly edited book says.
Trust me, I know it’s hard to accept, as I said earlier, Santa was a tough pill to swallow. It’s hard to move on from such a well-established idea that sounds so desirable. But on the bright side, you don’t have to completely throw it away. This mindset change could be seen as a new religion, one that welcomes everyone. A religion without god, and instead just us. One where humanity lives life the right way, not because it has to, but because it wants to.