So the pope is in the US. And his visit is all over the news.

All of which has served to remind me of the many problems I have with the Catholic church.

Religion is a very difficult subject for me to discuss here, because my family is quite devout, so I feel as if my lack of faith is letting them down.

Actually to be more clear, it is not a subject I have discussed with my family, first and foremost because I don’t want to upset them. (And that right there may tell you all you a whole lot about me.)

I think the biggest problem for me is that I have no faith–to try and put it another way, when it comes to religion, I feel nothing. When people talk about their faith and how it makes them feel, I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. It feels like I’m blind and someone is trying to explain color to me. I can accept the idea that such a thing exists, but I can’t imagine it myself.

From that stems all my other problems, I’d guess. Because since I lack faith, it fascinates me. I want to understand what other people think, why they feel the way they do, to see if I can figure out what is wrong with me that makes me different.

But I’ve found that this only makes things worse.

The more I read about religion, the less I understand it, and the more alien I feel from it.

Let’s take the Catholic Church for starters. Although there are some things I believe the church does right, there are many other things where I believe the church is mistake, and in their error are actually causing harm. Women in the priesthood. Birth control. Homosexuality. I think that by saying such things are wrong and unacceptable, the church is actually causing harm, not just to itself, but to the greater community.

These have long been issues for me, but the more I read and learned, the more areas of disagreement I found. Papal infallibility? Don’t accept it. Immaculate conception? That just seems like a really big fudge. And then there’s the creation of the New Testament. The Christian bible was created through years of what was essentially political wrangling. The idea that something was acceptable one year, and then suddenly out of the cannon seems ridiculous. And don’t even get me started on the translation errors and issues. You don’t like what the bible says? Just find another translation you like better.

Never mind the internal inconsistencies in the bible.

And then there’s the whole relativism thing. The pope is really big on telling us how bad relativism is. Well, guess what? I’m a huge relativist.

First and foremost, I don’t think God damns people for calling God by different names, or for worshiping in one manner over another. I also don’t think God is the sadist many make God out to be. I mean, the seven circles of hell? That sounds not like the God of loving kindness, but instead like a vengeful human hoping that his enemies get what’s coming to them.

Secondly, the more I read about different religions, the more similarities I see between them. Why allow humans to create different religions that are REALLY similar, but not QUITE the same, so these religions can all claim superiority and cause more war and suffering than any other subject in the history of humanity.

But putting all that aside, I don’t think the God described in these religions fits into the world today–or even the world of the past. Now before your head explodes, let me explain. American Christianity seems to have some bizarre focus upon a personal God. The God of healing and miracles. Well, when I look around the world I see absolutely no sign of that God. I see a world that continues on it’s merry way with no external intervention. Which is GREAT as far as I’m concerned, because I think a personal God counter-indicates free-will. And I’m an even bigger fan of free will than I am of relativism.

So I look at the world, with my lack of faith and my lack of belief. I see a world completely unlike the world described by so many religions.

But I don’t see a bad world. And I don’t see one in which God is absent. I simply see a world in which God exists in everything, and it is up to us to recognize that fact, and treat all other creatures accordingly.