This being human

The United States is a country with too much religion and not enough spirituality.

Being human means knowing our lives are finite, which raises all sorts of natural, stimulating, and unanswerable questions.  Why am I here?  What does it all mean?  How did it get started?  Is it random or is someone/something in charge?  What am I supposed to do with my time?  Does it make any difference if I'm wicked or good?

Every primitive society has come up with some sort of answer to those questions, almost always involving a god or panel of gods or mountain of gods.  It's reassuring, of course, to believe in a god who is watching over us, wise and pure, who knows all and understands all and has a plan.  The trouble I have with religion is that we are only learning while we're asking the questions.  Learning stops when we think we have an answer.  To have faith in a religious system means swallowing a whole bunch of nonsense.  (The punchline "It's turtles all the way down" comes to mind.)  (Also, who were the children of the animals Noah saved supposed to mate with?  Each other?  Ick.)  I understand the comfort of religious faith.  It takes a certain amount of courage to be willing to be uncomfortable with deep, deep questions for which there are no answers.

In this country, maybe in all countries, spiritual emptiness accounts for an awful lot of behaviors as we try to fill that hollow place with sugar, money, belongings, fame, success, addictions, etc.  We spend our energy and focus on such trivialities.  One example that comes to mind is the enormous fuss made about the fly that landed on Pence's white hair during a debate.  Really?  That's what we want to give our precious life force to?  Video games?  Conspiracy theories?  Endless shopping?  All these distractions from substance.  It sometimes seems to me that a life spent watching flowers grow would be just as full as any life spent doggedly chasing money.

I know I sound a little sour here.  I think this era of COVID and masks and Trump and QAnon and rancor has ground me down, seriously, though not permanently.  I'm the opposite of Charlie Brown.  I love people; it's humanity as a whole I'm having a very hard time with right now.