Create Your Own Religion

You have every right to be upset about the title of this article. Your staunch beliefs may lead you to believe I am being sacrilegious or that I am an atheist, which isn’t true. Through my own spiritual journey laced with religion and mayhem and inner reflection I have come to a certain awareness that I wish to share with you.

Everything about this world is fiction.

When I say fiction, I mean, it’s all made up. We give meaning to everything around us. We decide that the sky should be called a sky. We decide that the color blue should be called blue. This is called social constructionism. As a society we had to get together and decide on certain TRUTHS and AGREE so that we can communicate with each other effectively. We decided to build an item and we looked at it and said, “This is a table. This is what the table is used for.” Everyone agree on this, and it is written. We did the same for everything else in our physical space and then we transferred that same authority of defining the world around us to our spiritual beliefs and our expectations for the stages of our lives.

If everything we see is constructed by society then the expectations for our lives and the roles we play in life are fiction too. We made everything up. It’s like someone in the beginning of time said, “Let’s play a game” and then started making up rules. These rules or guidelines help to establish order but later became an enforced standard perpetuated by parents (and religion) who teach children that “this is the way to be”. Anything outside of those standards was viewed as “abnormal” or “wrong,” when really, the whole thing, everything, all of our roles, concepts, language and beliefs are all made up. All of it is fiction.

We, as humans, have an innate desire to understand the reason behind our existence. We need to feel like there is some purpose for us being here so we created concepts to help us grasp onto a value system for our lives. Often, these value systems attributed the creation of our human existence to an act of some higher being(s).

The earliest social systems held polytheistic views. This means that they believed in the existence of multiple Gods who controlled and ruled the earth and its inhabitants. As time went on and civilizations evolved, a more monotheistic view was adopted and spread by civilizations. As time went on these fictionalized concepts concerning life expectations, roles and our existence were passed down from generation to generation as TRUTH.

Today, these TRUTHS have been the breeding ground for much of our civilization’s unrest because no one wants to admit that there is a chance that their TRUTH is wrong. Everyone’s truth is wrong. No one’s truth is the truth because there is no truth; only fictionalized concepts handed down like folklore and passed on as KNOWLEDGE.

No one “knows” anything. Everything is a projection of our beliefs. Every belief is a choice.

If every concept was made up by someone in our ancestral lineage and passed along the years to me then why do I have to follow someone else’s concept? Why can’t I make up my own beliefs about life, love and success? Am I not smart enough to create my own game and rules? Do I need someone else to be my guide because I am not capable of defining my life for myself? Do I not hold the same creative powers of my ancestors who started the game in the first place?

The “truth” is, I can.

And so can you.

Your religion is not only the spiritual belief system you were born in. Your religion is also the set of dominant beliefs that you hold concerning your expectations from life, love and your idea of success. You can decide to play the game and follow the instructions made up by people who lived thousands and thousands of years ago. It may actually benefit you to do that, but, what it really says about you is that you do not believe you have the capability to decide for yourself. You’d rather go along with the crowd just to be safe and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Everyone can’t be a leader. Everyone can’t break the mold. But for those who DO wish to break out of the box of the false TRUTHS enforced upon us which cause us to feel sad about any idea or expression that goes against the game and its expectations, you KNOW what to do.

It begins with a decision to explore what makes you feel good about your existence. What do you believe right now that detracts from making you feel good about who you are and where your life is heading? If you hold a belief system that causes shame, guilt or unrest about matters that have nothing to do with how you treat people and everything to do with who you are on the inside and your likes and dislikes and preferences, you should take a step back and examine WHY you choose to believe this. If your belief system forces you to meet some higher expectation that YOU did not create for yourself, you may be a victim of the “game”. You can choose to stop playing at any time.

Create your own religion. Choose beliefs that lead you to feel happy about who you are and lead you to want to live out your best life by your OWN definition.