Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.
Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.
“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.
I agree with your sentiment. The takeaway for me is that we are influenced by our environment. Our experience is one of learning through experimenting with our reality, so it does come down to what we are presented with. I was raised around a temple that my parents were very active in, but it was reform, so I could ask lots of questions. I was told the narrative, but was allowed to interrogate it a bit and pretty much had the rabbi provide the evidence against religion by asking the right questions and getting fair responses. Others don’t get this opportunity and are instead force-fed religion and told not to question it. I still remember the moment that it clicked for me that it was all a charade. I basically asked the rabbi that, if all life is lived now per Judaism and we don’t have the concept of heaven or hell, then why do we need to do these practices and he basically said to make us feel happier. I was pretty much like ok, I’d rather go to space camp then.
Yeah, it’s like the Aristotle quote saying “give me a child until he’s seven and I’ll show you the man.” Not a lot of people have much chance to choose beliefs as opposed to have had them thrust on them.
As an aside, your rabbi’s answer was essentially the outlook of the Sadducees in antiquity. They believed that there was no afterlife and that God didn’t care what people did or didn’t do, and yet followed the religious laws because they saw the law itself as a gift from God.
But I’m inclined to agree, that space camp sounds much better, and perhaps if the Sadducees had space camp too they’d have taken a different stance on things.