Raelian

I was listening today to Diane Rehm and she was interviewing E.J. Dionne who just wrote a book about politics and religion. He's an unabashed liberal, but also a fairly devout Catholic. He makes the point that being a liberal does not preclude being religious--even though many liberals are distrustful of religious sects--making all of them out to be right-wing conservatives.

There isn't any reason why a liberal couldn't be religious. The problem is that most religions are so hypocritical and, in my view, cult-ish. I don't feel like there is anything missing in my life because I don't subscribe to any religious views. I'm comfortable with thinking that I'll be fertilizer when I die. I don't even like having to tell people whether I'm agnostic or atheist--can I be neither? I really don't give it enough thought to make the choice. I don't deny others their right to believe in something--which some would say makes me agnostic--I'm not denying that a higher being exists--but I'm not denying it because I'm not really thinking about it at all. I frame my thoughts on religion with the frame of other people--I don't ever put the scope on myself and examine my own beliefs very thoroughly--and I'm ok with that.

There is one religion that has captured my interest--Raelian. This "religion" was started by a French guy who says he was visited by Aliens on December 13, 1973 who explained to him that this race of aliens created all life on earth--through DNA technology--and that they were mistaken for gods. This is intelligent design taken to its extreme. Aside from that--the religion is fairly innocuous. They are accepting of all races, all sexual preferences, they feel that sex out of marriage is cool, and they are very pro science (for obvious reasons). I can get behind this religion in a way, because I feel that humans don't belong on earth. Whereas Raelians believe all life was created by aliens--I think they got it wrong. I think only the humans were placed here. And we don't fit. We don't adapt to our surroundings like other members of the Nature Club. The Raelians are pretty wacky--building an embassy to welcome the aliens back to earth when they return--but is that really any more wacky than the Vatican? Is the fact that a race car driver from France had a vision--any wackier than what the Mormons believe? Here's the thing, it just so happens that my birthday is December 13, 1973--maybe I know something the race car driver doesn't....