The Book of Sirena

I intermittently claim myself to be a “faithless” person. Staying true to one religious/spiritual school of thought and keeping faith seems so exhausting, and it is for me. Though, the other night, I was able to come to understand a different perspective. I was watching a video on self-discipline and stoicism and the narrator said something about faith. To paraphrase, he said that to continue to stay diligent and get to whatever goal and destination you set for yourself, you must have the faith and belief that you will achieve it. That is what solidifies the motivation to get up and do the work daily. That is what determines success.

But what is success in this world? Why do we have to have goals to work towards? Why is there always something to work on? This is where the “faithlessness” starts to creep in. The thought of working towards anything for so many more years causes me stress. I have to worry about paying bills just to have shelter, I have to worry about making it to work or not having enough money, I have to worry about making sure I take care of my body and eat enough, I have to worry about sustaining all my relationships, I have to worry about how I am going to attain fucking peace! How can I have faith when it feels that there are so many obstacles? The small simple things in life even drive me insane. It makes me sick that people are okay with the shit we are forced to do daily, just to survive and live. Nothing has to be this difficult, but humans of this time seem to never want to stop. For some reason, human suffering of any kind is not bad enough for this world to try to get rid of it. No one should be made to suffer, but it seems to be the lifestyle that humans favor and choose to sustain. I want no part of it. I want to opt out so bad, but not through death or suicide. I wish to be another sentient being that roams the universe, living outside the restrictions of humanity— if only!

Sometimes, I think that being a human is a curse, but I mean this in a subjective and detached way. Objectively, compared to those who suffer more, my life is just okay. A lot of my personal suffering and torture stems from my personal pain and the choices I make because of it. From growing up in a poor family and still not being entirely financially secure yet, to being born in a society that is the leading cause of many other countries’ destruction. From not ever really knowing what I truly want in life but somehow always knowing what I don’t. I could go on forever but essentially, I am not satisfied with the life I was given. For the people/new age spiritualists (they are the largest weirdo’s after the Abrahamic religions) who like to say that our souls chose this life and picked the path each is taking, I hate you. There are people who suffer every day and die living their hell, never having had the chance to know anything different. I wonder if those same people can look them in the eyes and tell them that they chose the anguish they experience every day. They wouldn’t be able to, because they know that deep down, they are only saying that from a place of privilege.

For many other people, being a part of and practicing a religion provides a solace that cannot be given from anything else. It helps someone showcase a sense of self, it helps surround an individual with a community, and it preaches values and principles leading someone to live a life of accountability and of grace. At least that is what it is supposed to do. In current times, we see and hear many people experiencing isolation, judgement, and punishment from their fellow religious community members and leaders across the world.

• General examples: starting wars throughout history, religion becoming ingrained into government, religious communities no longer living by the text of their faith and if they are, their faith allows for harm of others, e.g., anti-queer, honor killings, slavery, and overall religious nationalism.

We must also remember these issues aren’t only within the context Abrahamic religions, as every organized religion and cult has examples of those who take advantage and cause direct harm to their communities – though I will brazenly say Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the most problematic and have caused and still do cause the most harm globally. I am sharing this not to get too deep into the debate of all the negatives many religious communities have forced onto others, but I plan to talk about why we as a human race must evolve past organized religion and get rid of them altogether (I change my mind on this a couple times- so keep reading lol).

Before I can continue, I must first clarify that I am not speaking about spiritual practices that are related to ethnicity, ancestry, and any/all Indigenous practices of any region across the world. It needs to be clearly understood that I do not trust any religion that has a “founder” and/or is a large organized religion, especially if it has reached global status. Indigenous practices are regional and based on the stationed environment of the community of origin, so even if close tribes mirrored the same rituals, the gods and who they were praying to would be different. The wisdom and spirituality normally passed down through generations within all Indigenous/traditional practices has changed to become something they weren’t originally. That’s because organized religion is the main reason why many Indigenous spiritualities are no longer being practiced by their original community and have had their knowledge lost over the many years of conversion, assimilation, and for many countries, through sheer violence and abuse. If someone has to overly convince you by beating you, raping you, by stealing from you and even going as far as to actually STEAL you to a different land AND try to force you to believe in something that is outside of your natural faith, and I’m speaking ancestrally and historically, then that is a faith that you shouldn’t believe in.

I’m someone who grew up in a Somali Muslim household and as much as I used to entirely blame Islam, I learned there is so much more to it and that the other half of the issue is the Arabization of other cultures who have adopted Islam. I 100% believe Arab culture has killed Indigenous Somali practices but because Islam was “embraced” and became the primary religion, it was known as a blessing from Allah (God)…sound familiar Black Christians? If I’m being honest, the initial direction of this essay was going to be about moving away from ALL organized religion, but the more I type and think, the more I realize that we need to just eradicate all the Abrahamic religions- point blank period. They have ruined almost every part of the world due to their wars and competition with each other, literally fighting to be God’s favorite, when in reality they continue to sin and be the evils that God has forbidden LOL! Christianity, as we know, is deeply tied to white/european culture and was used to justify dominating almost the entire planet. We also see Israel and Zionists justify their occupation of Palestine for over 75 years and the current genocide because that land was “promised” from God, when in reality most citizens are not even ethnically Jewish or religious at all but love to use Judaism to justify their own hatred for Arabs and other Middle Eastern countries, because why else attack Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran? Each of the 3 Abrahamic religions have multiple counts of terroristic attacks and groups throughout history because each tells their followers that they are the “true believers”, which in turn allows corrupted folks to take advantage and use vulnerable people’s faith to gain soldiers and violent runners to do their bidding, especially when it comes to politics.

Then, there is also the matter of trying to convert people and gain more followers- for Muslims, it’s called Da’wah and for Christians, it’s the missionaries. It may not seem like anything now, but when the goal of a religion shifts from being spiritually connected and morally aware to pushing a narrative of complete righteousness to gain more followers, the means will justify the ends. We see it in the present times, especially when it comes to the Abrahamic religions; and we read about it in history. If a faith practice no longer prioritizes morality and the community, then there is no longer a purpose for it- PERIOD. Most religions only made sense in the context of when they first originated. They were needed to bring in more social justice and community shame; to hold a standard against the deviants who did as they pleased. Over time, religious leaders then added more rules to be able to better control the masses by choosing what is socially acceptable outside of evil/harmful deviancy, and kept people devoted and fearful enough of their place in the afterlife. Also, when you really look and read into the Bible, the Quran and Torah/Old Testament, you see how these three religions only really benefit the cis man, with women and children either being nothing more than an afterthought or those with the most strict rules; their history being filled with oppression and despair (along with queer people only knowing violence and death). What’s crazy is that everyone knows all of these things and still willingly believe in these practices. For the people who are starting to have questions about their faith, are constantly confused or have already been distancing themselves from one of these three organized practices, start asking yourself some real hard-hitting and probing questions to help you understand what you really have faith in and why you even feel the need to believe in anything in the first place. The mental process of understanding my own connection and relationship to faith has taken me years and I’m still deep in it- always adapting and changing my ideas and style of faith to what works for me in the moment and brings me personal peace.

In order to reach this mental and emotional space, one must first start to think about and question whatever faith they grew up in and where their root of faith comes from. Did you grow up with religion and is your family religious? Would you consider you/your family pious or do they practice more for community validation, and/or self-preservation? Would you consider yourself a good person with and without religion, or only because God told you to be? Do you only practice because you want to go to heaven or is your connection and spiritual tie to a higher power enough to believe? These are all questions to consider when trying to find the root of your faith. Now, I can understand some people have experienced so-called miracles and spiritual guidance from God corresponding to their religion or feeling that they were saved from many situations just because they had faith. I am not trying to take that away. If you believe in God or a higher power, so be it, because I do. What I’m trying to say is that I see an issue with organized religion and religious practices whose main goal is to gain the greatest number of followers and believe themselves to only be the “only right” religion.

Over time, we also see how much humanity has lost the art of being one with Nature and being able to follow the law of the land. Once humans started engaging in power struggle and wanting to be above Nature, is when I believe it all went downhill. Obviously, there are a few races (mostly one very large race…AHEM!) that heavily contributed to almost all the atrocities within history, with the current era being a clear consequence for past actions as well as the precursor for the continued problems of the future. Humans have lost touch of themselves and the only way to further and save our own existence, is to somehow find a way to eradicate all the main big 3 religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. This will then give so many different people the time, safety, and curiosity to re-learn what once was lost from their own culture or find a new way to spiritually reconnect with nature, their land and their community without feeling the need to be part of a large religious organization that once took their own spirit from in the first place. I do understand how hard this will be for so many cultures around the world, as the original practices were killed along with the elders who held the secrets and knowledge of their people, but now this will give each Indigenous group the push to re-educate themselves about their own culture, their languages (if still possible) and even innovating new practices with known old ones in relation to their “natural” spirituality and folklore; overall, what I am trying to say is that everyone should return back to believing in ritualistic magic, multiple God’s, astrology, and/or the total and complete power of Mother Nature. It will take a long time, but I believe it will be worth it; as it will teach people to return to becoming more community centered, careful of the Earth around them, and to actually love being alive and human.

The problem with many humans is that they are too preoccupied with what happens after death, and that is why the Abrahamic religions succeed. If heaven and hell exist outside the current human reality, is there really a need to care about our current reality? If all will be well and justified after death, and those that suffered and were “good” go to heaven to be in peace, then of course it makes sense why humans as a collective have given up. There is no real motivation or hope to fix our current state of reality because “God” will make it all better once we die. Judaism doesn’t really believe in a solid concept of heaven and hell, but that’s why I believe Zionist’s act the way they do, because this Earth is “their” heaven and hell and we are all just living in it. I know I was mainly speaking of the big three religions, but I will also add that Buddhism teaches life is learning to understand suffering and once someone finds a way to detach themselves from this world and reach enlightenment, can they remove themselves from the cycle of being reborn back into the cycle of humanity. This just proves to me that most humans actually hate their own existence, just like how I explained earlier how I feel being human is a curse, I see others living that same way, but not honestly and openly. These religions provide their followers with the delusional idea that this life is nothing but just a “test” and that there is better once we die— though, no one has ever come back from the dead or proven that life will even exist after death (not to say it’s not possible, but for sure not guaranteed like they make it seem). Faith in its purity should be leading someone to mental and emotional contentment and clarity. It is why people normally get emotional and experience the feeling of a “spiritual high”, a rushing feeling induced by endorphins and dopamine, when engaging in certain religious rituals. This further motivates the person to practice and keep true to their faith, due to this emotional connection and bond created by these feelings. If we know this, then we can safely assume that “faith” is just another phenomenon our brain has created to appease the questions that we don’t have any answers for- such as why are we here? What is the purpose of humanity and what happens after death? If everything leads back to existentialism, then the only answer should be acceptance of human life and that there may or may not be anything after death.

This is where I change my mind again, LOL! Maybe, all large organized religions that believe in an afterlife should be eliminated. To be honest, when it comes to this idea of eliminating certain religious ideologies, it’s not really solid but all I know is that it is taking away from the here and now of living, of being human and of being alive. So many people feel the restrictions of life and believe it’s worldly things holding them back from greatness and joy, when it is their own religion and faith practice that makes them feel as if they aren’t “free”- because the natural understanding is that humans were made to be sinners or to suffer and that is all of what our existence is about; instead of just trying to fundamentally change the mental and spiritual trajectory of the human collective.

If we ever reach a point in life where religion is removed altogether, this will then create a clean slate for humanity to regrow from. Emptiness and death create room for new growth, and the new growth will be total social development. This is all in theory of course, but if humans had nothing to believe in after death and realize that the “higher power” they are waiting on to save them will not, the hope is that it will wake people up to want to incite change themselves. There would be no need to suffer any more if only humans all worked together to do what it takes to re-distribute wealth from the rich and powerful. We would find new ways to reconstruct communities to make sure everyone is no longer without and is able to meet all their basic human needs; having access to shelter, food, water, and safety.

I truly believe if there was no idea of life after death, then humans would have been much farther advanced in my opinion. These religions are the reason why humanity will die much sooner, because the idea of carnage, suffering, and evil is justified as a means of being able to be rewarded with heaven once they die. Why fight back and change the world when God ordained and has fated that there will be a great war that will end the human race and lead to the resurrection of the all the dead on The Day of Judgement to have their deeds weighed and be placed in either eternal bliss or damnation…it all just sounds so insane to me! Obviously, saying that eradicating these ideologies will be for the betterment of humanity is something I can’t really prove, but I would hope that maybe one day, others will see the value of being alive and wanting to continue to survive humans much longer than what is currently expected.

I really could go further into detail about how capitalism, racism, and all the ism’s continue to be enabled by these religions, but I will leave that for another day and another post (maybe lol), because I’m tired of writing about this any further! For now, I hope that after reading this, you start to contemplate whether religion works in your favor and how else faith can be restructured for the greater good of humanity. This is just my take and I know it must’ve felt all over the place reading this, but I am humble and human enough to know that there is no real answer to save humanity and there might never be.

Sirena