Religion and Fun

Some of you had better get ready to be offended. When you’ve finished being
offended, maybe you can think about what I’ve said without hiccuping.
Religion is bad.
There. I said it. I hear those hiccups from every direction.
I’m Jewish. I’m proud of being Jewish. I like being Jewish. How can I be Jewish
when I believe that religion is bad?
Every religion has good points and bad points. Some have more bad points than good
points. My religion has a lot of bad points, but has a central theme that I can agree with.
I take the best and ignore everything that doesn’t make sense.
The central theme of Judaism is a very simple one. There is one god, and he has
dominion over the universe. Everything else in Judaism is window-dressing. We have a
million traditions, discuss the Word and the Law endlessly, repeat prayers constantly, and
follow a complex regimen of daily, weekly and yearly requirements, but the idea of a
single overarching power is what gives us definition. I don’t care much about the god
thing. It’s the idea of unity that I like.
There are three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Christianity
and Islam are rewrites of the original template, and are basically rule and belief sets
added to the central theme long after Judaism’s tenets were delineated. An Islamic
friend once told me that Abraham, the patriarch of all three religions, was a Muslim, but
that’s just a case of claiming for themselves what doesn’t belong to them. He was the
founder of my religion, not theirs, so back off, buddy. Get your own founder.
There are, of course, more great religions and belief systems than the three
Abrahamics. There is Hinduism, which is even older than Judaism, animism, which is
probably the oldest type of belief, Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinto, Zoroastrianism (yes,
they still exist), and many smaller groups with interesting and unique approaches to the
world.
As I said, every religion contains good and bad. From Christianity’s roots came our
modern concepts of democracy. From Buddhism we get the science of training the mind.
From Hinduism we get the concept of the Atman, or world soul. From Islam, we get
passion and fire. From Zoroastrianism we get the equality of the sexes. From
Confucianism we get a sensible approach to the philosophies of daily life.
Unfortunately, I still have a problem with most of these religions. They don’t like fun,
and they don’t encourage their adherents to strive for Fun. In some of them, fun is
actually frowned upon, and the whole idea of Fun would have gotten me exiled,
excommunicated or executed once upon a time. It still would in some places.
I called this website the Temple of Fun for a reason: I don’t want to give pointless
offence. If I’m going to offend, it’s because my belief system doesn’t coincide with
yours, and too bad for you. I could have called it the Church of Fun, the Mosque of Fun,
the Monastery of Fun, or the Synagogue of Fun. In fact, I call it any one of these inside
my head, in a sort of round-robin tomfoolery that amuses me, but I will use the name
Temple of Fun because a temple is a generic word that means place of worship. So don’t
bother arguing with me about it – I’m not going to change it.
Let me use my own religion, Judaism, to illustrate my points. No one can claim that
this is racism or anti-(fill in the blank) that way. The ultra-orthodoxy will doubtless tell
me that I’m not really a Jew because of this, but we Jews have a long and unvenerable
history of telling each other who is a Jew and who isn’t. It usually comes down to “if you
agree with me you’re a Jew, if you don’t you’re not,” which sounds more like schoolyard
bullying than philosophy.
Each service in a synagogue revolves around two things: the Torah, which is the most
sacred of our writings, and the undisputed letter of the law, and the Shema, which is a
short prayer that goes “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our god, the Lord is one.” The Torah is
the first five books of the Bible, so Christians should be relatively familiar with it, but
let’s not get into Torah here. What I’m concerned with is the Shema and its
interpretation. I’ll deal more with it in a later posting (Judaism and Fun). Suffice it to
say here that this is the best part of the religion, and the main thing that I take from it: the
concept of universality and unity.
My idea of God is a bit heretical, of course. I don’t separate God from the universe
itself. To do so is to play a complex word game which means nothing to me.
This is where my concept of Fun comes into it. I believe that the universe wishes to
have fun, for us to have fun, and for our fun to be the fun of the universe at large. Put all
this together, and the striving of the universe becomes a striving for Fun. We should
have fun, in order to honour our creator.
So why does my religion and heritage have so many rules against fun? Perhaps it’s
because in our long history there are more chapters of victimization than triumph, more
pages of violence than peace, more words spoken in racism and contempt than in
egalitarianism and friendship. My people are definitely among the worst-treated people
in history. A people who have lived with negativity for so long can’t simply throw off its
yoke and become fun-loving happy folk overnight.
A few things that Judaism frowns upon: sex outside of marriage, intoxication,
masturbation, flirtation, mixing of the sexes, women having careers and dressing
comfortably. On the other hand, we are allowed to enjoy sex in the marriage bed, which
is definitely a plus, whether it’s for procreation or fun, so it’s not all bad news.
On the face of it, though, we are definitely a religion that frowns on fun. Our prayer
rituals are long and complicated, our appearances are dictated to us by tradition, and what
we’re allowed to enjoy is limited. Our daily worship is a battle, according to orthodoxy,
between our higher and lower selves. Our higher selves should dwell in a tower of ‘right-
thinking’ and ‘right-acting’, and our lower, fun-loving, selves should be kept caged and
restricted. We should be thinking about the Word, not the groin.
It does make sense in a way. Jews have had an influence, and are having it still, on
world history that is far out of proportion to our numbers. We make up 0.25 percent of
the world’s population, but have made huge impacts on the arts and sciences. Our history
has taught us to value education and wisdom above all other pursuits. That’s a good
thing for a people who have suffered subjugation in every country in which they’ve ever
lived (possibly excepting India).
At the same time, we keep women separated and out of the studious mainstream,
treating them as second-class creatures. They aren’t supposed to show their hair or any
other sexual attractant, are isolated in the synagogue, and are not encouraged to work
outside of the home. The orthodox have books full of reasons for this, but they ignore
our modern reality in favour of a backward-looking obsession with ‘tradition.’
Because of this war with the lower self, masturbation and sexual experimentation are
frowned upon, and gay sex is just wrong. Some of the most fun things that the universe
has prescribed for us are discouraged, or even forbidden. God invented masturbation, not
me, and I can’t imagine him/her/it inventing it just so we can avoid it. Right-thinking and
right-action have nothing to do with sexual fulfillment, but the rabbis have spoken and
the rule of law is paramount.
This is not, I must point out, a tirade against the higher self, or a pedestalization (my
new word of the day) of the lower self. The joy of spiritual congress is undeniable, and
the satisfaction of learning and gaining wisdom are inescapable. I just don’t see why in a
modern world, in which Jews are less victimized than at any time in our history, we can’t
take off our socks and feel the sand on the beach. The lower self is not a lower self at all.
It is one of the vehicles of attainment of the Shema: the Lord is one. To truly worship is
to have fun, and aim at Fun itself. Prayer should be joyful, not a war with oneself.
I have a personal relationship with the Lord. As a man with a history of mental ups
and downs, I’ve spent a lot of time in both camps: spirituality and rejectionism. Half my
brain knows that there is a god/universe with a spiritual dimension; the other half says
that I should stick to reality and not believe in magic. When the two halves of my brain
are getting along, I don’t care whether god exists, I just find solace in the idea. And in all
my many conversations with the universe, I have never been told not to seek pleasure.
Sadly, Christianity and Islam are even more fervent in their proscription of fun.
Christians are obsessed, as a religion, with the violence done to their prophet. Their
whole religion revolves around it. Having fun is just wrong, to most of their sects. Fun
is frivolous and unholy. To be one with God, you must deny all the pleasures of the body
and mind, and only when we do so are we admitted into God’s presence.
Ridiculous! God gave us fun. God gave us positivity in all its forms. God gave us
genitals, minds and the joy of the dance. It saddens me that so much of the world’s
population is unable to enjoy themselves without worrying about going to hell.
Islam is just as bad. Women are deeply subjugated, all forms of intoxication are
illegal, and martyrdom is a backstage pass to paradise. The name of the religion is
Submission, and punishment is the fruit of freedom. Let’s face it though. There are very
few Muslim men on the planet who haven’t masturbated, even though it’s against the
rules. Free thought is immoral and free action is repressed. It’s life-by-numbers, and
about as creative.
As democratically-correct people, we are supposed to main the proper noises about
religion: all religions are equally important and should be valued, we need to respect
other people’s ways of life, bla bla bla. I disagree. A valid religion is based on love,
freedom, equality and respect as well as some vision of godliness and god. A valid
religion is based on positivity, not the threat of punishment or violence. A valid religion
is based on ideals of joyous connection to the universe. A valid religion is fun, and
strives for Fun. Don’t bother to get angry. Someone has to tell you.
So excommunicate me, exile me, or threaten to execute me; you won’t change my
mind. I choose to live in the positive world, where the universe/god is a positive force
and being. I choose a life wherein the good is godly, and the good is what makes the
most people feel the best. I choose to be a person who celebrates existence, instead of
denigrating it. I choose Fun.