Yesterday, a couple cute Mormon missionaries came over to me and chatted me up. I estimated the three of them to be roughly my age, probably a couple years younger, around 22 to 23. It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday and I incidentally was sitting on a bench near a church. Later they told me they are specifically roaming these areas to do their work. They started out the conversation talking about their strong belief in god, how they talk to him, and how he would answer them their questions. They proceeded asking me what questions I had for god. I didn’t have one and couldn’t even come up with one, but I was interested in chatting with them, so I invited them to sit down with me.

While I never think about questions I could ask god and I rarely think about religion, I went into the conversation rather blindsided and naive. During the conversation and in hindsight it became clear how far on the opposite side of this spectrum these three girls were.

They were smart in the words they chose. They took great care in the responses they would give and the direction they would thereby lead the conversation to. Their clothes were well-selected. They were very friendly and exceptionally good looking. Also their German was really good, almost flawless. Years of study and missionary training must have led them up to this point, sitting with me on that bench. Meanwhile I had just woken up from my nap!

The talk went reasonably well. I was able to politely decline the book they really wanted to give me (they didn’t have a flier) without having the conversation deteriorate or being impolite. I was able to have a respectful conversation with people about my age who seemed like good people, believing in their religion and trying to spread the word. Also I was able to ask them some questions which were slightly outside their comfort zone. The fact that they seemed to genuinely think about answering these questions is what I count as big wins.

After we parted though, the conversation left me with a bitter aftertaste. Me being a hobby-writer, I hadn’t been able to properly articulate all the points you could make about religion from a western standpoint. I will use this article to articulate myself better, so I have a clearer standpoint the next time I go into a similar situation. I don’t need to “win” or convert somebodies belief, or seem really smart to some strangers. What I won’t accept though is being poorly articulated on such a big topic as religion.

Disclaimer: I didn’t think up all the ideas in this article myself.

The Problem of Individuality

Individuality is king. We don’t just eat some schmock cereal off-the-shelve, we order our customized, self-mixed cereal online (https://www.mymuesli.com). We don’t get coffee from the bakery, we have a barista make it just for us and write our name on the cup, too. We admire people who have their own unique, well put-together clothing style, and we put alot of effort into creating our own unique clothing style as well. Precompiled outfits would be unthinkable.

This big need of individuality in our society is something religion cannot still.

Away from clothing and food, there is not only individuality in consumption, but also in thinking. There is whole ocean of blogs where people create the space to broadcast their own thoughts, ideas and ideologies. These bloggers are being much more inventive about thinking than maybe a religious follower, who would read up all of his knowledge from one single book. A religious follower doesn’t really have the right to have too many thoughts of his own and definitely must not write anything. The book is already finished after all. Who would he be to write himself? He is below god and thereby the question is settled. He is not in the right position.

This is in fact something I was able to somewhat confront these Mormon girls with. They mentioned to me how they are pretty courageous to travel the world as missionaries. I later mentioned that I’d characterize them as hardheaded, too, a comment which they liked. Almost simultaneously they touched their hair, looked at the ground and smiled a little. I guess I had recognized something true about them in a small way, which they appreciated.

This would fit well together with a question I asked them later: “If you guys are talking to god and get answers from him, do you also do any kind of authoring? Do you write some stuff down about the answers you get?". This question really puzzled them for a bit. Hardheaded and courageous girls in today’s society, who sincerely believe in having a connection to god himself, traveling the world without publishing and writing anything about it? These puzzle pieces don’t fit together, but that seemed to be the case for these girls. They didn’t have an answer for my question and the conversation got a little bit weird for a second.

It was a question far beyond “do you like to write?". It was really a question about creativity, self-expression and also the big one: individuality.

Nothing came out of them and my goal really wasn’t to have them sweat or to have an uncomfortable conversation. I continued to offer them an easy way out, asking them whether that book they had in their hands would be the only book (needed). They gladly agreed, nodding their heads. One of them had a little bit more she wanted to say about the topic, but they collectively moved on from it - they had missionary work to do after all. Apparently they decided going deeper into that direction was not going to be of help.

The Problem of War and Violence between Religions

It is true that most religions share the same values. Stealing is bad, harming others is not okay and you should love and care about your neighbor. But don’t be confusing your religion with another religion - they are not the same. And the one you believe in is definitely the actual one. This is where I think the crux lies: My religion might be different from yours, and we both identify with it. If that thing that you identify with isn’t the same as that thing I identify with, and also these things claim some sort of monopoly in the same area, we have a serious identity problem. Identity problems are a bitch because they nag onto our egos and easily lead to anger and violence as defense mechanisms. And that’s where the potential for blood shedding lies.

Because of this, from my viewpoint it would make sense for religions to be really permissive of other religions. While writing this post I therefor tried to find religions which strictly forbid violence or participation in wars (that would be similar to Pacifism, a believe but not a religion). However this doesn’t seem to be a corner religions like to put themselves into. Buddhism at its core teaches compassion, however this doesn’t seem to stop monks from killing Muslims. In fact there are many extremist movements around religion, which kill in the name of god.

While it can of course be claimed that those extremist movements diverted from the actual religion, I see the potential for blood shed with every religion, just because of the high level of identification that can go along with it.

I see the same principle also applying to all competing groups, which lend themselves to serious identification with them. Sports clubs for example. However I don’t see sports clubs allowing their fans only to follow their sports club and no other. Often I encounter football fans who are fans of multiple clubs simultaneously, something which should be impossible with religion.

I also mentioned this monopoly- and identification-problem to those girls, yet I articulated it very poorly. They willingly understood, but assured me their religion would be very acceptive of other religions, while assuring me that their god was the actual one. They also mentioned how they believe that there are almost no bad religions. While saying that they giggled and quickly gave each other sassy looks like they were talking about something naughty which they shouldn’t be mentioning in public. This is another one of those topics they made sure to move on from, and I didn’t ask which religion they were giggling about. Also I wasn’t too fond to find out which religion they hated, everybody can have his own naughty secret.

The Strength of Believing and Spirituality

I see a tremendous potential in the act of believing. All my actions are aligned. I have purpose. I serve a greater goal. I have direction. All these thoughts come naturally when believing in something. People know the story of people turning to church in times of extreme crisis. Maybe god will help. Maybe he is the only hope. People may find salvation during the hardest times by turning to god, praying and believing.

While my culture has largely abandoned church and merely uses the buildings for baptism, weddings and funerals, it hasn’t really found a good substitute for the act of believing. I see prayer as a meditative-like state in which people make their body and emotions sweet and relaxed. Prolonging this state for extended periods of time is an act of devotion and in my mind it is good for overall health.

Also church offers a gate into spiritually. The believe in something that is not physically visible is something which is not accepted in modern societies outside of the main religions. With dropping religion from our thought landscapes we have also turned away from spirituality. In western societies we still have the term “spirit” and “soul”, but without diving into religion, these don’t have any meaning. In my opinion this is a deprivation of something that is part of being human. Without religion, we no longer have an outlet for it. Science and hard facts are all there is, and that might be kind of dull.