Religion for me has always been a metaphor for life, at best, and a collection of fairy tales, at worst.

But I realize that many, many people actually believe in their religious doctrines, are comforted and pray to their particular Gods for anything from world peace to a winning lottery ticket.

I’m not talking about those hypocrites throughout history who have weaponized religion to gain power and enslave or otherwise put down others. That’s another story. I am talking about the believers.

There are many who believe that Jesus walked on water, Moses came upon a bush that kept on burning and a very enterprising fellow built an ark and put two of every animal on it. I just can’t get into it.

It never worked for me because I just could never picture a force that would help me in my moment of doubt and shame. That was my job, my responsibility and experience has taught me that if I don’t do it, no one else will.

Although I do envy those who seem to find strength and meaning from their faith. They seem somehow, less alone. I don’t doubt their commitment, I just can’t fathom it.

I believe that the reason we are here is to be here and that after we’re gone, we’re gone, physically, although our memories linger and you could call that our souls. There is no divine purpose, other than to live our lives in the best ways we know and there is no divine protection, but that would seem pretty obvious by the examples in history of mass cruelty.

There may be a reason for it all that is way beyond my comprehension but as far as what I do comprehend, there are no miracles beyond those natural moments of wonder like the birth of a newborn or the good deeds of a man.

But so much of religion is rote, leaving little wiggle room for doubt or questioning.

I attended Hebrew School and to qualify for my bar mitzvah, I learned my haftorah or I should say I learned to recite my haftorah because it was all in Hebrew, of which I knew maybe two words, like shalom and meshuga. The haftorah is the reading of a portion of the old testament, a tradition for bar mitzvah.

Hebrew school literally made no sense to me and I did not believe the miracle stories about Abraham, Issac, Moses and the rest because to me, they were totally fantastic nonsense. Many of their teachings were profoundly meaningful, but the myths that were built around those teachings are difficult to believe. The teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Buddhism and the rest are essential to life and that is enough without creating all these crazy stories about impossible events.

Evidently, people need something to believe in that is beyond their reality.

People have believed some really off the wall things through the eons and who am I to say they were wrong? Obviously these beliefs have served and continue to serve a very valuable purpose or they wouldn’t have become part of the human story.

How about Athens, Greece, around 3000 BCE, when people prayed for help from Aphrodite, Goddess of beauty, love, desire, and pleasure who was born from sea-foam and the severed genitals of Uranus. Did they really believe the stuff about sea-foam and genitals?

In Nekhen in Upper Egypt around 6000 BCE, the common belief was that justice was doled out by Ammit (Ammut), “Devourer of Souls,” a goddess with the head of a crocodile, torso of a leopard and hindquarters of a hippo. Ammut was among around 3,000 Egyptian deities. Maybe back then people believed in the crocodile, leopard, hippo tale and didn’t see it as metaphor. That is the stuff of nightmares.

And then there was the moment when Jesus physically departed from Earth by rising into heaven, in the presence of 11 of his apostles. My problem with believing in such miracles is that it’s been a long, long time and nobody else has returned from the dead, to my knowledge. History is cluttered with many who have claimed to be God-like, and many have even believed them, out of ignorance or desperation.

There have been some rather strange religious myths through history. Take the Egyptian Four Sons of Horus, Duamutef, Hapy, Imset and Qebehsenuef, (that would be five) who watched over the viscera or the dead in the four canopic jars placed in the tomb. Canopic jars were used by the ancient Egyptians during the mummification process to store and preserve the viscera of their owner for the afterlife, if you’re interested.

As the story goes, the Greek goddess, Athena, goddess of reason, wisdom, intelligence, skill, peace, warfare, battle strategy, and handicrafts, was born from Zeus’s forehead, fully formed and armored.

In Buddhism, there are the Devas and Brahmas, heavenly beings that exist in five main heavens that are structured in layers above the human realm. They can exist in material or immaterial form.

Today, we put people in a box and bury them, hoping for what? It’s not a lot different than those canopic jars.

It goes on and on for every religion from Zeus to Brahma to Mohammad to Abraham and Jesus. I’m probably wrong and that day when my story is told and I’m done on earth I will probably find myself in the company of a goddess with the head of crocodile who will be telling me, “I told you so.”