Rebelling and conforming to religion

Most people who rebel against religion do so because they want to feel free to do what they please. They don’t want to follow another code of laws, since they do that all day at work, and even in their family life. And as a child they were told what to do and were made to feel bad or inadequate if they didn’t follow the ‘rules of behavior’. So they certainly do not want a whole other list of do’s and don’ts to run their life. Religious laws just poke and prod at an unhealed inner wound, which is the feeling of not being good enough. Now here comes religion which commands us to change, be different, do this, do that, don’t do this, don’t do that, you should do this, you must do that. How is that going to help a person feel free and happy? 

The problem is the context. Since the original childhood wound, everything in life is seen through the lens of ‘does this make me feel good about myself, or bad about myself’? Does this cover my feeling of insecurity, or does it expose it? Since we are all trying to escape and cover our feelings of insecurity or weakness, everything becomes distorted, and we cannot see things in their intrinsic worth and value. It becomes all about escaping the hurts and wounds received from childhood and in our lives. If we can see this, observe this, we can create some detachment from our incessant and unconscious denial and avoidance mechanisms, and begin to see what is good for us from a more objective or detached perspective. Then we can read the Scriptures from a place of reason and truth, somewhat detached from self. But the danger here is that we will intellectualize everything, and use this as another way to avoid the feeling of insecurity. You see, for those who don’t rebel against religion, but who embrace it instead, religion and following the laws and performing the rituals becomes another way to ward off the sense of insecurity and inadequacy—the childhood wounding—that lurks beneath the surface.