Why I Cannot Be

Why I can't be an Atheist
Is that I believe in good.
I believe in evil.
I believe in the supernatural.
I believe in truth.
I believe in a common shared experience.
I believe in a moral certainty.
I believe in sexual fidelity.
I believe in monogamy.
I believe in inherent values.

Why I cannot be a Muslim
Is because the religion teaches its adherents to lie.
Frankly, this one concept in Islam is so blasphemous to my ears
That in the face of persecution,
Muslims are allowed to lie.
To me, God's standard is truth.
If you were a Muslim, and that God were true
You'd almost be compelled to tell the truth.
Also, I cannot see myself bowing to a rock;
If not for the flawed laws in the Koran
The constant prostration to a rock in the middle of a desert
Shows to me, at least, that the religion is centered around idolatry
And is nothing more than statecraft.

Why I cannot be a Hindu---
Though there is no other religion I'd be
If not for Christianity, the only other one
Enticing to me is Hinduism.
But, its myths have bad ideas about charity.
It praises the prince who capriciously gives
Two mountains of gold to two passer yonders
Rather than to the prince who labors
For twenty-four hours to give based on the poor's needs.
It seems the religion advocates lazy charity;
And it also believes in a Manichaeism,
Making good equal to evil in strength.
Which, I cannot believe either.
And the very notion of becoming a god
Is petulant, self serving and dangerous.
I cannot believe in any religion
That would turn its adherents into gods.
Thereby, giving authority to men
What is unjust to give them
Due to our fallible and finite nature.
I also cannot stomach Dharma or Reincarnation
As if all life were, is about ending it,
I find this view horrible and immoral.
I think life ought to be celebrated,
And rewarded for a good one with eternal bliss.
I also find Dharma insufficient
And lazy, so as to excuse the suffering of the poor
And to excuse injustice, and so tidily chalk it up
With reincarnation, giving justice to pointless abuses.

Why I cannot be a Buddhist 
Is because I find no meaning in suffering.
There can be no meaning in suffering.
To me, suffering is pointless, and is to be avoided.
I find the religion's founder to be gross;
As he would sit among battlefields
And meditate among the rotting corpses.
He would sit in graveyards and meditate.
He seemed, almost, so inured and disassociated from the world.
He, rather than help others, simply bore great grief
And I find that kind of inaction pointless
And even dangerous, and at the highest degree
Buddhism is self serving in every aspect as a religion.

Why I cannot be a Shinto or Zoroaster
Is the same reason. I cannot believe
In an ordering of spirits
To where evil ones are given equal weight to good.
I cannot believe it, because I believe good is strongest
And evil is simply a disfiguration of what is good.
Evil is a distortion of the good, or it's something
That distorts and therefore, is negative rather than something
Positive. I find evil must be destroyed one day
Fully, and that it cannot be dualistic
Giving equal weight to both good and evil.
I believe that good must be stronger than evil
And one day destroy it, otherwise, I cannot believe in 
God, if God is in part equally strong as evil.

Why I cannot be a Pagan
Is that it is banal to me to believe
That many gods and goddesses are warring
Among one another. That they are all benevolent
And thereby, each having its own aim
Wars with the other gods, giving license to one hero
And they all vote upon the virtues of man.
I find this contradicts the very spirit of Good
To say that good is compartmentalized
In metaphors about war, love, oceans or hell.
That is all Pagan gods and goddesses are
To me, are metaphors. And I cannot believe
Metaphors are powerful enough for me to believe
In and worship---as that's a kind of idolatry which I will never succumb to.

I cannot be a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness
Because I believe in the Trinity.
I find God must exist in Three Persons.
Thereby, if One God exists
And carries all the attributes of God
Commonly attributed to Him,
Then God must exist in three Persons.
Thereby, I cannot also worship Michael,
As both these Arian religions worship him.
I believe no angel deserves our worship
And that God the Father and God the Son
Are coeternal, uncreated
And existing for eterniy.

Why I cannot be agnostic is
Because I know a god exists.

Why I cannot be a gnostic
Is because I believe we must
Do good here upon the Earth.
I believe we must abstain from evil.
I do not believe we ought to
Simply live our lives however we want.
I believe we should,
Instead, be fruitful, give generously,
Abstain from sexual sin and violence.
I cannot, again, believe in Dualistic ideas
Of a demiurge and aeon.
Of a physical and spiritual world;
As my entire philosophy on life
Is that both the spiritual and physical
Exist intertwined, and mutually coexisting;
As intricately woven together
As God is in the Flesh of Jesus Christ,