The Fear of God is in me!

I'm not afraid of God so much as I am of religion. Organized religion, quite honestly, creeps me out: while I freely acknowledge that it's brought countless millions hope, inspiration, joy, and community, I personally have only had negative experiences with it. Judaism was very much not my cup of tea, and the teeny-tiny exposure I've had to a somewhat moderate breed of Roman Catholocism has been no better. Mostly, I feel that all organized religions put too much faith in the unseen and unproven, and I've never been one to accept "just because" as an answer for anything. I generally try to avoid religion, partly because it was forced on me when I was younger, partly because so much of 'the establishment' is firmly esconsed in bigoted and/or biased views, and partly because I personally feel that there's a very fine line between 'strong religious teachings' and 'freaky cults involving goat blood.'

So, add into the mix that I was raised Jewish and I've relatively recently realized: "Holy crap, Jews are a minority!", I'm sort of nervous about starting seminar again. With seminar sophomore year comes the bible, and with the bible comes...fear, on my part.

Right now, this is manifesting itself in a very bizarre way. I've figured out (I think) what flavor of the bible I'm supposed to have (or at least will be acceptable) - I'm planning on using a copy of the Tanak, the Jewish version of the bible. I have hesitations about doing so, but I think I will, mostly because it prolongs the plunge into the complete unknown. Additionally, the other choices are too staggering. I've been looking at bookstores, and...good lord! There's the King James edition, the New King James edition, the Roman Catholic edition, study bibles, daily bibles, teen bibles, annotated bibles...staggering, I tell you. And I just realized that not only do those possibilities not include the Islamic take on things, but also leave out the Jewish versions. It left me feeling very confused and alone, which I suppose could be considered slightly ironic, judging by the number of books promising to make me closer to God.

Ah well. It's one more thing I can blame on my parents: If they hadn't settled in what's one of very, very, very few places in the country where it's easily 40% Jewish, then I wouldn't be as confused about this.