I am an atheist.
This is something that I have taken a long time to come to terms with. I was born and raised strongly Catholic. I was an alter server. Took CCD classes, got my first communion and was part of the CYO. My dad saw to it that we attended mass every Sunday. I used to leave my pretty ribbons from birthday presents at the foot of my bed, as a gift for the Virgin Mary. When I was older, I had conversations with the priest and visiting brothers about the "call to priesthood" and how they could possibly know if I didn't have just that call (for non-catholics, females cannot become priests), or how could they know that what I felt wasn't the exact same thing that they felt when they went to seminary, and not an alternate feeling that was a call to nun-hood.
In 7th grade I kinda realized I was just playing around (I did continue to play around until mid high school it should be noted, having sort of a doublethink for awhile). I have a long history of inventing characters, particularly fantasy characters, and keeping them mentally with me. What would Efifi (My most main of guardian angel like characters I developed for myself in the vacuum of social ostracism) think of me doing this action? Eventually, I acknowledged that these were aspects of myself, or of who I wanted to be, and thought of them less often. I was growing up. What other things was I just inventing to replace the lack of role models and friends I had? Christmas Mass that year, it just kinda hit me, and I started tearing up: there is no rational reason to believe any of this - and thanks to their misogynistic outlook, there was plenty of reasons not to support it institutionally.
My dad spent a year not talking to me when I refused to get confirmed and stopped going to church. This was in high school. We have since gotten over that, but it is actually still a sore point to my dad who sees the actions of his four daughters and his wife (in either not attending church or not believing in the system at all), as an act of disloyalty. Sometimes I try to delve deeper into this sentiment, and determine why his prime lesson to us - "Love the Truth" would not apply to religion, and that we should believe out of some perceived loyalty rather than empirical evidence - but this is very touchy to him and I have not been able to develop the topic in conversation without him getting angry. (This, I should note, is uncharacteristic for him in any other topic. He is mostly a rational engineer).
Rejecting a religion is not the same thing as atheism. Though and from high school to college, I did not think in terms of what I am, so much as in terms of what I am not. I dabbled with the label of "agnostic". I thought Buddhism had some cool outlooks from time to time.
Coming to Mount Shasta has firmly put me in the camp of a skeptical, agnostic, atheist though. The breadth of beliefs here, people thinking the mountain is hollow, or the earth as a whole is hollow, and hosts a population of 5th dimensional humans, or aliens, including Jesus, Buddha, and a whole host of people they call the "Ascended Masters" who live on a different vibrational level (whatever that means?) There are people making bank on wild imaginations. But then again, is what they believe terribly different from the idea that a sky man impregnated a woman without sex? Or that a snake could talk?
I have a hard time taking and religion seriously, because I understand how seriously people can take their imaginations. I think having a creative mind is great. I form stories in my mind more often than they get written down. I spend sleepless nights developing ancient societies and complex mythologies. And this is fun. At one point, I took these seriously. I looked at my hard work in field hockey and thought, Efifi is demonstrating herself through me, strong, stoic, capable. Or when I was feeling vunerable, it was Miranda coming though. I did transition this supernatural imagination to understanding I was expressing parts of myself that exist and personifying them, but this was a slow transition from 6th grade to 9th.
There is of course something to ritual, and community identification, which are two things organized religion provides. Becoming part of something greater than yourself is a great way to feel like you are cultivating yourself and moving towards a meaningful goal. That is what I have Kyudo for though. When I'm part of a D&D game, I feel the community part satisfied.
This is a ramble, and I am going to close now. I note, it is a ramble because half of it was written 3 months ago, in a different mindset, and now I just want to get it done enough to end it... so yeah. blah.
No comments:
Post a Comment