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Jun. 6th, 2005 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexmegamihttp://www.livejournal.com/community/ljdq/35911.html?#cutid1
Quoted again!
---
Alright, the religion post. This is likely going to be patchy, since religion is something that I was, well, somewhat patchy with religion.
I was never really raised with religion. My mother was never a particularly devout Anglican; my father, though from a Catholic family, is an atheist. My stepfather was raised in a religious household, but seems to be either agnostic or (very) quietly religious. About the closest thing that my family had to overt religious beliefs was my mother's interest in astrology. Beyond that, we celebrated Easter and Christmas, but I don't think I set foot inside a church except in special circumstances.
There were exceptions, of course; I visited the Church of the Latter Day Saints down on Bovaird when it was first built (back when the rabble were allowed in for viewing). It was lovely, but I never listened to any actual services.
I went to church with my aunt and cousins a few weeks when I was nine or so. My dad was moving from the apartment to the house, and was in an in-between stage where he, Terry and the kids were staying at Terry's mother's. I was not able to fit there, so I spent my nights at Aunt Amy's and my days with daddy. They were religious (Catholic), so on Sunday mornings I was taken to church.
My memory is hazy. The interior of the church was huge, and beautifully decorated. (I think I paid more attention to the dome than to anything else.) I stood when everyone else stood, I sat when they sat, and I pretended I had any idea what I was doing when things were said or sung. They were enjoyable but confusing two-hour blocks of my morning.
My aunt's was actually my first introduction to the idea of saying grace before a meal (before then, I might have encountered it once or twice, but it was otherwise a totally foreign concept). Hm.
Around this time or a little later - grade four or five - everyone recieved one of those little red Gideon New Testaments. I actually read that, along with a Children's Illustrated Bible that covers a lot of the OT stories. That book is actually how I remember most of the stories; visuals are easier for me to remember than text is. The NT itself came with an easy appendix for whatever ailed you. Depressed? Read Matthew 1:1-17 [note: I pulled numbers out of my ass. That's actually the entirety of Jesus' lineage, and probably won't help with depression]. And so on. In my silly little fourth-grade brain, I thought I actually had ailments, and would dutifully read the passage it suggested, along with the given passages for each day.
I think this was my first attempt at becoming religious. No one suggested it to me; I don't think my mother even knew what I was doing. I prayed nightly, mostly for help with whatever was bothering me. Not the best of practices, but again, I was on my own here.
I think that lasted a month, tops. I realized I wasn't really getting anything out of it emotionally or spiritually - not that I could tell, anyway - and the nightly readings fell by the wayside. I still read the illustrated OT, though, because the stories were cool. (Hell, I could probably still give you the Coles Notes of a bunch of OT stories, and a few of Jesus' parables. I know, I'm awesome...) At this point I considered myself an agnostic at best.
Around this time and a little later, I realized that oh noes!! I was teh gay!! Through this, and other conversations, I discovered 1) my dad was a Philosophy and Psychology double major in university; 2) he was an atheist. Depending on how much of a daddy complex you think I have, this may be where I got it from ;) (Not really.)
However, through high school, I was introduced to a lot of people whowanted to rebel against their parents were interested in magic. I liked these people; they were generally pretty cool. Just off the Turner grounds, there was an empty field of long grass with a small valley in it. A tree grew in this valley, and there were a bunch of rocks there. A little closer to campus, but down a hill, there was a creek.
It was a really beautiful natural location, and also my first introduction into formal religious New Age beliefs. (I say this because I already knew about and believed in astrology, but concepts like Wicca and paganism were totally new). This became my new obsession: the idea of magic, the idea that lighting different colored candles or venerating the earth or calling on the God and Goddess would help me in whatever way.
Did it help? I don't know. I got through a couple of years that, by other people's standards, might have been very traumatic. I became much more outgoing, I admitted (mostly) to my bisexuality, and I made a lot of friends. I got through a bad friendship split without huge issues (Daphne). Bad things happened, but looking back, they could have been worse.
Still, I had the same feeling that I did when I opened the New Testament: It's beautiful, but it isn't filling me spiritually.
By eleventh grade, I was pretty sure I was an atheist. I'd tried generic Christianity, I'd tried various forms of paganism (we never got as far as rituals), and I was pretty sure there was nothing out there giving me anything. Still, I was making friends with SimonL and Jason and SimonB and a lot of the music squad, so I went along to Youth Group (largely not churchy, despite being in a church) and the retreats (very churchy, but also with large non-churchy elements).
The same pattern repeated. The music was uplifting, joyful and wonderful and thunderous. The sermons? Left me cold. The stories of people who had only gotten through difficult times thanks to God? Made me uncomfortable. Sorry for their loss, but distinctly uncomfortable.
The retreats were there to hang out with friends and sing cool songs. And to make fun of Simon for his voice cracking, but to be fair, it was pretty hilarious to hear.
By OAC, I was full-on devout atheist. There were too many internal logic errors with Christianity that I could see. I'd also hit a point where I could identify the fact that a lot of churches were anti-gay and anti-abortion, both things I supported. I was also seeing a lot of hypocrisy in news sources about religious folks, and things like Fred Phelps picketing Matthew Shepard's funeral or the Toronto Pride Parade soured me to a lot of religion. I knew there were others out there that weren't so vile - most everyone I knew personally, for starters - but if people could take the Bible and use it to picket funerals, I wanted nothing to do with it.
In first year university, I tried again with Infinite Circle to find some sort of religious belief. Paganism and Wicca had always sat better (though not well) with me, and in IC I found some good things (they know who they are ;) and some bad. I could believe in things for a little while, but the feeling always faded.
I think in the end, it comes down to this: I don't think there is any outside force that can affect my life. I can appreciate beauty, whether in a church or in nature or in the bonds of friendship shared in these places; but I do not think there is any power that exists outside of the physical and mental realm. I am whole as I am; I am not "lacking" in anything. However, there's always room to improve, but that improvement is going to come from me and me alone.
So, yeah. Does that make sense to anyone?
Quoted again!
---
Alright, the religion post. This is likely going to be patchy, since religion is something that I was, well, somewhat patchy with religion.
I was never really raised with religion. My mother was never a particularly devout Anglican; my father, though from a Catholic family, is an atheist. My stepfather was raised in a religious household, but seems to be either agnostic or (very) quietly religious. About the closest thing that my family had to overt religious beliefs was my mother's interest in astrology. Beyond that, we celebrated Easter and Christmas, but I don't think I set foot inside a church except in special circumstances.
There were exceptions, of course; I visited the Church of the Latter Day Saints down on Bovaird when it was first built (back when the rabble were allowed in for viewing). It was lovely, but I never listened to any actual services.
I went to church with my aunt and cousins a few weeks when I was nine or so. My dad was moving from the apartment to the house, and was in an in-between stage where he, Terry and the kids were staying at Terry's mother's. I was not able to fit there, so I spent my nights at Aunt Amy's and my days with daddy. They were religious (Catholic), so on Sunday mornings I was taken to church.
My memory is hazy. The interior of the church was huge, and beautifully decorated. (I think I paid more attention to the dome than to anything else.) I stood when everyone else stood, I sat when they sat, and I pretended I had any idea what I was doing when things were said or sung. They were enjoyable but confusing two-hour blocks of my morning.
My aunt's was actually my first introduction to the idea of saying grace before a meal (before then, I might have encountered it once or twice, but it was otherwise a totally foreign concept). Hm.
Around this time or a little later - grade four or five - everyone recieved one of those little red Gideon New Testaments. I actually read that, along with a Children's Illustrated Bible that covers a lot of the OT stories. That book is actually how I remember most of the stories; visuals are easier for me to remember than text is. The NT itself came with an easy appendix for whatever ailed you. Depressed? Read Matthew 1:1-17 [note: I pulled numbers out of my ass. That's actually the entirety of Jesus' lineage, and probably won't help with depression]. And so on. In my silly little fourth-grade brain, I thought I actually had ailments, and would dutifully read the passage it suggested, along with the given passages for each day.
I think this was my first attempt at becoming religious. No one suggested it to me; I don't think my mother even knew what I was doing. I prayed nightly, mostly for help with whatever was bothering me. Not the best of practices, but again, I was on my own here.
I think that lasted a month, tops. I realized I wasn't really getting anything out of it emotionally or spiritually - not that I could tell, anyway - and the nightly readings fell by the wayside. I still read the illustrated OT, though, because the stories were cool. (Hell, I could probably still give you the Coles Notes of a bunch of OT stories, and a few of Jesus' parables. I know, I'm awesome...) At this point I considered myself an agnostic at best.
Around this time and a little later, I realized that oh noes!! I was teh gay!! Through this, and other conversations, I discovered 1) my dad was a Philosophy and Psychology double major in university; 2) he was an atheist. Depending on how much of a daddy complex you think I have, this may be where I got it from ;) (Not really.)
However, through high school, I was introduced to a lot of people who
It was a really beautiful natural location, and also my first introduction into formal religious New Age beliefs. (I say this because I already knew about and believed in astrology, but concepts like Wicca and paganism were totally new). This became my new obsession: the idea of magic, the idea that lighting different colored candles or venerating the earth or calling on the God and Goddess would help me in whatever way.
Did it help? I don't know. I got through a couple of years that, by other people's standards, might have been very traumatic. I became much more outgoing, I admitted (mostly) to my bisexuality, and I made a lot of friends. I got through a bad friendship split without huge issues (Daphne). Bad things happened, but looking back, they could have been worse.
Still, I had the same feeling that I did when I opened the New Testament: It's beautiful, but it isn't filling me spiritually.
By eleventh grade, I was pretty sure I was an atheist. I'd tried generic Christianity, I'd tried various forms of paganism (we never got as far as rituals), and I was pretty sure there was nothing out there giving me anything. Still, I was making friends with SimonL and Jason and SimonB and a lot of the music squad, so I went along to Youth Group (largely not churchy, despite being in a church) and the retreats (very churchy, but also with large non-churchy elements).
The same pattern repeated. The music was uplifting, joyful and wonderful and thunderous. The sermons? Left me cold. The stories of people who had only gotten through difficult times thanks to God? Made me uncomfortable. Sorry for their loss, but distinctly uncomfortable.
The retreats were there to hang out with friends and sing cool songs. And to make fun of Simon for his voice cracking, but to be fair, it was pretty hilarious to hear.
By OAC, I was full-on devout atheist. There were too many internal logic errors with Christianity that I could see. I'd also hit a point where I could identify the fact that a lot of churches were anti-gay and anti-abortion, both things I supported. I was also seeing a lot of hypocrisy in news sources about religious folks, and things like Fred Phelps picketing Matthew Shepard's funeral or the Toronto Pride Parade soured me to a lot of religion. I knew there were others out there that weren't so vile - most everyone I knew personally, for starters - but if people could take the Bible and use it to picket funerals, I wanted nothing to do with it.
In first year university, I tried again with Infinite Circle to find some sort of religious belief. Paganism and Wicca had always sat better (though not well) with me, and in IC I found some good things (they know who they are ;) and some bad. I could believe in things for a little while, but the feeling always faded.
I think in the end, it comes down to this: I don't think there is any outside force that can affect my life. I can appreciate beauty, whether in a church or in nature or in the bonds of friendship shared in these places; but I do not think there is any power that exists outside of the physical and mental realm. I am whole as I am; I am not "lacking" in anything. However, there's always room to improve, but that improvement is going to come from me and me alone.
So, yeah. Does that make sense to anyone?
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 05:35 am (UTC)For me, it's more that to be privy to something so intensely personal, while barely knowing the person, makes me feel kind of awkward - especially since I'm never going to be able to say "I know how you feel".
no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 07:47 am (UTC)Let me just say, the Phelps' church is a cult more than a church (only family members, and it's IN their house.) ... so yeah, Phelps is kinda screwed up.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 01:26 pm (UTC)Obviously, these are not the whole face of religion, but they are some of the most prominent ones in the media, and it is really rare to see other religious folks go up against them in that forum.
Plus there are any number of real churches that, while they may not go as far as Phelps, certainly espouse the same ideals.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 01:59 pm (UTC)I personally have problems with following the Bible blindly (problem is, we need *somewhere* to start the learning process, and the Bible is it)... putting aside the timelessness arguement, translation is icky in any language, even without political agendas.
And frankly, after struggling with trying to understand other religious views (read: Duncan had his "oh my God! I'm going to end up dating someone without exactly 100% the same religious views! Oh noes!" moment...), I think the biggest problem I have with any religion is that it creates intermediaries that get in the way of a direct relationship ((Yes, I realize the trinity can also fall into that category)) -- ultimately, I'd like to think we're all children of God and there are "different strokes for different folks" :) ... we just need to not let intermediary things get us *too* distracted from that relationship... because intermediary things can be corrupted by undesirable external forces
(which brings my issues with certain other denominations involving Popes; and some other religions)...Woops, my bad... *resumes working on HIS religion-biography-ish-thing*
no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 02:45 pm (UTC)Translation is icky. Translation becomes ickier when you have one sect saying "this is our version of things" and another sect saying "there can be no mistranslation of the Bible".
That's actually a very good point.
*g* Are you going to post yours? I'd like to read it.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 07:54 pm (UTC)