Around this time last year Megan from Velveteen Mind created a little something called GoBloMeMoFo in response to November’s NaBloPoMo, a challenge for bloggers to blog every day in the month of November. That might not sound hard but I did it last year and believe me, it sucks the sanity and every last ounce of creativity right out of your brain. Hence that lovely little badge in my sidebar from Heather saying “NeenerNeenerHaHa, I am NOT blogging every day in November”. Anyway, the tagline for GoBloMeMoFo was “save the bunny, save the blog” and as I was new to the blogging social network thing, I, in all my enthusiasm, wrote up a guest post for Megan’s blog. Unfortunately, so many bloggers wanted to save the bunny that my post wasn’t ever posted. I have corresponded with Megan about the post, however, and thankfully, she has kept it this whole year and was kind enough to send it back to me this evening. So here it is, folks; my attempt at saving the bunny:
These last two posts have sparked a bit of contemplation here in the overgrown labyrinth of my brain, the part that takes any time at all to examine spirituality. I read a lot of blogs and of the ones that talk about the spirituality or religion of the blogger, none come close to what I have built for myself as far as spiritual framework goes. There have been many times that I’ve read a blog entry that is pro-Christian or anti-atheism and I have longed to comment. I’m not sure why I never have; or perhaps that’s really a lie. I do know why I hesitate to comment on posts regarding spirituality or opinions formed from the morals of a particular religion. First of all, I am afraid of offending the blogger. Everyone has a right to their own beliefs, especially in their own blogging universe, so who am I to risk raising ire over a controversial topic? Also, to be totally honest, I was born into a persecuted religion. I’m used to being discounted for being in the minority. Even when I revised my own personal spirituality I was criticized by many, and so I try to avoid even thinking about religion (or my own personal lack thereof).
I was born into a Jewish family. Funny, when people hear that they automatically ask me which of my parents was Jewish. They both are. All of my grandparents are/were Jewish. Most of my immediate family practices some form of Judaism. We are a family that has always been proud of our faith and has tried very hard to keep it alive. I am very proud of my heritage and feel that it is important to pass the culture of Judaism on to my children. That being said, I’ll tell you right now that events in my life, and my own skeptical nature have led me to the personal conclusion that there very likely is no God. I could go into my line of reasoning and try to validate to you readers why this is so, but really, that is not my intent here.
Once I decided that monotheism was not my cup of tea, I looked into all sorts of religions; Hinduism, taoism, atheist, agnostic, wicca, Buddhist, you name it, I researched it. Being somewhat of an academic minded person, I figured the best way to decide what I believed was to research all of my options. I found that,while I can’t bring myself to believe in God, I have a hard time saying that I 100% don’t believe in any form of outside influence on life in general. I don’t just mean for people either. One thing that makes me believe that every creature on this planet is not so much mulch in the making is personalities. People and animals have individual, distinct personalities and the intricacies of such a thing lead me to think that there is more to creatures in general than simple biological functioning.
What do I believe about the afterlife? What I know for a fact is that there are neurons in every single brain. And those neurons fire electric impulses throughout the whole brain. Electricity is energy and according to the laws of physics, energy cannot be destroyed, so the electricity in my brain, the energy that causes me to be me, can’t just end when my physical body does. Maybe when I die my energy will disperse into the atmosphere. Perhaps the next time I will resurface will be in the form of a lightening bolt in a thunderstorm over Bombay in 50 years. I’m comfortable with that. It means I won’t just be snuffed out, but it doesn’t fill my head with promises of paradise either. It means I live for now, not some unprovable future reward. I do good things for people in need for the satisfaction I get from altruism. I have faith in myself and those who I love and who love me. I can worship anywhere; the woods, on my way to work, in a church, a synagogue, an altar.
Do you hate me yet?
I hope not. I respect all of you for who you are and your beliefs. I hope you can do the same for me. When I read a post about atheism and how horrible certain movies are for promoting it to children along with a lot of pro-Christian documentation along with it, I cringe. I’m pretty close to being atheist. My boyfriend is assuredly an atheist. I don’t plan on raising my children with the belief in God. When they ask me about death, I plan on telling them a similar version of what I told you. I won’t have them say prayers, or grace, or anything involving beliefs that I don’t embrace myself. Does that make me evil? Or damned to Hellfire (been there, done that…been damned that is, never actually seen Hellfire in person to my knowledge)?
I do plan on teaching my children about the culture in which I was raised. I will explain to them the Jewish traditions and tell them some of the stories I heard as a child, but it will be as fairy tale, not fact. I will make it a point to let them know that they have to have faith in themselves in order to even begin to have faith in anything else. I will leave their options open and I will encourage them to respect others, despite any differences there might be.
I guess that’s about the best I can do. And please, don’t be like me…do feel free to comment. There is no judgment here.
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9:03 pm
This might be my favorite post of yours that you’ve ever written. Not just because I’ve traveled a similar-ish path and come to some similar-ish conclusions about my beliefs but because you have the courage to say it outright while allowing some room for others to believe differently.
The other day I wrote a post (one you read and commented on) about my mom and where “she,” the essence of her, went if not to heaven. Part of that is because I don’t believe in heaven exactly, but I also don’t believe that her spirit ceased to exist when she died. Her death (and the long and terrible suffering illness before it) taught me so very many things about what I believe. And what I don’t believe.
Anyway, I could leave a novel in comments and kind of already have, but this resonated with me. I think it’s just as valid not to believe certain things as it is to believe them. Oddly, considering what I don’t believe, I consider myself a spiritual person, and after reading this, I see you that way, too. Good stuff over here today. Good stuff.
10:13 pm
You and I? We are one. I have a similar [not really, but it's about religion and my kids] post scheduled for next week.
I totally get where you’re coming from. Completely.
10:34 pm
i was raised christian, but i think the modern church has perverted christianity quite far off from what it was meant to be. i like your explanation of energy, it makes sense. i wouldn’t mind being a lightning bolt. i just can’t stand the thought of ceasing entirely to exist.
11:55 pm
I’m going to throw you for a loop.
I 100% don’t believe in any form that has an outside influence on life, but I can’t bring myself to believe there is God.
You may ask, how is this, oh crazy Heather.
Because I’m God. Feel my omnipotence!
How’s that for sacrilegious thoughts? heh
No seriously. I think there is some form of higher power, but it isn’t some outside power making good or bad things happen to me. It’s inside of me instead and I can live consciously about the connection or unconsciously.
Don’t believe in a heaven or hell either and the afterlife? It’s one of those unanswerable questions, so I’m going to enjoy the ride while I’m on it, which basically means I’m ALL for living in the now.
Perhaps a misconception is that by rejecting conventional/traditional religions means we also reject the idea of the Divine?
For so long, I thought if I didn’t believe X,Y,Z about God, then I didn’t believe in God. Turns out? You can believe whatever the hell you want because it’s all made up anyway. No one can prove this stuff, so make it up.
It’s what I do.
6:33 am
I am so glad you wrote this post! I’ve been toying with the notion of writing about my beliefs, but I’m reluctant. I don’t want to offend anyone either. Also, because I’m not completely sure about what I believe. I’m still figuring it out.
I grew up in a Christian home. My father was a minister. When I left home to go to college, I took great pleasure in NOT going to church. Still, I was indoctrinated. I had so much fear. I made a lot of decisions out of fear of going to hell. It’s no surprise that most of those choices led me somewhere I didn’t really want to be.
Now, I’m 32. I’ve never gone back to church. I don’t think I will. It feels very much like a show to me. Maybe that’s because I was behind the scenes enough when I was younger to realize that it really sort of is.
Recently, when my grandfather passed away, I sat at the funeral home listening to the pastor. I knew he’d read Psalms 23 and from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. He would tell us how we can rejoice in the knowledge that my grandfather is with his Lord and Savior. (Although, if you’d listen to the pastor on Sunday, he’d tell you a man like my grandfather - who was not baptized, had not accepted Jesus in his heart - certainly would not go to heaven.) And it reminded me of a summer in college when I worked as a telemarketer and the script they gave us. “If someone says this, you say that…” It was all so contrived. And it gave me no comfort.
Shortly after my grandpa died, Julia told me that she didn’t believe in God. We talked about it. She told me, “I don’t believe in God, Mom. I believe in my own heart.” It made me sad and proud all at the same time.
Anyway, I know I’m just rambling on. I guess what it comes down to for me is, I’m reaching a point where I am coming to my own personal conclusion that there likely is no God. But I don’t have the courage to believe it yet.
3:36 am
I’m a spiritual agnostic. And my four grown kids? One’s a theist, one’s a buddhist, one’s an atheist, and one believes in reincarnation.
There’s no hate here.
6:18 am
Yeah… I’ve got no hate for you. I think you have thought about this a lot and you have found something that works for you. You, in my opinion, are doing far more for spirituality than people who blindly follow a religion without giving any thought to what it really means.
It’s all good.
8:05 am
Dear Korie,
I loved reading your post AND the comments on it.
I have come to the conclusion that, being raised as a catholic, I leave out the show of going to church. I’m also offended at the shortsightedness of the catholic values, so I have decided to support the christian values and teach my children to have faith in themselves, search for the inner beauty in others and above all, respect others. They are going to catholic shools, like I did, which means no harm by the way. Your fundaments are Jewish, mine are catholic, but still we follow our own heart in the end, so their options are equally open.
Wow, this seems like the ‘long comments’-post!
6:40 am
We are all so shaped by our parents and the strengths of their beliefs. My parents believed with all their heart that there is a God. My mother, with her dying breath, was thanking God for her life. My father, will do the same..he believes that God has been very good to him.
I decided, after watching my father-in-law, sister-in-law, mother, uncle, and aunt die a savage and merciless death from cancer, that there most definitely is no God. In fact, I can barely go into a synagogue now because I feel deep in my heart that it is a lie for me to be sitting there, not believing.
I believe in me. I believe that people are inherently good and want to do good things. I try hard to be what I consider to be a ‘good’ person. I help people if I can. I support people who are in need of support. I don’t hurt the environment if I can help it. I speak up when I see something wrong (and have gotten in trouble for it too!) I believe that I should listen to nature because nature speaks to us.
I will always be Jewish and frankly, I wouldn’t want to be anything else (at least of the monotheistic choices)…but, I don’t think I will ever, ever believe there is a God, ever again. A dichotomy there? No, I don’t see it that way…I see it as me listening to my heart and my own spirituality…a road less traveled…the beat of a different drummer…
12:48 am
Lilacs I love this post. I was brought up Catholic but do not go to church and married an atheist. My kids go to a catholic school but they get a balanced view and are taught to question and think for themselves. I do believe in God most of the time, or at least in ’something’ as I feel my Gran is out there somewhere, but I also believe that if we all got religion completely wrong then any God that was out there would be ok with that. Hope that doesn’t sound too twee??
12:11 pm
Funny how you write about feeling a minority ….I can totally imagine so as I already feel so as an active Catholic in Belgium. Despite our entire culture being rooted in christianity for centuries and centuries, you can only conclude that the majority of the people in Flanders does not actively practise religion anymore. So I feel very awkward to talk openly about faith and I also cringe when stumbling on any blog where Christian values are openly discussed as the only truth and anything else in society gets openly valued in that framework. It makes me feel so strange. Usually I quickly leave again without commenting either.
I’m a Christian because I was raised so, because of a personal conviction but also often out of some sort of choice on moments of doubt. Oh yes, I often doubt, I often struggle with some messages, ideas, … but yet I always seem to choose to go back to my religion because it’s part of my identity and I feel good there. I feel very much aware that most people around me do not share my faith at all. I am going to marry a convinced atheist. If I’d only want to be surrounded with people sharing my view of the world, I’d be very lonely!
So no judgement here either. I only have difficulties with people that cannot accept and respect opinions opposed to their own.
3:31 pm
Yet another thing we agree on/have followed a similar path.
As you know, I’m a mutt, both culturally and in terms of religion (we had Judaism, Christianity, Atheism and a form of Hindu-based religion in my immediate family alone…) and my search continues. I’m at a stronger point of spirituality than I have been in years, yet I’m not at any point of finding a religious “base”.
This is just a wonderful, clear, sensitive post. Bravo.
10:10 pm
I have watched you grow from afar and have been, and always will be, very proud of you. You have the intellect, dignity, values, self respect, kindness, beauty, compassion and courage to create your own path through life–not follow in any other footsteps.
Our family, like many others, has endured its measures of pain and sorrow. One of the ties that served to keep us close and supportive is belief…..not necessarily in God, but in one another. If Judaism has provided me with any doctrine, it is the importance of family. I’m not sure if there is a God: I’ve struggled with and lost faith in God watching my mom, aunt, uncle, extended family members and friends wither, suffer, and die. I haven’t been to synagogue in decades (other than family functions) and prefer to contemplate spirituality and reflect thoughts outside with nature. I’ve tried to pass Jewish customs and heritage to my son, although not in the traditional organized manner in which you and I were raised. Whether he believes in a supreme deity or not is of little consequence to me….. as long as he lives his life according to his values, ethics, and personal beliefs. He is a good and caring person, and I am proud of him.
I don’t think it’s of grave consequence whether we believe in God or not…just as long as we believe in ourselves and align our actions with our values. Live your life to the fullest, find and cherish happiness, know that others (including your cousin and I) love you, are proud of you, and here if you need us. Follow your heart, Korie and keep expressing your thoughts. No need to concern yourself with offending others as long as you express ideas respectfully…and you do!
PS. I have never blogged before. Thank you for inspiring me to take this step!