Coming Out
Mar. 3rd, 2004 07:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynMany of you know this part.
I was born the agnostic child of areligious parents. My father is a Jewish atheist and my mother was raised as non-denominational Christian. I don't know if she holds any religious beliefs or not. Whatever the case, neither of them was inclined to teach their children about religion.
I never resented Christianity as a child. I didn't know what it was. I had a vague positive feeling about the religion. Most of the practitioners of it that I knew were good people. I didn't like the deeply conservative Christian set, or televangelists. But I never thought of that as a fundamental problem with Christianity itself. Every group has its share of idiots.
But I wasn't a believer. Sometimes I envied my friends with faith; it gave them a security and confidence I lacked. I didn't think that I could do that. I didn't have faith. I could no more be an atheist than I could be a Jew, or a Christian, or a pagan. For me, atheism was being confident that there was no divine, and I could no more do that than believe that there was one. Or pick one the religion; they all had their good points, and they all seemed focused on saying 'everyone who doesn't believe this is wrong'. I didn't like that part.
Another thread of my childhood: I longed for magic in the world. Perhaps because I wanted so much for fantasies to be real, I was deeply skeptical. I didn't believe in gods, ghosts, alien visitors, psychic powers, alternate dimensions, etc. But I would wonder: what if I had proof? What if, one day, something irrefutably, undeniably magical happened right before my eyes? Would I believe?
I rather thought not. If flying superheroes brawled with fire and ice in the skies above a packed arena, I would think I was dreaming, or this was a mass hallucination, or staged. Seeing isn't believing. There's a simple, rational explanation for everything, and magic is neither simple nor rational. Maybe it's possible for butterfly-winged people to appear and invite me down a rabbit hole to another world. But it's much more likely that I've gone insane. That's reasonable, certainly. But it also struck me as ... sad. Even the evidence of my own senses would be insufficient evidence.
About three years ago, as I was walking to work, I was thinking about a Christian columnist -- not one of the Pat-Robertson-send-more-money sorts, but a fellow who simply wrote about an advice column on Christian faith. There's this one basic question in evangelical Christianity. It doesn't change much no matter how different the views of the particular Christian speakers are: "Will you accept Jesus as your Savior?"
And I thought to myself, "So, why won't you do that?"
"All sorts of reasons. I don't agree with a lot of what Christians teach. I don't think homosexuality is wrong, I don't think abortion should be illegal -- "
"But that's not the question. The question is 'Will you accept Jesus as your savior?'"
" -- but I can't accept all that stuff that goes with it. I can't believe in a creator that would damn people simply for not believing in the right religion. I can't believe in a divine power that would save me if I say the right words but leave me to suffer if I didn't -- "
"That's not the question. This isn't 'why do you reject some of the tenets of Christianity?' This is 'why won't you accept Christ as your Savior?'"
"But what do I need to be saved from?"
"Isn't it possible that there's something? Why couldn't you at least give it a try?"
And mentally, I threw up my hands. I thought, half-joking, half-grudging, "All right, Jesus. You can be my Savior."
And I laughed out loud. Not because it was funny, though it was, but because I was suddenly suffused with joy. Overwhelmed with it, with a feeling that Jesus Christ was beaming at me like a child with a new puppy, saying "Yay! I get to be her Savior!"
I spent that day in a daze, expecting the silly, goofy, unexpected happiness to fade. There was no good reason for it. I hadn't come to some great revelation through soul-searching study or a miraculous event. It'd almost been a joke. I wasn't sure I'd even meant it at the time I thought it.
But by the end of the day, I did.
Maybe it was just a trick of my brain. Maybe it was a quirk of hormones or the weather or my peculiar sense of humor.
Or maybe this was my miracle.
Perhaps the right thing to do, when presented with evidence of magic, isn't to rationalize it away. Perhaps it's all right to believe.
It's been three years. I expect a conversion to faith is supposed to change one, but I don't know that it's changed me much. I still don't go to church, I still don't believe in the things I said were keeping me from Christianity. I haven't even read the whole Bible.
It's been three years, and prior to today, I have told exactly one person about my experience. My decision.
I've been afraid to. I know several people who don't much like Christianity, and several people who don't much like people who say they believe in Christ, but who don't follow the teachings of the Bible. I can think of people who wouldn't care, one way or another. But people who would approve? Of a wishy-washy sort-of-Christian? Wouldn't it be better to be an honest agnostic than a woman who says "I accept Christ as my Savior, but I'm not sure about a lot of the rest, and I really feel, deep in my heart, that some of it is wrong"?
And I should feel alone.
But I don't.
This is not up for debate: I will not not return to agnosticism. I have a hold on faith: it may be slender, but it is mine. I will not give it up.
This is not a statement of "I know the Truth and I know I'm Right". I don't know. I could be wrong about any number of things, on either side.
But ...
I believe.
I was born the agnostic child of areligious parents. My father is a Jewish atheist and my mother was raised as non-denominational Christian. I don't know if she holds any religious beliefs or not. Whatever the case, neither of them was inclined to teach their children about religion.
I never resented Christianity as a child. I didn't know what it was. I had a vague positive feeling about the religion. Most of the practitioners of it that I knew were good people. I didn't like the deeply conservative Christian set, or televangelists. But I never thought of that as a fundamental problem with Christianity itself. Every group has its share of idiots.
But I wasn't a believer. Sometimes I envied my friends with faith; it gave them a security and confidence I lacked. I didn't think that I could do that. I didn't have faith. I could no more be an atheist than I could be a Jew, or a Christian, or a pagan. For me, atheism was being confident that there was no divine, and I could no more do that than believe that there was one. Or pick one the religion; they all had their good points, and they all seemed focused on saying 'everyone who doesn't believe this is wrong'. I didn't like that part.
Another thread of my childhood: I longed for magic in the world. Perhaps because I wanted so much for fantasies to be real, I was deeply skeptical. I didn't believe in gods, ghosts, alien visitors, psychic powers, alternate dimensions, etc. But I would wonder: what if I had proof? What if, one day, something irrefutably, undeniably magical happened right before my eyes? Would I believe?
I rather thought not. If flying superheroes brawled with fire and ice in the skies above a packed arena, I would think I was dreaming, or this was a mass hallucination, or staged. Seeing isn't believing. There's a simple, rational explanation for everything, and magic is neither simple nor rational. Maybe it's possible for butterfly-winged people to appear and invite me down a rabbit hole to another world. But it's much more likely that I've gone insane. That's reasonable, certainly. But it also struck me as ... sad. Even the evidence of my own senses would be insufficient evidence.
About three years ago, as I was walking to work, I was thinking about a Christian columnist -- not one of the Pat-Robertson-send-more-money sorts, but a fellow who simply wrote about an advice column on Christian faith. There's this one basic question in evangelical Christianity. It doesn't change much no matter how different the views of the particular Christian speakers are: "Will you accept Jesus as your Savior?"
And I thought to myself, "So, why won't you do that?"
"All sorts of reasons. I don't agree with a lot of what Christians teach. I don't think homosexuality is wrong, I don't think abortion should be illegal -- "
"But that's not the question. The question is 'Will you accept Jesus as your savior?'"
" -- but I can't accept all that stuff that goes with it. I can't believe in a creator that would damn people simply for not believing in the right religion. I can't believe in a divine power that would save me if I say the right words but leave me to suffer if I didn't -- "
"That's not the question. This isn't 'why do you reject some of the tenets of Christianity?' This is 'why won't you accept Christ as your Savior?'"
"But what do I need to be saved from?"
"Isn't it possible that there's something? Why couldn't you at least give it a try?"
And mentally, I threw up my hands. I thought, half-joking, half-grudging, "All right, Jesus. You can be my Savior."
And I laughed out loud. Not because it was funny, though it was, but because I was suddenly suffused with joy. Overwhelmed with it, with a feeling that Jesus Christ was beaming at me like a child with a new puppy, saying "Yay! I get to be her Savior!"
I spent that day in a daze, expecting the silly, goofy, unexpected happiness to fade. There was no good reason for it. I hadn't come to some great revelation through soul-searching study or a miraculous event. It'd almost been a joke. I wasn't sure I'd even meant it at the time I thought it.
But by the end of the day, I did.
Maybe it was just a trick of my brain. Maybe it was a quirk of hormones or the weather or my peculiar sense of humor.
Or maybe this was my miracle.
Perhaps the right thing to do, when presented with evidence of magic, isn't to rationalize it away. Perhaps it's all right to believe.
It's been three years. I expect a conversion to faith is supposed to change one, but I don't know that it's changed me much. I still don't go to church, I still don't believe in the things I said were keeping me from Christianity. I haven't even read the whole Bible.
It's been three years, and prior to today, I have told exactly one person about my experience. My decision.
I've been afraid to. I know several people who don't much like Christianity, and several people who don't much like people who say they believe in Christ, but who don't follow the teachings of the Bible. I can think of people who wouldn't care, one way or another. But people who would approve? Of a wishy-washy sort-of-Christian? Wouldn't it be better to be an honest agnostic than a woman who says "I accept Christ as my Savior, but I'm not sure about a lot of the rest, and I really feel, deep in my heart, that some of it is wrong"?
And I should feel alone.
But I don't.
This is not up for debate: I will not not return to agnosticism. I have a hold on faith: it may be slender, but it is mine. I will not give it up.
This is not a statement of "I know the Truth and I know I'm Right". I don't know. I could be wrong about any number of things, on either side.
But ...
I believe.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 05:42 am (UTC)That "goofy" image is quite funny but also more than a little bit true.
I hope I've been a help to your spiritual life, such as it has been, over the years. And I now make you a new offer. I have an LJ filter for Christians only where I post things that non-Christians wouldn't be interested in: sometimes church stuff, other times devotional/spiritual stuff. Would you like in on this?
I, for one, approve of you being you
Date: 2004-03-03 06:05 am (UTC)The image of a child with a new puppy had a sweet, almost romantic quality to it. It made me wish that the history of religion had been more like that.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:37 am (UTC)Me, too. And I know we're not the only ones.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:50 am (UTC)No, I think your instinct is correct; the latter is the better.
"I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God ... &c."
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 07:26 am (UTC)Ah! So many tangents I could go off to here, but there's only so much space in a comment. I'll just send a few emails your way. =)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 08:21 am (UTC)Though I highly recommend two things:
1. Read through the Bible.
2. The first time, read it without commentary. Commentaries might be useful, but they all have their biases. Make up your own mind first.
(shakes her head in amiable mirth)
Date: 2004-03-03 09:19 am (UTC)Now I also see why you were so touchy about that last bit of posting on "personal churches". I _knew_ I was missing something there.
Of course I respect your values and what you believe. Because I know what you want most of life: harmony, beauty, honesty, promptly paid prices, cats, order-yet-not-a-straitjacket....
Or at least, I think I know. If I don't, please teach me.
To me, it seems that Jesus is the personal code (or metaphor/idea/experience/none of the above) that knits together a lot of big and small things in your feelings and learning of "how the world should be". And simply a presence, a character, you wish to know.
I have no problems with that. How could I ? I've done a similar thing with my vision of divinity...the way it affects me is different, my reasons for embracing it are substantially different...but it has a similar spot in my own jigsaw.
I'm glad you found one of your connecting pieces, even if you're looking at bunch of related ones and trying to puzzle out if they fit too. That's what I'm doing, at any rate.
And I do think it's something to be proud of, that you have strengthened your ethos and your sense of purpose in life. You have taken only the piece you are dead sure is correct. Based on this gnosis, you've taken your bits and pieces of solace, encouragement and joy as they've come. (Even if it is sad this has to have been a private experience, though you might not be as alone as you suspect. )
You've done good, my sister. Of course you did. It's what you are.
Your own path..
Date: 2004-03-03 10:00 am (UTC)From my own perspective, I don't trust men, I don't trust churches. I don't even trust the bible because I think it's been abused, edited, and corrupted. What CAN you trust? God would be the only one. So, from what I've been told, you should be able to listen and hear right?
Not that I'm any sort of person to be able to talk with athority on this.
-Mach
Oh!
Date: 2004-03-03 10:04 am (UTC)I'm right with you there all the way, but I think if I saw something, the real thing.. I think we'd both know it.
Once.. I think I saw something, but I never did know for sure, and thats all I can say on that.. but if I'd had the chance.. I wouldn't have turned back and I wouldn't be posting here today.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 02:35 pm (UTC)This may sound weird, but thank you for writing this. I know you didn't write it for me or anything; the fact that you wrote it for yourself makes it even better. The timing on this is... well, let's just say I really needed to read this right now.
(If I'm feeling bold, I may come back at some point and try to explain my vague comments.)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 04:26 pm (UTC)Paragraphs 3-5 of what you wrote could just as easily been written by me. I envy my friends with faith, I long for magic in the world, and even if I did find 'proof' I might think that I was dreaming. (Slight differences: I became an atheist after being brought up as a token Christian and wrestling hard with the religion, and I think I know of a sort of proof (http://www.enchanter.net/religion.html) that I would accept (though of course a god ought to know how to convince me).)
But then your second section, I found that especially intriguing, because that's exactly why I can't simply decide to believe in some deity chosen at random.
Because I want to, too much.
Because when I do choose a deity to assume a belief in -- whichever one it is -- I will feel a rush of joy and relief that my path in the world is no longer mine to control and that my life has a purpose assigned to it by someone who knows better, and I will begin to see coincidences that I interpret as direct and personal messages from my god, and I will wonder how I ever lived without it.
And then I might even try to persuade other people of the truth of my belief, or make decisions on their behalf for their own good if I believed my deity willed it.
And my beliefs, my joy, my coincidences, my decisions, would have been entirely different had I chosen some other place to put my faith. It's too arbitrary. I can't allow my core beliefs to be arbitrary, and religion needs to be based on something more solid.
Why did you choose Jesus as your savior? Why didn't you choose Gaia as your Lifeforce?
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 05:07 pm (UTC)I don't think it's wrong to say or think you believe, in God or in any other deity, without participating in church or religious activities. What matters is how you act, the impression you make on others. And for what it's worth, I think you're a sweet, wonderfully creative, very thoughtful person.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:04 pm (UTC)Because Gaia didn't ask.
Long form:
To say "I chose Jesus" isn't quite right. It'd be more accurate to say "I chose to stop rejecting Jesus". And because that choice was followed by my "ounce of proof", if you will, I resolved never to reject Him again.
Perhaps you're right, and if I'd ever made that choice-to-stop-rejecting for another religion, I'd've felt the same way. I wasn't in your position, of expecting that any profession of belief, no matter how grudging, would bring ecstacy. But I certainly can't prove otherwise.
Still, I had my moment of magic. I'll believe.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:12 pm (UTC)Yes. Thank you.
*blink*
Date: 2004-03-03 06:15 pm (UTC)Re: I, for one, approve of you being you
Date: 2004-03-03 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:19 pm (UTC)What, more closet Christians?
Date: 2004-03-03 06:22 pm (UTC)In any case -- I hope we get a chance to talk about this more some time. I'm curious to hear what your thoughts on religion are.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:28 pm (UTC)Yeah. I was thinking more of one-time occurences. Remember in the Narnia books, where after the kids from the first book had grown up on Earth, and Susan didn't believe in Narnia any more? It's hard not to relate to that. Even if I'd gone through this long magical stretch in my life, I think it'd be hard to hang on to that memory, if everyone around me insisted such things were impossible.
I'll just send a few emails your way. =)
I look forward to 'em, whenever you get the chance. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 06:30 pm (UTC)