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Coming Out
Mar. 3rd, 2004 07:32 amMany 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.
( ... )
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.
( ... )
