Religion: Two Links and a Short Thought

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[I probably shouldn't post this today, but I wrote it over the weekend, with embellishments added day by day, and waiting for the perfect day to post it just isn't making sense. So.]

A billboard in the Philly area calls atheists together and An Italian bishop has refused a couple a church wedding because the young man is impotent due to paraplegia.

And as for me, after a lot of thinking, I think I may finally have a name for where I personally am.

I think I'm an agnostic. I really just don't know.(Which is what the word means.) I can't call myself an atheist, because I do feel there's Something other than the physical universe; however, I'm still not sure if that conviction is an artifact of my cognition or a true sense of something beyond the visible. So.

And... when I think of religion I don't think first of God by whatever name. I think first of people, what we do with religion and what we do to each other because of religion. I think of how convictions get set above people and people get broken on intangibles. I think of how I feel when I see things done in the name of Christianity that I think are wrong, even though I left fully by several years ago.And I think of Omelas.

Religion has never been about God for me. It's always been about people, how we live our own lives, and how and why we affect, control, and even end each other's lives.

So I think I am an agnostic right now. Maybe I will eventually come to a kind of knowledge that leads me to a different classification. Maybe the journey will see me shed my need for a label. Maybe I'll go places I can't even imagine. Here's to looking forward.

Comments

[bercilakslady.livejournal.com]

A professor of mine once said, in the context of talking about perceptions of deity, that the closest he's come to knowing G-d was looking in another person's eyes. Good class, that one. (Class was Western Religious Traditions.)

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

That's lovely.

It also reminds me of C.S. Lewis--I'm too sleepy to look up the exact quote now, but something like, "We must remember that, next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, our neighbor is the holiest object presented to us in daily life." [Yes, of course, that's much more specifically theistic/Christian. Nowadays I elide the middle clause.]

[flabosib.livejournal.com]

Carry on, I think you're doing just fine on your journey.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

It's a given in other contexts that admitting what one doesn't know is the first step toward wisdom; I'm often astonished that it doesn't seem to apply in religion. (Well, no. Not really, given that so much of religion is about unquestioning faith.) Nevertheless, I think it's a wise move, and a good place to start exploring from. *applauds you*

I look forward to further discussion on the topic from you, when you finally get there.

[dafydd.livejournal.com]

Very roughly:

- Spirituality is about communicating with the diety of your choice.

- Religion is about the rules you impose on yourself regarding where, when, and how you do the first, and about the rules you perceive the deity places on you.

Because, clearly, you're so important to the deity that it has decided you deserve rules.

(In case my contempt of religion wasn't obvious... ;)

This position doesn't surprise me for an Italian priest, actually

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

The Italian clergy have been very conservative for years. Such a position would also have been standard here in the 1950s and 60s, when I was being raised in the Catholic Church (or lowered, as my friend Mike says).

Lots of more liberal American Catholic priests would have, and probably do, marry couples like this every day, often defying their bishops and the Curia in order to do so.

Apropos of nothing, it seems odd to me that I've been a neopagan for 30 years, yet I keep pointing out positive aspects of American Catholicism. The negatives were what drove me away, yet they, and the bright and shining positives, were part of what built my soul.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

More or less in order...

I've been seeing you say things like "I have no right to" and "I don't deserve [good thing]" a lot lately. I don't think any of that is true. If you feel like you're out of spoons, you have a right to say you're out of spoons. There's no corner on the spoon metaphor market, okay?

I also see you saying things like "I'm a hypocrite if I don't get back to people." Who made that rule, exactly? I sure don't agree with it. Getting back to people is a function of time and, yes, spoons. Your friends will understand if you have not enough of either one. I promise you this.

Lighten up on yourself, huh? *hugs*

Re: the god and religion issue. I'm a pagan atheist, pretty much. And a Unitarian, now. And if you feel the need to be churched - as many of us who were raised churchy do, even if we no longer find the idea of a divine being to be reasonable - the Unitarians are a great place to go. And they even started in Boston, to my recollection! You could look up that church if you want to find nonjudgmental people to talk to about your agnosticism - people who will accept you even when you tell them you're an agnostic. The other day I was falling apart over one of my fellow congregation members, about my dad, and she said she'd pray for him (she's a Christian Unitarian). I smiled and said I wished I could pray, but that I'm an atheist. And she didn't preach at me or try to tell me I was wrong, she just said "Well, then I'll say the prayer in your place, since you aren't able to. Don't worry about it." And since you've said that for you, religion is about people, I think you would like the Unitarians. Just sayin'.

Finally, it's okay that you're an agnostic. Lots of people are. No sweat, no strain, no shame, okay?

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Well, depends on which branch you're talking about. The Universalists started before the Unitarians, and they (sort of) started in New Jersey. But the first official /Unitarian/ Church was, indeed, in Boston. (First Universalist one was in Gloucester (MA), about 25 years earlier.)

Pedantry over, I quite agree. (Birthright UU, here.)

Agnostism is fun, says the agnostic who takes from many different traditions and yet none. The Something that is out there may or may not exist, but it's OK /not/ to know, or not to feel it, or /to/ feel it.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing you say things like "I have no right to" and "I don't deserve [good thing]" a lot lately. I don't think any of that is true. If you feel like you're out of spoons, you have a right to say you're out of spoons. There's no corner on the spoon metaphor market, okay?

I also see you saying things like "I'm a hypocrite if I don't get back to people." Who made that rule, exactly? I sure don't agree with it. Getting back to people is a function of time and, yes, spoons. Your friends will understand if you have not enough of either one. I promise you this.

Lighten up on yourself, huh? *hugs*

Yes, very very much *this*.

Love both of you.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I'm an agnostic too. I find both the three-omni God and Just Happened implausible, but that may be the failure of my imagination.

[ailbhe]

I'm an agnostic too - and I think it doesn't MATTER whether there is a god or gods anyway, because what matters is that we do the best we know how to within our physical limits; I wouldn't behave any better if God walked in my door tomorrow (though if She called first I'd vacuum).

one of my sigs

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Consistent agnostic: I don't know, and I don't think you do either.

:-)

HUGS