tell me all your thoughts on god

There are two topics I try to avoid discussing publicly, and those are politics and religion.  It's not because my own beliefs are too weak to stand up to the challenge, but rather because a) conviction and passion run high in both arenas, and b) debate doesn't change people minds, it just builds walls between them.  I even tend to avoid these two hotbutton topics in conversation with people who share my beliefs, because I find them difficult to navigate when the other person is closed off (read: militant).

I was raised by a moderately religious family in a fairly progressive iteration of a common faith.  The religious education I received through their church was poorly organized, extremely biased, incomplete, and abjectly failed to answer the reasonable questions I politely posed for discussion.  So I asked myself some poignant questions, the primary amongst them being, what is my most trusted source of information?  And then I turned my back on faith, because at heart I'm an empiricist: I trust my own perception and interpretation above anything else.  I was trained, as a scientist, to evaluate truth based on the scientific method, such that what can be proven false is not true.  Being a scientist and being a person of faith are not mutually exclusive -- the empirical method cannot prove anything as definitively true (but can only fail to reject a statement as false), although theories become increasingly probable when supported by a body of evidence -- but I believe there is no god.  That statement differs from the statement "I don't believe in god" in that it's a positive belief and not an absence of belief.  I'm not an agnostic, I'm not a person without conviction, I'm an atheist.  In my opinion, which I base upon the evidence I've collected empirically, there is no god and there never was.  The universe and all its contents came about by some distant celestial event that we do not yet understand, and has evolved over the millennia via numerous processes, including the process of natural selection, into the universe that exists today.

Lots of people want to save my mortal soul.  They feel sorry for me because I "lack" belief, I have no higher power in which to put my faith and to whom to turn in times of trouble and pain.  After I elected not to become a member of my parents' church, my godmother wrote me a letter telling me that she believed that the celestial part of a nonbeliever is condemned to suffer for eternity as punishment for walking away from god.  Then my brother -- who also believed that there is no god -- died, and I have always wanted to ask her if she thinks he's in hell.  (I never have asked because although I'm curious, her beliefs don't ultimately affect mine, and also because our relationship would probably never recover from her response.)  The alternative to his being damned for eternity is that she's devised an escape strategy for him: maybe her god doesn't damn children's souls?

I don't lack belief, and I don't lack exposure to faith practices, and I'm not misguided or pitiable.  I'm an intelligent, rational person, and I've considered all the available systems of belief.  I selected the one that has always described me, and I'm devoted to it.

I'm also a vegetarian, and one who was raised as an omnivore.  People find that unaccountably interesting and often want to hear in detail about my motivations and challenges surrounding the choice to pursue vegetarianism.  It was a practice I wanted to test out, and it fit me so well that I never went back.  Like my belief system, it just came naturally to me.  No, I don't feel deprived, I don't miss meat, I don't have any problems getting adequate nutrition.  Yes, it took my family some time to adjust to the idea, but they've come around, and even though they don't necessarily agree with me, they respect my dietary choices.  And there's one thing I always make certain to say when asked about my vegetarianism: "I don't pretend to know what anyone else should or shouldn't eat.  I only know what works well for me."  What I mean is, I don't intend to control or judge your diet...and I'd appreciate the same courtesy.

I don't intend to control or judge the religious beliefs of others, and I'd appreciate the same courtesy.  I steadfastly support freedom of religion, which is to say that we all can practice whatever faith we see fit, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.  I think religion offers a neat and tidy package of morality, humanitarian values, and personal strength that is accessible to the masses, and for that it is a great and necessary practice.  I also think it's important to realize that not everyone conforms to the same belief system, and that it is entirely possible to be a strong, moral, humanitarian being while not buying into faith.  I think sharing information about one's belief systems is perfectly okay (although it has been my experience that persons of faith are positively repelled by discussions about atheism), but pushing one's beliefs on another person is reprehensible.

That is why phrases like "Go with God!" or "Jesus loves you!" raise my hackles.  How presumptuous to assume that others share your beliefs, and what an undertone of intolerance such a message communicates!  It's the directive phrasing that bothers me: "do this" and "you can't avoid being a part of our fold."  You just seriously invaded my personal bubble, and I think such behavior is ignorant and rude.  The same is not true for such comments as "I'm praying for you," -- which, in my mind, is an expression of empathy embedded in the lifepath of the speaker, and not a directive statement about how I should deal with a situation.  If you ask me to pray for you, though, I'll be happy to let you know that I will keep you in my thoughts.

Once a year, I darken the doors of the church to attend a service with my grandmother.  She loves taking the whole family, and to be honest there is very little in this world that I wouldn't do to make that woman happy.  Given that I never joined a church or other congregation, that I listen respectfully but silently during prayers, and that she has never asked about my faith, I'm fairly certain she knows I don't agree with her.  But I do believe that attending religious services is the best way to learn about and gain appreciation for any faith, and attendance does not constitute tacit acceptance.  I feel, though, that my atheism is a dark secret within my family.  Because I'm not outspoken about it, it has never become a bone of contention, and I don't intend for it to be.  I did politely request that a couple of people remove me from their faith-based emails.  To be sure, I'm not ashamed to be an atheist -- I am quite comfortable with my beliefs and prideful of the thought and experience that formed them -- but they make other people so goddamned uncomfortable that avoiding the topic is the best assurance of harmony.  I don't get the sense that people of faith make as much effort to respect the beliefs of atheists as (most) atheists make to avoid offending people of faith.

misgivings

My response to an email.

First of all, I LOVE LOVE LOVE that you do your morning writing.  I wrote nearly every day from about eighth grade through sophomore year of college, and I know for a fact that it was a major factor in keeping (most of) my sanity.  There's something so liberating and simultaneously clarifying about bleeding it all out on paper, and it got me through some really dark times.  I wish I were still doing it, but I basically stopped after I got mugged and the scoundrels took my journal, with 300 some completed pages.  I went back and looked for it in dumpsters and trash cans the next day, but no dice.  So, everything else that was stolen from me was replaceable, but what they really got was my most healthy habit.  I know, I know, I could totally start doing it again, but I'd be working against inertia.

Secondly, I agree it's not a sad email.  It's a "soul"-searching email (the word soul is a loaded word, hopefully enveloping it in quotation marks makes it less so).  Who was it who said that the unexamined life is not worth living?

I don't think I'm the person to come to for advice on purpose or direction.  I have spent my entire life coasting along, falling into opportunity once in a while, but generally failing to fulfill my potential.  I don't have the intrinsic motivation to go into business for myself, or even to get an independent project off the ground of my own volition.  I quit my job mostly because my boss was a psycho hose beast, true, but I also had a role in making it a dead end before my former boss was promoted.  If I'd framed myself as a go-getter then, I'd never have ended up pigeon-holed, but I don't appear to have the faith in myself necessary to make a commitment and go full-bore on anything.  It's too bad, too, because I had a really lucrative and smart research proposal that fizzled out because of it, and it would've been a skill I could parlay into other areas.


I don't know what your direction should be, but I can tell you that I've been waiting for mine to become clear to me since...well, forever.  My college major was a default choice.  My job for the last seven years was sort of accidental.  This nursing school thing is self-driven, I think, because I've always been interested in medicine but not hard-core enough to commit to medical school, but recently I'm not convinced nursing is what I want to do, either.  I'm desperately envious of the people who knew their calling from the start, and pursued it, and love their jobs.  I've never even had a job I liked very much.  And my conclusion is that since I don't have a singular passion, but rather a number of interests (which are passing or perseverant), maybe I'm not destined for any particular career.  Maybe it's okay not to commit to anything, but to transition every few years.  And maybe I won't even have a passionate career, in which case I find something that isn't horrible and allow myself to work as a means to an end, the end being to have a comfortable life, to be able to save money for the things I want, and to be able to take the time off work to enjoy them.  It's not going to advance me through the corporate ladder, but I'm just not that driven by work.  I'm good at organizing explicit tasks, setting deadlines, and meeting them, but not very good at dreaming up the projects in the first place.  Clearly, that's why I do poorly in art classes...except pottery, for some reason.

I can tell you that I believe everyone needs to live away from the place they grew up for a while, because it takes being removed from it to evaluate it objectively.  I know you were out of the country for some time, but that might have been a little too far away to seem real?  Have you thought about living elsewhere in the States? 

Have you ever picked up one of those "what should I do with my life?" books, or the vocational surveys they offer?  I think they're abject bullshit.  I score equally highly in so many areas that they never point me in a definitive direction.  Moreover, questions like, "Would you rather assemble a table from written instructions, or figure out how much everyone owes for a restaurant meal?" never provide a response like, "well, I like building Ikea tables about once a year, but I'd shoot myself if I had to do it every day."  I think it's fairly clear that I should drop out of school, start a hippie commune, and begin popping out babies.  I have certainly been neglecting my biological imperative, and looking after a pack of offspring and teaching them to hoe corn ought to leave little time for restless introspection.  Fuck, I should start blogging again, at least.  OMG, that's the perfect plot.  I will reinstate my neglected blog, perhaps with the text of this very message, and my readership will grow until I'm the new dooce.com and I can just live off the proceeds of my brilliant restless introspection.  YES!  (Only problem is, I've always sucked at making friends, so the readership ranks will likely never swell to such illustrious numbers to support my lazy housewifery.)

I guess that my overall response is -- you're not tapping into your purpose?  Well, that makes me feel a little better, because I'm fucking certain I'm not, either.  And I've had similar conversations with at least two other mutual friends of ours, so I guess we're in good company.  GenX is supposed to be angsty and entitled, right?  Although I recently read that we're not actually GenX or GenY, but some orphaned middle group.  GenX 2.0, maybe.  In buggy beta.  Look, I made a techy joke!  I'm fucking 7eet!  (Did I say that right?)

I miss you, too.  And I miss when it seemed like we were so on track, and that we deserved to go out on the weekends and get blitzed.  In fact, that's what we were expected to do, so really we'd have been letting someone down if we didn't.  I rarely have that much fun anymore.

<3,
~ snatch