Religion Sucks: The Personal Stuff

I’m the child of occasionally church-going parents (an escaped Catholic father and a Presbyterian mother) and between the ages of five and ten I attended a Church of England school (not as the result of any religious conviction on the part of my parents, it was simply the only school in the village). The teachers at the school did do their best to pump us full of Christianity: I’m not sure how successful they were on the whole but I don’t think I can be counted as one of their triumphs in that, looking back, I don't honestly think I ever truly believed in God, or at least not the God they were anxious I should believe in. On the other hand I didn't do much questioning either.

Until my mid-teens I went through all the 'right' motions - even attending a weekly Bible class - but in all honesty my motives for doing so were insincere and self-serving. I suppose that I could have continued to pay unreflective, agnostic lip-service to the culturally-approved mythology forever (many do, I think) except that at some point, and for reasons that are obscure to me now, it occurred to me that it didn't make any sense.

When I say that it didn't make any sense I'm not talking about the mismatch between the Biblical world-view and the scientific one (mainly because I was too ignorant of science at the time to be aware of it!) but the ludicrous nature of the exposition(s) of the nature of God and the whys and wherefores of creation: to believe in something because it is absurd is just not an option for me, and in any case the explanations offered by the Abrahamic religions strike me as not merely absurd but out and out bonkers!

I was suddenly left without a spiritual basket for my eggs and, impelled by a combination of egotism and need, I went through a few - among them Buddhism, Vedantic Hinduism, a kind of non-literal polytheism and Taoism - before fetching up as a pantheist who is just a wafer-thin mint away from being an atheist.

And that will do for now, I think, as I have to go and grind an axe or two in preparation for the next post ,,,

Comments

  1. Anonymous17 July 2011 at 08:09

    You write about this very well! I recognize my own opinions..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous17 July 2011 at 08:53

    Are you going to make me go look up the meaning of pantheism, or can I simply wait around for the next installment? *smile* Beautifully written, as always!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tumescent Moon17 July 2011 at 08:59

    CC: Pantheism is a philosophical position that identifies God with the universe, either by saying that they are one and the same thing or that the universe is part of God.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tumescent Moon17 July 2011 at 08:59

    Linda, thank you! :-)

    ReplyDelete

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