Introduction
(Written in 2004)
Sitting down and trying to put to words what I believe is quite
complicated (though I for some reason feel the need to do it), since I
myself am not sure what I believe anymore. I was baptised into the
Christian Episcopal church as a baby, since my mom's family is of this
denomination. Up until... the beginning of 2001 it may have been, I
didn't really think about my beliefs a whole lot. Church had always
been something we went to if there wasn't something else planned, some
strange thing that I was dragged off to every Sunday morning. We'd had
the Religious Release program in 4th and 5th grade; that had started to
touch me, being in Mrs. Hopt's class, a woman who'd had a somewhat
troubled life until she had come to accept Christ, after experiencing a
miracle. (This was actually before 2001, but I wasn't doing much serious
thinking yet.) I began to pray that I would go through something that
would let me know God was there, but it never came; I'm still asking,
still to little avail, and will continue to throughout this story, and
probably the rest of my life.
Anyway, I ended up in my church's youth
group, which was quite enjoyable. I ended up joining the youth Alpha
program (this was around 2001 time, and it was largely because this
guy I had a crush on was in it, ha). It was an enjoyable experience, and
was supposed to be a fulfilling one in which we could get those burning questions
answered. Rather than coming away with answers, I was left with gaps,
and even more questions. We had a lock-in at the end
of the program, at which I and another girl accepted Christ as our
"personal Lord and Saviour," the thing that we had been informed would
be the one way people could be saved. I think that I did it because I
was asked by a woman with very strong beliefs, and I think that I didn't
want to let anyone down. I repeated words, cried, sat in quiet
contemplation a while. I now remember thinking very little except
"Thank you for saving me" and wondering if anything else would
happen...it seemed rather anti-climactic. At that point it seemed like
there was no doubt that all the things I'd been told were true, but I
hadn't really thought all that much, and taking for granted what one
has been taught is a large part of human nature. Afterward, the other girl
spoke at a banquet we had to promote the Alpha program; I did not. She took
confirmation classes and went through the ceremonial confirmation of
Christian faith; I did not. Throughout this, I kept thinking "Oh, I
should do that," but for some reason I didn't. I didn't really want
people to know what I thought, but then, I didn't really think that
much. All the questions I had asked, like "What happened to the people
who died before Christ came?" or "What about the people in the middle
of the Amazon who have never ever ever heard of Christ? Are they
saved?" or "Where's the line when children are no longer innocent?": none of them
had really been answered, as no one could really answer them. I still
wonder these things, as it is a major hole in the Christian faith. And
the lines of sin... yeah, that's a little confusing. I won't even start
on the Jewish law in Leviticus...
Anyway...I continued going to youth group, praying, asking, still not
finding much. In the fall of my freshman year at high school, I went to
a retreat with youth group for a weekend. It was rather enjoyable,
escaping the craziness of school and life for a while to the peaceful
woods with friends. One of the themes was purpose, something that was
coming about largely at our church that year. I once again found myself
asking God to tell me if he was watching me, what he meant for me
to do. It seemed like so many people had something they were meant for,
but I just couldn't find it. It seemed like religion didn't want me to
be a part of it. The people wanted me to be there, (even though many of
those I'd become close to at church were leaving for other places and
things, and new people were coming in, so I was slightly upset with
these things,) but God just wasn't talking, wasn't sending me any
signals. I was alone in my mind and soul, wishing for company but finding none.
After that I began to question much more, especially since I
was becoming more mature, seeing more of what was going on in the world
around me.
In December, two major things happened. I'll go backwards. First, I met
with yet another woman who was strong in her faith, who'd been assigned
to be "prayer partners" with me and a few other girls my age. We had
cookies, talked, learned how to make paper Moravian stars; another
enjoyable time, though I still didn't have answers. That was the last
thing I did with church, as we stopped going for a while since my mom
began teaching and we had very little time...Sunday became "family
day," and my dad had never gone to church with us, except one time when I
was really little he came for Christmas Eve. So we stopped going, were
going to go for Christmas, but ended up not... Then we just went to a
different church for Easter because whenever people come back after a
while, everyone
is like "Oh, where have you been?" condescendingly, as though if you're
away from church, you're away from God. God is supposed to be
everywhere (though I've yet to find evidence of this). I really was no
closer or far away at that point. In fact, I think I grew more spiritually by getting away from the
ceremony and politics and "This is what's right, so believe it" than I
would have had I stuck around any longer. I still get calls
occasionally about youth group events; I see a girl who went to my
church at my school... she stopped going, actually, too. The one thing
I regret, along with leaving the friends I'd made, is that I still
receive the occasional note from the woman I met on December 14th, to
let me know she's praying for me. I've wanted to respond, to tell her
what's going on with me somehow, but I wouldn't really know how to
start.
(Update, 2006...I was named "Student of the Month" by the local Women's Club,
so my picture was in all the local papers. I received a few copies in the mail from
various teachers who were proud of me. One copy I received in an envelope with no
return address and only a religious tract entitled "THIS WAS YOUR LIFE" enclosed.
The handwriting looked vaguely familiar, and I think that it was probably from this woman,
who stopped writing to me a while ago. I still feel sort of bad about not responding,
but at least she knows I'm alive and around still...and not involved in any sort of
church. The mailing did freak me out a little, though, as if I was being stalked. So I've
been paranoid ever since that I'm going to run into her somewhere in public and that
she'll recognize me and confront me...But back to the original story...)
But back to the first thing that happened in
December 2002: the night of the 13th a very important thing happened in my
life. My boyfriend and I decided to get together. His presence in my
life has changed me a lot, and I've changed him, but our relationship
has made overall positive impacts on both of our lives. He's quite
firmly atheistic, and his lack of need for any sort of religion, along
with that of many other friends I've made, has influenced my thinking a
lot. While many believe that physical existance is all there is, I
still think there is something more, the abstract force of
energy which exists as "life" manifested in physical beings, along with
the other kinds of energy, the effects of which we observe regularly,
just the same as some matter is considered alive, while other types are
not. In determining the nature of "life," it gets tricky, especially
with emotions. It has been determined that emotion is affected by
hormones and chemical processes of the body, though many emotions, I
find, do not make sense within the physical world. It is logical that a
being would not willfully destroy itself, as every creature has a
natural survival instinct of self preservation. But emotion seems to
cause humans to defy this part of our physical programming, as we put
our lives on the line for each other, for causes and principles, or to
disregard the gift of life and kill others and ourselves in
reckless, pointless acts. These things simply do not fit a logical
pattern. Anyway, that's a glimpse into what I have come to think of
late, and I'll return to that later...
The following February I began to write up the first
few of my musings, and things occasionally came and went in my mind
from then on. I think that I'll always be changing my ideas on the
nature of existance, perpetually, and probably always writing about it.
I guess that makes me agnostic. But outside the boxes of religions and
anti-religion, what "is" and what "is not," I'm just me.
>> Back to Philosophy