I apologize for not posting for a
few weeks. I fully intended to do
so. However my mind prefers to
continually race at unearthly speeds thereby devouring so much information that
at times it overwhelms me. Consequently,
I have been at a loss of where to begin.
That said, I’ll say the crux of this post plainly.
I don’t believe in God.
The story that kicked off this most
recent introspection on faith happened to be about a Mormon woman whose husband
told her quietly before bed that he no longer believed. This deeply moving article provided a different perspective for me. I have read countless stories about Catholics
who no longer believe, but this was the first by a Mormon that I have read. The tone of the article touched me to my
core. Her tale reflects what is so often overlooked
or disregarded—we disbelievers spend a great deal of time pondering this
notion. It does not just occur. We reflect, we pray, we consider, we study
and ultimately we use the magnificent lump of grey matter in our skulls to
reason out what we truly believe about spirituality and our place in the
universe. We can reach a conclusion that may not agree with everything that
we’ve been taught to believe up to that point, but we made the choice for
ourselves and guess what? We can do it
peacefully without condemning or harassing others who still believe. As we close the door on the church we’ve
always known, we also open doors to new kinds of equally valuable
relationships.
What astonished me the most this
week involved the number of articles
that described clergy men and women who are leaving their faiths and
discovering comfort in some of those new and valuable relationships. If people who have dedicated their lives to
delivering God’s message can find themselves doubting to the point they describe themselves as atheist—what does
that say about the state of faith in America?
This is the flipside to that coin that keeps getting thrown around when
policy decisions run up against religion.
The Clergy Project provides a
much needed network of support for these people who find themselves ostracized
and threatened and suddenly without security of home and finance. In the CNN article, Dewitt raises an
interesting point: he’s still ministering, just a little differently than he
used to. How beautiful is that? It acknowledges that his ministering changed
over time as his understanding and belief changed, but he’s still ministering
to people in need. Clearly we can still
be compassionate and loving counselors to one another even without deferring to
a supreme being. The Clergy Project
started with about 52 members last year.
It now lists 285 on its homepage.
With the coverage it has been receiving, I bet it continues to grow. The clergy men and women are fortunate to have
this connection and I hope that it continues to assist them. Each story I’ve read lately includes a common
thread beyond the loss of faith; they include a lack of animosity toward the
religion they leave—even toward the members of their congregation who threaten
them.
The lack of animosity suggests to
me that these people truly spent time deep in contemplation about their beliefs
and therefore reached peace in their decision.
I too am at that point. While it
would be easy for me to cite the priest abuse scandal or the Vatican’s war on
nuns as reasons for anger and be perfectly justified in that outrage, I tend
not to take that tack. Don’t get me
wrong—both of those situations are horrifying to me, but I can forgive them and
be completely thankful that I do not recognize the infallibility of the
Pope. That lump of grey matter in my
skull tells me holding on to anger about these situations would serve no
purpose. While these two situations
appall me and revolt me, they are not the only reasons why I will not describe
myself as Catholic. Greta Christina
posted a fantastic article about the topten reasons she doesn’t believe in God and I tend to agree with the article
wholeheartedly. I’ve read a couple of articles from Big Think lately about how
we continue to discover consciousness as part of the brain, not a soul gifted
us by God. Through MRIs and photon emission computed topography now
we know that prayer and meditation and speaking in tongues affect the brain in
very specific ways—it alters our consciousness.
If someone wants to call that evidence of God moving through them, fine.
However I do not. When I am deep in
meditation or visualization I know I am tapping into a part of my brain that
apparently is dedicated specifically for this purpose and it produces some
amazing sensations and experiences. To me though, it’s not some supernatural
supreme entity saying “Hi!” It’s my brain doing something that takes a lot of
practice to do. It feels amazing and
euphoric and it benefits my health and well being therefore I do it. It’s no wonder that humans created all these
amazing lush stories to explain this effect.
It’s no wonder we created fantastical myths to explain the world around
us and all of its beauty. Yet now we
know other explanations exist. There are
no turtles supporting the world. There
is no Mount Olympus where Zeus rules all.
There are no demons at the core of our planet; it’s made of our original
Earthly core and a gigantic Mars-sized pseudo planet that hit Earth a really
long time ago causing both Earth’s axis tilt and the formation of the moon.
My husband and I also recently
began watching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos on Netflix.
I love a little brain stimulation about the universe and he likens it to
Mr. Rogers in space. In one of the early
episodes they show an experiment that uses just the essential, basic gases like
helium being squirted into a glass container and guess what happens? Given enough time those gases combine to
create the primordial sludge of life.
Hmm…ponderous is it not? Allow
that brown goo some more time and those little bacteria etc. will begin the
process of evolution. I do not believe
in Adam and Eve. It’s a lovely tale, but
it’s not how things happened.
I’m sure you might be wondering how
I can call myself a solitary Wiccan given this perspective. Surely there must be a different label that better fits.
Well, believe it or not paganism and specifically for me Wicca fit the
best in my understanding of the universe so far. Granted I am heavily influenced by the works
of cosmology like Carl Sagan and I disregard a lot of dogma that some schools of Wicca insist upon. There's that lump of grey matter at work again. You see, from
studying the universe I have learned the moon was part of earth. Now it’s not and without it, our planet would
wobble around worse than a bowl full of jelly.
Our climate would be uncontrollable and we’d probably die soon after the
moon goes away. The moon stabilizes this
beautiful planet. It controls the tides
so our land masses are not almost completely submerged by water. It provides the gravity we need to stay on
just the right tilt to the sun. The sun
also exerts a little gravitational pull to keep us in the sweet spot. Thanks to this lovely balance life as we know
it exists. Pagans got this part
right—the sun and moon help us thrive.
Without either one, we’d perish.
I believe in the power of nature and that magical thinking is enough.
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