*This entry involves religion and could be viewed as offensive. If you have an open mind or are at least willing to test your convictions, read on. Otherwise, don’t say I didn’t warn you.*
After reading my blog entry, a casual friend I ran into today offered to “pray” for me. I politely explained I found his idea of prayer alien and not at all comforting. I find the common day “christian” version of God to be insulting and limited by it’s very nature; a failed construct that only serves to hinder us. I know he was just being kind. However, the older I get the less inclined I am to gloss over people’s ignorant but well-intentioned behavior. (And by use of the term ignorant, I am in no way trying to be mean.)
I grew up “godless” you could say. My family claimed a belief in god but didn’t really have a denomination of choice. The most popular in the area were southern baptist, church of christ, and pentacostal. Yeah, three very diverse, and at times, charasmatic denominations. As I began to struggle w/my burgeoning sexuality, I also began a quest to find god. All I found was a lot of pandering, lip service, and hypocricy. No one could answer (or even conceive of the notion) how god could first create me this way and then punish me for it. It wasn’t until this incident that I began to look beyond what I was being told. I even took theology in college in an attempt to “track god down”. My first discovery came in the realization of gross similarities between stories of the bible and stories from mythology. Even more disillusioning, the deliberate mistranslations of the bible into english surrounding homosexuality. The final straw came when I realized if I could discover such a fundamental truth, the religious “authorities” had to know as well. Which meant they were propagating and protecting a pack of lies. I abandoned the traditional view of god all together after that. (I also dropped theology as my minor.)
And try as I may, I couldn’t shake the incident from the beach. What I felt was very powerful and very real. Ultimately, this is what led me on my metaphysical journey. Originally, I delved into meditation, auras, chakra development, etc. And while I think these practices have their part to play, it goes even deeper than that. One might say, these practices push us one step closer to the truth.
I’ve tried over the years to disprove my theory. I was sorta hoping I was wrong and I’d find some great revelation that would re-align me with the world again. Obviously, that has not happened. If anything, my belief has only strengthened w/age and maturity. You see, I view god as the glue that binds us all together. While god may be a being of sorts, god isn’t sitting on a mythical throne placing judgement on mankind. No, god is within each of us. In a way, we are god. We all share a deep connection that connects us not only to each other but to the divine as well. It is part of our very makeup. We’ve just let the outside world confuse us into believing that it’s the “real”. It is our very consciousness that defines our behavior, addictions, actions, and our reality.
I know, I’m getting off in “nutville” for some of you. Not much I can do about that. Oh, I could give you a very quantam physics type answer but I have a feeling that wouldn’t really get my point across. I will go so far as to say one of the proponents of quantam physics is that underneath the very atoms that make up all matter and energy, subatomic particles bind us all together. At the subatomic level, everything is moving, buzzing, and flopping around like crazy. The very nature of quantam physics deals more in probability than statistical output. This begets the question, what is reality? Is it the world we interpret around us? Or, is it defined by our very consciousness? This is the closest that science has ever come to god. Within the very basic components of all creation lies the creator. We find god in the very energies that bind and hold everything together. If you are with me so far, you begin to see you don’t need to look up and out for strength. The strength you need is within you always.
We need to learn to stop laying our woes and burdens on a mythical being who with the waive of his hand can make everything “all better” again. We are so much more than that. We have been given the most precious gift of all, conscious self-awareness. What does that mean? Simply put, you can choose to view the world as simply the outside you see around you and remain limited and alone. Or, you can push beyond the failed construct of society and realize you are part of the very fabric of creation. This irrevocably ties us to the divine and to each other. The very essence of creation is within all of us and we are never alone. And, it is within all of us to tap into this primal force; to move beyond the confines of a self-inflicted dismal existence. Such contemplation also frees us from the limitations of good or bad and right or wrong. (And by right and wrong here, I’m refering to self-limitation based on a view of divine approval, not a “get of jail free card” to create mayhem and chaos.)
Freed of such limitations, we are left to better ourselves or more simply put, evolve. That to me is divine providence.
Everyone’s journey into the divine should be their own exploration. My biggest complaint about many of organized religions is that it takes the natural human questioning out of the picture. I don’t have to ask why I think gay people are bad, my minister/priest/pastor said the bible says they are, so they are. I do the right thing because I’m promised rewards in the afterlife, not because I want to do the right thing, or even have thought about what the “right” thing to do is.
I’m also very cynical about paid religious leaders; I see many churches more as corporations as opposed to charitable organizations decated to making lives better. They NEED to keep people coming back and giving donations to keep their organization running. Watching the Catholic Church in Detroit give a half-million dollars to fund the ballot proposal to ban same-sex marriage while at the same time closing inner city schools and churches due to lack of funds shows where their priorities lay. Hot button issue the draws attention and donations? Check. Providing low publicity help to the needy? Nah.
(Not to say that religions don’t provide valuable charity work, they do, however there are other organizations that do so as well, without the added upkeep of buildings used one hour a week, and the forced indoctrination).
OK, I think I’m going off topic a bit here. I would, however, state that I don’t see you as “going off nutsville” because you’re on your own path to discover what a higher power means to you. To me, it’s that kind of questioning that truely makes us human.
I agree. What is God? God is the Universe. Religion and things that we refer to as “spirituality” are channels through which we can connect to the divine nature of Everything. I have tried to be tolerant. But it seems to me that Fundamentalist Christianity has become a religion of hate and self-destruction. It steers people away from this divine connection and commits them to a sort of Hell on Earth. It’s really terrible.
What a timely post. As someone who grew up in church, coming to grips with the realization you so eloquently explained was a huge challenge. I attended a private Christian college and was a minister for a short while. It’s only been within the last two years (I’m 32) that I’ve been able to say that I don’t believe there is a God (in the Christian sense of the word). The mistranslation of the bible for the sole purpose of garnering scriptural support for hatred and judgement is nothing short of maddening, and I hope at some point in history a more enlightened society will view it for what it is: spiritual genocide.
Thanks for your post.
OMG! Someone actually agrees w/me. Scandal!
Very good point Aaron. I’m a firm believer in hell. Not the mythical place of fire and brimstone but the real place that we create for ourselves here on Earth sometimes.
I enjoyed this post very much. Profound and quite insightful. In many ways, we are on the same page, so I won’t go into a lot of depth here. I could talk about this subject for days. I’ve always been of the opinion that religion, being man made, is inherently flawed. Sometimes it seems that God (or the concept of God) has very little to do with organized religion. Spirituality, on the other hand, is a very different thing entirely. There is order to the universe. There is also chaos. The experience is the whole point of it all. Learning to love without condition; thats what its all about.
Of course I still attend Mass. I dont want to go to hell or anything! 🙂
You might find the books of Ernest Holmes interesting. They are about the same subject.
Moby–and pardon the terrible pun–you’re preachin to the choir here. I agree with just about everything you wrote.
I once got in a horrific argument with a born-again coworker when I casually mentioned, “There is one truth, but many paths to reach it.” Oh LAWDY! You’d think I said I was a baby-eatin’ butt-fuckin’ satanist. “There is only ONE path to truth, and that is through JEEEEEZUS CHRIST!” I didn’t really speak much to him after that. I figured it was a lost cause.
Agnes Moorehead is God. I would’ve thought you all knew that by now. Please accept that, and move along.
Moby,
As always you impress me. I’m curious, have you ever read the “Conversations With God” books by Neal Donald Walsch? I was honestly thunderstruck when I discovered them, the idea of “god” (in some form) made sense and I could finally reconcile what I felt vs. what I’d been told to believe. You might find them interesting – I re-read the first book pretty often.
You’re still my hero. 😉
Matt in Seattle