The Agnostic's Guide to SPN 2:13: Houses of the Holy Meta
Let's just get this out of the way first, so anyone coming in holding their breath in dread of -or hoping to find- some God-hating wank can just relax and/or exit quietly now in disappointment.
I loved it. And, frankly, Kripke and the 'keepers deserve some props for tackling the issue. Categorized loosely (and unfairly, so say we all) as a teen/genre show by so many, there isn't a huge expectation that SPN turn out plotty and exploratory episodes. Certainly not the sort that provide fodder for college courses (like BtVS) or even LJ content beyond "Squee!" and "Pretty!" (both of which I've typed). But we know better, don't we? It's inevitable, really, that the same show which has explored the nature of Good and that of Evil will eventually -and specifically- poke into the shadows of religion. I am beyond thrilled that they've done so, even though they -rightfully- left us with no definitive answer. They -temporarily, I suspect- flip-flopped our protagonists, and we ended up right where we started:
Final score:
God: 1
No god: 1
Overtime play is yet to begin, and the possibilities are still wide open. No one's taking or making bets, because the SPN oddsmakers don't favor either God (in the glowing corner wearing the white jersey) or No God (in the dark corner wearing the black jersey) enough to make it worth the effort. Regulation play is over, and until OT begins the temporary tie goes to: Agnosticism, in the foggy, poorly-lit corner, putting both Sam and Dean in unflattering grey jerseys.
It's anyone's game, folks.
Merriam-Webster defines agnostic thusly:
1 : a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
I tend to feel more inclined to the second definition, for the record.
I was raised in a church-going (Methodist) family. When I was a teenager, my parents allowed my sister and I to attend church at any of our friend's churches (or not go at all). I went to Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, and Church of Christ services in addition to Methodist. I would probably gone to an even larger variety if I was not being raised in a rural area where there were no temples, synagogues, or mosques. This was no fly-by-night thing, though. We had to go for at least three months before we were allowed to change. (My parents were very sensible.)
The upshot of it all, though, is that very much like Dean, I've never felt God's presence. I sung beautiful hymns, was a star pupil in Sunday school, conducted vacation Bible school as a teen for tiny tots in several churches, and studied religion in college, but I've never felt in my heart and mind that Christ or Gaia or Allah or Buddha was The Answer any more than were Ra or Janus or Apollo or Coatlicue. Whose subjects, by the by, believed in them as ardently as any of today's faithful.
Unlike Dean, I had no singular, shattering tragedy in my youth to turn me away from faith of any kind. But when he told Sam: "You know, I get it. You’ve got faith. Hey - that’s good for you. I’m sure it makes things easier."...it could have been me talking. I genuinely like and love so many people who have Faith in a higher power, and I am quite literally thrilled that they have something in which they believe that comforts them. I care about these people. Why wouldn't I be grateful for something that provides them security and peace of mind? It so happens that when I lay me down to sleep -again, like Dean- I get mine from locked doors and the knowledge that I did my best to be a decent person today. But you know what?
I wouldn't mind being Sam instead.
I'm open to the possibility that my glowing figure is yet to be visited upon me; even that my lack of faith up until now has a purpose of its own, that I am not meant to know until the appointed day. Or maybe not even then. I have even kicked around the notion that perhaps my non-believer status is permanent. Maybe I will never see my own tumbling piece of well-aimed conduit. Yet still, even this could be ordained by someone or thing with conscious planning. There will always be different faiths, and people who have none. Perhaps people like me serve some divine purpose as buffers between deep-seated Belief and utter Denial...and between Belief A and Belief B.
Perhaps it is we who keep holy wars from erupting and engulfing the earth.
I don't know if Sam and Dean will keep swapping jerseys, or even if they will eventually ditch the grey altogether. I suspect that the actualization of a singular, looming fate -that of Sam turning evil- would result in both brothers donning opposing livery. Sam would take it as proof of God's divine judgment, and his own failure to redeem himself and be granted mercy. Dean would surely swallow back bile only long enough to mutter about proof of no grace on this earth, and nothing good watching over it.
Like the Winchesters, I don't know if I'll even experience a moment of truth at all.
Until then, I look pretty good in grey. And Sam and Dean look good in anything.