Towards honesty
Believing in the Creator, in the Christ, and in the Holy Spirit: we covenant together in this church to walk in the ways of God known or to be made known to us. As a community of concern, we pledge ourselves to worship together, learn together, and work together to further the cause of human unity.
Here's the problem with being atheist: I think I'm right. When I try to explain that I respect people who have religious faith, I usually fall back on some version of the "many paths" or "whatever works for you" cliche. My mom used that one. But I think my path is better. I don't know whether that's because I'm stubborn and elitist or whether having any kind of principle is a form of elitism.
My mom also pointed out that I've been taking communion. It's hypocritical. I should stop. That hurts. I started one week when the invitation (they change it up) was "come ye who have much faith and ye who have little." For me communion is about membership in a community whose support and good opinion I value.
I'm writing this post to try to resolve some serious cognitive dissonance, in other words. I'm a practicing Christian in all senses. When I started out, just after I refused to get confirmed, I used to stay silent during the congregation's prayers or change "we" to "they" or whatever was necessary so that I wouldn't speak a lie in church. I've given up on that; I don't believe in God, after all, so it's not like there's someone up there watching.
But the lying is costing me--or I suppose the insincerity. I act like a Christian but I'm not really a Christian. It's hard to stand on principles--to talk about honesty and authenticity--and then, well. Not practice what I preach. Heh.
My mother also said, at the opera, quoting someone else, that one of the great mistakes of American Christianity is to assume that religion has something to do with ethics. Okay, I thought, maybe I can have atheist ethics but be religious? Except that part of what I use religion for is the strength to do what needs doing. It's the only place I get consistent messages of the value of standing by what you believe. (This statement is true, even though it shouldn't be.) (Socialism isn't quite there, in its present incarnation. The IWW comes closer.)
And my mother said that our church is a covenant church--and then she said something about which she was unfortunately factually mistaken, that all you have to do is to pledge to walk in the ways of God, not specifically the ways of Christ. So I thought about that for a while. I don't believe God is real, I reasoned. But I don't believe, say, unicorns, or Lord Peter, are real, and I could quite reasonably base my actions around a "way of the unicorn" or "WWPWD" or something, as long as my imaginary guidepost had a set of traits or desires I could analyze. Why not God?
But then I remembered that I'm atheist for reasons other than mere factual conviction. "Religion isn't about facts," my mother says. "It's about emotions." But atheism gives me a deep sense of peace--that this is what there is, and it will be over when I die--and allows the explosion of joy, because this is real and it matters and sometimes that is wonderful. And in the times when it isn't wonderful, atheism tells me that all of the great things that have been done in the human world, have been done by humans, and I am a human and I have thumbs and I might as well go back and give it another try, because I'll die at the end win or lose.
And atheism has some fairly strict requirements. If there is pain somewhere, I am not to believe my prayer will have any effect. If I want to feel like I am helping, I must help. I may use prayer only to remind myself that I am not a sociopath, and even that I suspect is cheating. (I play a lot of music to deal with grief.) Partly, and this is hard to say because I respect the people I am about to criticize, I grew up in a liberal church and am now a radical. I am quite tired of people with a great deal who want to help without giving up their own privilege, even though I am one of them. I fight my own desire for comfort every day and lose. But I don't pray and pretend that prayer is a revolution.
Atheism is about honesty for me. I think I've been failing to live up to it. It's about strength and compassion. No one else is going to save us. We have to save each other. It's about the glory of community and working together and discovering that you're saved.
This isn't just a path I walk because it's the path I'm on; that's ORUCC's version of Christianity. Atheism is a path I walk because it is the only one that I can reconcile with everything else I need to believe to function. But I'm stuck: my feet are on ORUCC's path because my parents set them there, and I guess love is the word for my loyalty to that organization. Going and becoming a UU would make more sense, but hurt more too.
Until I looked up the covenant and saw that bit where I'd have to say "Believing in the Creator, in the Christ, and in the Holy Spirit," I thought today that maybe I could accept the "walk in the ways of God" bit if I took God to mean the great work of collaborative fiction that I of course believe is real, that I interpret for advice in my life and that I refer to in my own smaller art. Word-juggling, sure, fine, whatever, but I wanted my two paths to be the same path and give me a way forward.
Although I don't know--as anything other than art I can't walk in the ways of God, and, um, this is also a criticism of some people I respect, but I think many of them just use God to back up what their consciences say, and that is dishonest and dangerous. If God always agrees with what you know in your deepest heart is right anyway, accept that you are a strong person with a conscience and that you don't need an excuse to follow it. Elevating your own conscience to divine infallibility is the opposite of humble, and makes you very scary to people who disagree with you. If God sometimes tells you to do things that your conscience believes aren't right, DON'T DO WHAT GOD SAYS. (This is the core of what atheism means to me logically.) (Atheism also means that your gut reactions are the result of your upbringing and subject to change when you learn to love new things.) (Good liberal Christians get around this problem using the delightful assumption that they frequently mis-recognize the will of God. Sigh.)
I am afraid to post this. There's a part in the Lotus Sutra where it says that anyone who criticizes the Lotus Sutra will burn in hell or something like that. We read it in class, and of course, being me, up to then I'd been making comments about this or that fallacy or blatant manipulation in the text. When we got to that part about how I was going to hell, everyone in the room turned and looked at me. And you know what? I felt the pressure to take it all back. Because I'm not a sociopath. I didn't. Because I stand by my atheism. But reading Thurman I had another of those moments--he said something about blocked-up souls that can't let God in--and it is pretty hard for me to know that some of the greatest thinkers I have read and some of the adults I respect most would think I have a block in my soul preventing me from seeing the truth. (No one at ORUCC would tell me I'm going to Hell. Not that kind of church.)
I'm also not sure I'm willing to pledge to further the cause of human unity, unless, again, I made up an interpretation that meant the opposite of what the words said. It's really cool when people communicate, but they have to be a non-unity for communication to be a sensical action.
I go to church because I love to dance. It's pretty music they make there. I think that's the best I can do on my own to try to resolve the dissonance. Comments welcome, especially disagreement.
Here's the problem with being atheist: I think I'm right. When I try to explain that I respect people who have religious faith, I usually fall back on some version of the "many paths" or "whatever works for you" cliche. My mom used that one. But I think my path is better. I don't know whether that's because I'm stubborn and elitist or whether having any kind of principle is a form of elitism.
My mom also pointed out that I've been taking communion. It's hypocritical. I should stop. That hurts. I started one week when the invitation (they change it up) was "come ye who have much faith and ye who have little." For me communion is about membership in a community whose support and good opinion I value.
I'm writing this post to try to resolve some serious cognitive dissonance, in other words. I'm a practicing Christian in all senses. When I started out, just after I refused to get confirmed, I used to stay silent during the congregation's prayers or change "we" to "they" or whatever was necessary so that I wouldn't speak a lie in church. I've given up on that; I don't believe in God, after all, so it's not like there's someone up there watching.
But the lying is costing me--or I suppose the insincerity. I act like a Christian but I'm not really a Christian. It's hard to stand on principles--to talk about honesty and authenticity--and then, well. Not practice what I preach. Heh.
My mother also said, at the opera, quoting someone else, that one of the great mistakes of American Christianity is to assume that religion has something to do with ethics. Okay, I thought, maybe I can have atheist ethics but be religious? Except that part of what I use religion for is the strength to do what needs doing. It's the only place I get consistent messages of the value of standing by what you believe. (This statement is true, even though it shouldn't be.) (Socialism isn't quite there, in its present incarnation. The IWW comes closer.)
And my mother said that our church is a covenant church--and then she said something about which she was unfortunately factually mistaken, that all you have to do is to pledge to walk in the ways of God, not specifically the ways of Christ. So I thought about that for a while. I don't believe God is real, I reasoned. But I don't believe, say, unicorns, or Lord Peter, are real, and I could quite reasonably base my actions around a "way of the unicorn" or "WWPWD" or something, as long as my imaginary guidepost had a set of traits or desires I could analyze. Why not God?
But then I remembered that I'm atheist for reasons other than mere factual conviction. "Religion isn't about facts," my mother says. "It's about emotions." But atheism gives me a deep sense of peace--that this is what there is, and it will be over when I die--and allows the explosion of joy, because this is real and it matters and sometimes that is wonderful. And in the times when it isn't wonderful, atheism tells me that all of the great things that have been done in the human world, have been done by humans, and I am a human and I have thumbs and I might as well go back and give it another try, because I'll die at the end win or lose.
And atheism has some fairly strict requirements. If there is pain somewhere, I am not to believe my prayer will have any effect. If I want to feel like I am helping, I must help. I may use prayer only to remind myself that I am not a sociopath, and even that I suspect is cheating. (I play a lot of music to deal with grief.) Partly, and this is hard to say because I respect the people I am about to criticize, I grew up in a liberal church and am now a radical. I am quite tired of people with a great deal who want to help without giving up their own privilege, even though I am one of them. I fight my own desire for comfort every day and lose. But I don't pray and pretend that prayer is a revolution.
Atheism is about honesty for me. I think I've been failing to live up to it. It's about strength and compassion. No one else is going to save us. We have to save each other. It's about the glory of community and working together and discovering that you're saved.
This isn't just a path I walk because it's the path I'm on; that's ORUCC's version of Christianity. Atheism is a path I walk because it is the only one that I can reconcile with everything else I need to believe to function. But I'm stuck: my feet are on ORUCC's path because my parents set them there, and I guess love is the word for my loyalty to that organization. Going and becoming a UU would make more sense, but hurt more too.
Until I looked up the covenant and saw that bit where I'd have to say "Believing in the Creator, in the Christ, and in the Holy Spirit," I thought today that maybe I could accept the "walk in the ways of God" bit if I took God to mean the great work of collaborative fiction that I of course believe is real, that I interpret for advice in my life and that I refer to in my own smaller art. Word-juggling, sure, fine, whatever, but I wanted my two paths to be the same path and give me a way forward.
Although I don't know--as anything other than art I can't walk in the ways of God, and, um, this is also a criticism of some people I respect, but I think many of them just use God to back up what their consciences say, and that is dishonest and dangerous. If God always agrees with what you know in your deepest heart is right anyway, accept that you are a strong person with a conscience and that you don't need an excuse to follow it. Elevating your own conscience to divine infallibility is the opposite of humble, and makes you very scary to people who disagree with you. If God sometimes tells you to do things that your conscience believes aren't right, DON'T DO WHAT GOD SAYS. (This is the core of what atheism means to me logically.) (Atheism also means that your gut reactions are the result of your upbringing and subject to change when you learn to love new things.) (Good liberal Christians get around this problem using the delightful assumption that they frequently mis-recognize the will of God. Sigh.)
I am afraid to post this. There's a part in the Lotus Sutra where it says that anyone who criticizes the Lotus Sutra will burn in hell or something like that. We read it in class, and of course, being me, up to then I'd been making comments about this or that fallacy or blatant manipulation in the text. When we got to that part about how I was going to hell, everyone in the room turned and looked at me. And you know what? I felt the pressure to take it all back. Because I'm not a sociopath. I didn't. Because I stand by my atheism. But reading Thurman I had another of those moments--he said something about blocked-up souls that can't let God in--and it is pretty hard for me to know that some of the greatest thinkers I have read and some of the adults I respect most would think I have a block in my soul preventing me from seeing the truth. (No one at ORUCC would tell me I'm going to Hell. Not that kind of church.)
I'm also not sure I'm willing to pledge to further the cause of human unity, unless, again, I made up an interpretation that meant the opposite of what the words said. It's really cool when people communicate, but they have to be a non-unity for communication to be a sensical action.
I go to church because I love to dance. It's pretty music they make there. I think that's the best I can do on my own to try to resolve the dissonance. Comments welcome, especially disagreement.