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| Charles Darwin |
With that said, I've long since given up negative views of the people who hold atheist views, because somewhere along the way I started to understand them. I grew up a Byzantine Catholic, and somewhere in young adulthood stopped really attending mass. I grew disillusioned with the church, it's hierarchy, it's rules, it's blind dogma, it's opposition to science, and it's rudimentary nature of "checking boxes" on the road to heaven. Are you telling me a child born in Saudi Arabia to the Muslim faith can't go to heaven because he wasn't baptized? Are you telling me a girl in Africa born to a "pagan" faith can't go to heaven because she never was confirmed?
From there it only got worse, as I started to question the very pillars on which Catholicism was built. I mean, the historical problems with the Bible are well documented (namely the time that lapses between the events and the writing, at least to me), but that was only the beginning. There was the revelation to me personally that other gospels were left out of "The Bible" by Vatican Bureaucrats in Middle Ages. There was the basic scientific issues with many of the chapters that got in. I didn't stop there though, and I didn't stop at Christianity. I went into the Torah, the Old Testament and re-read what I had read as a child. 900 year old people. Seas parting. Chapters on when to properly stone certain undesirables. All of it was ridiculous. Then came the kicker- Genesis made the least sense to me of all. Creationism, and the entire idea that the world is 5,000 years old was so utterly ridiculous, so incredibly stupid, that I could not believe it. The world was not made in seven days. Then I moved on to critiquing Noah's Ark, and realized I had basically discredited the entire Old Testament in my mind. I had discredited the Torah. I had issues with the New Testament. And yes, I did judge the Quran too. I mean, 72 Virgins? I found fault with just about everything at some point between 16 and close to 30.
And yet, I was not an Atheist. I had sort of just decided most everyone was nuts. I found no peace in a church, and no sense in Atheism. What was I? I think I would be best described for most of that period as disinterested. I had brief moments of spirituality, and maybe even short awakenings of religion in that time period, for instance when my grandfather died. For the most part though, I simply shut off the religion switch. Atheists were wrong. Theists were wrong. The only thing right was my doubts of both.
Something strange happened though over the past few years, and it didn't happen in a church, a classroom, a book, or a relationship, it simply happened with me. Yes, some of it came from finding inner peace and happiness with myself. Some of it came from events in the world. Some of it came from conversing and discussing faith with Muslims, Jewish, and Hindu people. It came from hearing the Pope talk about helping people again. It came from watching common people of many faiths break bread and survive things I'll never even be able to imagine. Maybe it just came from growing up. I'm not sure. I realized you don't have to be right, like the Atheists who think this scientific breakthrough "disproves" Religion, or like the religious people who think failing to follow scripture to every literal end means eternal damnation. It all made sense.
I believe in science, including things like evolution. I believe in secular rights and laws, like we have here in America. I believe in all the historical problems with all three Western religions, from the language changes over the centuries, to the corruption of the bureaucracies, to the problem of when the books are written down. I believe all the critiques and criticism have their merits, and require you to question, explore, and decide for yourself what you believe. There are problems with the stories, there are inaccuracies most likely, some that weren't in any way malicious. Beyond that, there's problems with how we practice religion, how we hold onto it as a separating identity, and how we use it's rules to disqualify people's decency, and value in our lives. I've spent close to 15 years coming to understand that most of what atheists are saying is correct.
I am not an atheist though. I am a believer, a person of faith. I simply reject the notion that it is possible, let alone practical, that we are here at random, that this just happened, that there is nothing out there guiding our existence. It's not only impractical to me, I find it impossible. Not just in a right and wrong way either. In an "I feel this way," way too. It is something you must feel at your core, or not.
If you were to classify me, you would call me Catholic or Christian. I believe in the story of Jesus. I believe in his status as God's son, and in his lessons. I also don't think that disqualifies the views of other religions. It is reasonable, if you believe in God, to believe in his coming here multiple times. Could the same God have spoken through Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad? Yes. I see little in fact to discredit that. I don't consider myself a theological expert or scholar, but my reading of all three traditions shows me enough consistency to not discredit the views and beliefs of any of them. For that matter, I struggle to show how Eastern religions can be discredited either. None of this is to say that ridiculous anti-religions, with such crazy ideas as flying spaghetti monsters, are legitimate. They aren't, they exist only to mock religion. This is to say that I can relate to and feel the faith of all truly faithful people, and respect them.
I don't think my religion is based on being in the pews at every single feast, praying at exactly the right time every day, or being anything else perfect. My faith is still a changing an evolving thing, and maybe at some point I'll see the need to define myself in an organized faith. Sometime in the future, that is. I'm not there right now.
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