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My Religious Backstory

  
  

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grant
18:28 / 26.09.06
We've discussed faith before, and we've tossed around several topic about magick and religion, but something came up in the "Moderating the Temple" Policy thread regarding the way many of us interact with organized religion -- the way many of us come out of organized religions.

So, this would be the thread where people talk about how they lost religion, but also how they've been shaped by religion -- what parts sustain you, as well as what parts have left you scarred.

This is sort of meant to be anecdotal, but I think it can also be meaningful. We all came from somewhere. If you feel like chiming in simply to say "ALL XIANS aRe suXXX()rS!", don't.

So. What's your backstory?
 
 
grant
18:56 / 26.09.06
I suppose I should start with my own, but it's one of the parts of myself I like examining the least, so this will probably be choppy and incomplete. My understanding of it certainly is.

I was raised by a devout Catholic mother and a father who, we would explain, "worshipped on the golf course."

I was an altar boy for 11 years. I knew (know) the Mass pretty much inside and out. From the altar, there's not much you can do to amuse yourself that doesn't attract undue attention besides 1. check out cute girls in the congregation and 2. silently mumble all the priest's words along behind him. You learn to amuse yourself, silently.

One of the things about Catholicism is that there are a lot of rules, but they -- or rather it, the Church -- goes to a lot of trouble to try to explain them all. Sunday is reserved for the Mass. Tuesday nights were CCD classes, where, among other things, I first learned how to meditate, and probably where I first learned about things like stigmata. Miracles in the classroom. But anyway, that's where the sacraments were all explained and the parts of the Mass, and the parts of a church.

I suppose it's where I learned how metaphor works.

Anyway, those are my strongest impressions of What Church Was growing up -- authoritarian situations, really, although I didn't register that at the time. Classroom. Mass. We listen, the teacher/priest dictates (but, we were taught, always with humility).

I *think* that's what alienates me, but I'm not sure.

I miss the quietness of formal prayer, and the sense of historical connection -- confession is a sacrament over 1,000 years old, Peter was the first pope, all that -- which also comes with a kind of quietness, I think, like museums or libraries.

But I see my stepson engage with church on a purely social level (he goes to an Episcopal youth group on Sundays with his cousins -- his mom's an atheist and dad is vehemently anti-church), and it's kind of weird and jarring. He doesn't have to attend the services -- he goes off to a room with a bunch of other kids behind the vestibule where they, like, play games and stuff. They have fun. They don't contemplate.

Here's the thing, really. My personal church history is tied up with the area where I lived. South Florida (then moreso than now) was a place where people came to retire. Actual native-born Floridians almost didn't exist. There were businessmen, who moved their families in for a couple years at a time, and there were retirees. Almost all the kids I knew moved away, or else were somebody's grandkids. My diocese was one of the ones filled with people who came here to die.

I think that's why it made a convenient dumping ground for shoddy preachers (practically retired themselves) and sex criminals (two bishops in a row, as well as one of the only dynamic priests my home parish ever had).

Yeah, sex criminals. Moved there, as far as I can tell, intentionally as part of an organized cover-up.

I'd like to point to that as the reason why I don't go to Mass, but it's not really it. I think it's just a symptom. I'd already quit attending Mass (which is a mortal sin, folks) a year or two before that came to light.

The real problem is that, well, they took 2,000 years of majestic tradition and made it really boring. Boring and superficial. The religion had come here to die, too, along with the majority of parishioners. I'd been to dynamic parishes and met priests who believed in making a difference, and churches which tried to, I don't know, participate in the world. Mine wasn't like that. I moved away for college, and had no more reason to go through the motions. I loved the quietness, but couldn't stand the empty speaking, I suppose.

I dunno. Does that make sense?
 
 
EvskiG
19:17 / 26.09.06
I'll add mine.

I come from a very Jewish family. My mother's father is from Russia, where his family bred horses for the Czar until most of his relatives were killed in a pogrom and he fled to the U.S. My mother's mother comes from Austria -- descended from a long line of rabbis, scholars, and merchants -- but most of her relatives were killed in the Holocaust. I'm not too clear about my father's side of the family, but I know my paternal great-grandfather fled from Russia to the U.S. after beating up a Cossack who insulted his Jewishness while he was working as an impressed laborer for the Russian army. (Sense a theme here?)

All of them ended up in Newark, New Jersey in the 1930s.

My mother's side was hardcore Azhkenazic Orthodox, with a smattering of Chasids. How hardcore? Her grandfather used to do kaparot -- the classic Yom Kippur ritual of swinging a chicken around his head to suck up his sins. Her mother founded the first mikvah (ritual purification bath) in Newark. She went to Stern College (the women's college for Yeshiva University), later became a Hebrew school teacher, and after that worked at or ran various Jewish museums and charities.

My father's side was Conservative. Not as hardcore, although his father was president of his temple.

Everybody was fluent in Yiddish, of course.

I got quite a bit of Jewish education. Was taught the basic prayers before my first memory. Was read Bible stories (and Greek and Norse myths) as bedtime stories. Avoided going to yeshiva (a religious school) rather than public school only by throwing a tantrum the first time my mother tried to drop me there. Was immersed in American Jewish culture, from common Yiddish expressions to musical theater to good delicatessen to Woody Allen. Somehow, however, eight years of instruction in Hebrew left almost no impression on my mind. (I still can't read Hebrew to save my life.)

As a kid I pretty much believed in Judaism without question, as kids do. But growing up as a member of a minority religion was an interesting experience -- not believing in Santa Claus, going for Chinese food and a movie instead of church on Christmas, and realizing that most people around me thought my religion was weird (or even that I was going to hell).

As I got older I became an atheist, and then a mystic, and now I fluctuate from one to the other depending on the issue at hand and my mood at the time.

No hard feelings toward Judaism, and while I don't even slightly believe in its tenets I'll still go to temple from time to time for family events. And, of course, I still feel very Jewish culturally.

But don't get me started on Israel.
 
 
The Ghost of Tom Winter
19:31 / 26.09.06
I’m not sure if I’ve ever truly had religion, so my story isn’t very long.

I was raised Christian, and by that I mean I celebrated Christmas, read sections of the bible and frowned upon “devilish acts” such as fortune telling and magic.

I did not, however, go to church. In the beginning of my teen years I attempted to go to a Methodist youth group to figure out more about whatever it is that’s out there.

After two years of going every Sunday I quickly got tired of the people and the ways they were “celebrating” their faith.
It mostly consisted of singing the same damn songs over and over and chatting with other church goers about the over chatted about bible verses.

I then went through a period of agnosticism where my main goal was to learn about philosophy and possibly deduce a meaning from that. This was also mixed in with a period of 60’s psychedelia my friend and I were exploring. In turn this led to questions on reality and the cosmos.

I always felt a tugging of some form towards the direction of nature and attempted to create theories on what is out there. I’d have hours of discussion with my friend on what reality is and what lies on the “other side.”

Then, through strange circumstances, I found magic and it both scarred and interested the hell out of me. I learned about it, read about it, and then finally I did it.
From that moment I have been exploring magic and religion of all sorts and trying to figure out one that suits me. Most of my religious life was trying to get rid of the in grained dogma of a god that would send you to hell if you didn’t think pretty thoughts about him.

Since I stripped myself (mostly) of Christian influence I have been building up my religious life with other ideas and cultures and have in turn come back to Christian ideas, though not the so called “traditional” beliefs.

I suppose this would be my religious backstory. It’s not very long but that’s it.

I always found it interesting though that my mother claimed to be so very Christian (her mother did not allow TV or Christmas to be celebrated within her house) yet we never once went to church.

Anyways, I don’t know what the hell I am and am always interested to find out one day.
 
 
The Ghost of Tom Winter
19:34 / 26.09.06
grant, have you ever felt like going back to the mass?
I've always heard that Catholicism reels you back in after you've stopped going.
 
 
grant
19:45 / 26.09.06
I have two small children. They have not yet been baptized. Formally, I mean.

This upsets me a great deal, but the thought of actually going through with a baptism with either the religion I've left or with the religion of My Atheist Spouse's family feels wrong, wrong, wrong. The first choice is dishonest, and the other one is just, well, fake Catholics, you know, whose persecutions of my people introduced the word "priesthole" for a small hiding place into the lexicon. Tch.

Conflicted, you see. Inconsistent programming.

I'm not even sure I'm up to even teaching my 3-year-old daughter the Our Father, which is one of those weird cornerstones of my psyche. (Recited while bicycling at night past the jungly vacant lot where Evil Things Lay In Wait for my eight-year-old self, and used as an exorcism in hundreds of recurrent nightmares ever since.)

----
I should also point out something that I omitted from the first telling; I'm an ordained, mail-order minister. I've performed probably around nine or ten weddings and a couple of baptisms. Non-denominational. I don't think I've quoted any gnostic scriptures in any of those services, but I know I've retold Egyptian myths. And even led prayers.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:06 / 26.09.06
I was raised as a Christian, by a vicar. And I was a Christian as a child, though it wasn't forced on me. It was assumed. It was the air I breathed, the food I ate. Every Sunday morning I'd go to hear my Dad preach in church; it was what I did. There was no pressure- that was just what happened on Sunday mornings.

One Sunday morning, when I was about ten or eleven, I just could NOT be arsed to get out of bed. My mum came to wake me up, and said “it's church in an hour”. I said “oh mum, do I really have to go?” and she said “no, not if you don't want to”. And that was it, as far as being forced into religion went, really. Mum had (though devout) always been cool about it even when we were at church- as a small child, if I started getting bored during the service, she'd find a page in the Bible and whisper “read this. It's about an enormous battle” and keep me entertained.

My dad, the vicar, died when I was about twelve. And it seemed like horribly vindictive cancer. Bowel, spreading to the lungs, then the brain. Poor fucker had to have a colostomy bag, then a lung removed, then the tumor made him have a stroke and lose the use of his right arm and leg, then they let him come home, in a coma, so he could die with his family instead of in hospital.

I thought about God a lot after that- generally not in the friendliest of terms, but I convinced myself there must have been some reason. After a few years (during which I actually got myself confirmed- more to please my mum than anything else, really- it wasn't that she'd have been disappointed if I didn't, but she was really really pleased that I did, and without any prompting, and that made me happy). I was encouraged to start going to church at a friend of mine's parents' church, on the grounds that it might be a bit more interesting and keep me “in the fold”, as it were.

It was an Elim Pentecostal church, and it was... quite scary, really. Lots of speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, and all that. Also lots of videos about the End Times, which gave me nightmares, but which I was strangely fascinated by. Once I went to a conference with my friend's family (I should add, he's a really good friend- we're still mates today, we moved to London at the same time, and I've now known him for about 23/24 years. Incidentally, he's the person who first introduced me to both magick and Throbbing Gristle... make of that what you may) and it was an eye-opener- watching some big-shot (though I'd never heard of him) preacher seriously working a crowd through “prophecy”... Seriously, the guy was all “put away your purses, put away your wallets- the Lord wants cheques. And he's told me there's someone in this room who's going to give him five hundred pounds”. Of course, at that point, nobody wanted to be the first to leave. It took a while, and a lot of psychological manipulation- “he's telling me it's going to come from THAT corner of the room”... he got his cheque. I was a bit freaked, and VERY impressed.

The same church also had three nights with Willy Dunn (ex of Them, with Van Morrison) preaching on the evils of rock music. I was personally told I was going to burn in hell- all I did was laugh at his mispronunciation of “Chopin”, ferfucksakes! That was funny, though.

After that, I pretty much declared war on God- yeah, it sounds very grandiose, but I was a teenager. I'd still find myself praying at moments of stress, though, except I'd decide I wasn't praying to God, but to “anyone who happened to be listening”. I don't think I ever really “left” Christianity.

It's only really been in the last few years that I've started embracing that part of myself which I'd been trying to convince myself I'd got rid of. And that's still a hard thing to get my head around.



Oh, and I'm a mail-order minister, too. Universal Life Church?
 
 
grant
20:41 / 26.09.06
Brother in like precious faith! I embrace you!

(Yes. I mourned when Kirby Hensley passed.)
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:52 / 26.09.06
(Not sure if I still am, mind you... I signed up years ago and only ever remember it when it's brought up!)
 
 
charrellz
21:25 / 26.09.06
When people ask me what religion I am, I usually reply "I was supposed to be baptist" and then change the subject.

My mother's side of the family is the one that openly discusses religion (whether you want to or not), but seeing as they're all Republican Southern Baptists, you can guess how these conversations tend to be oriented. I've been to church only a handful of times in my life, and never enjoyed it. The most recent times have been at the "progressive" mega-church my aunt attends. Ugh. The grating sounds of a band covering Evanesence can't quite cover the smell of fire and brimstone.

My father's family I know much, much less about (to my dismay). My grandmother is Lithuanian and never seemed terribly religous (for a while I entertained the idea that the family was Jewish but kept it hidden when they came to the states, new evidence indicates otherwise though). My paternal grandmother tends to avoid the subject of religion unless it's in whatever joke she heard at the latest crafts meeting.

Ignoring the attempted influence of a few relatives, I was permitted to let my spiritual beliefs evolve as I saw fit. I figured out pretty early on that Christianity was not the path for me. Que several years of fumbling with other systems without fully understanding them or even feeling a real need for such a thing in my life. Most of that was centered around Greek mythology (Hermes was my favorite). Shortly before highschool, a friend introuced me to Wicca, which I stuck with for a few years before I realized that I hate working with deities. I spent a few years trying to figure out what to do with the spiritual hole in my life, and finally stumbled on Chaos Magickkcks. I tried that for a while and eventually found Eris and her wild and crazy ways. After dealing with her, I think I've finally reached a point in my life to branch out to a few new godforms (but only if Eris gives me permission, I've been putting off asking her).


I think the main way in which my early days with religion shaped my current outlook is by giving me a severe distrust of organized religion and planting the idea that spirituality is personal and fluid.
 
 
*
06:10 / 27.09.06
I was raised secularly by a mother who had been Southern Baptist and a father who had been Jewish. As a result, I made up my own religion in childhood. I had stuffed animals with whom I played out parables of my own making. ("The Parable of the Raccoon who was Struck By Lightning for Blasphemy and Left Badly Wounded But Alive on the Doorstep of the Raccoon's Brother and Friend" was one favorite. Another was "The Parable of the Raccoon's Brother and Friend Figuring Out How Best To Follow God's Will in Deciding Whether or Not To Save the Life of the Blasphemous Raccoon.") Eventually, for some reason, around thirteen or fourteen I became an atheist devoted to strict scientific materialism. Then I embarked on an experiment to prove the hypothesis "Any Fool's Religion is As Good As the Next" and sure enough, I proved to myself that for me, religion had value. The religion I happened to be using as the manipulated variable at the time was Wicca, so I was that for awhile. I gradually have drifted all over the spectrum of paganism, mostly independently, and somewhat mistrustful of all group spiritual activity while being sort of wistful for it. And now here I am, having gone to my first Rosh Hashanah services ever, attending pagan circles regularly for the first time in my life, and considering going to church from time to time as well.
 
 
grant
13:26 / 27.09.06
Did your parents know about the raccoon parables? Did they ever comment on them?
 
 
Quantum
13:45 / 27.09.06
I really, really want to know more about id's raccoon church!
 
 
Disco is My Class War
13:47 / 27.09.06
As I said in the Policy thread, my dad was raised Catholic, and so what I have seen of Catholicism is more about culture, and the odd way it structures family dynamics, than the actual Church. Maybe I'll try to explain that a bit. The family dynamics I'm talking about include having lots of kids; drinking lots, but this being okay if you go to Confession; domestic violence being okay, if you go to Confession; a tradition that at least one daughter and one son in the family should become a nun and a priest, respectively. (My grandmother tried to force two of her children to do this -- bad move.) And, inevitably, there was a huge amount of angst in my Dad's family around being poor with too many mouths to feed, and my grandmother not being able to use contraception or have an abortion. As well as that, two of my uncles were sexually abused by brothers. (They have since made court settlements as adults, and seem to be getting on with their lives.) I'm sure poverty had an effect on that side of the family, but they are all pretty crazily dysfunctional people, and I think the church has something to do with it.

So my father left the church when he was 18, and has spent the rest of his life trying to find an alternative to organised religion. My family did yoga and meditation; we became devotees of at least three or four different gurus at different times (Sivananda, Yogananda, Satchidananda, Meher Baba, also Sai Baba for a few weeks there); lived on several ashrams. In the late 80's they ditched the guru phase and became self-help nuts, then 12 steppers. My Dad even spent a couple of years getting into Wicca and going to pagan festivals. It was all a cycle: first, my parents would get really intensely involved, and make all these changes to their lives in line with whatever belief was current; then, after a while, they'd discover some hypocrisy or power game and recant. Since their divorce, both parents have independently become different types of Buddhist. They seem happy that way.

I don't even know how all this 'brought me up'. Kinda confused, kinda sceptical of everything, especially communally organised religion. I remember feeling jealous of my Christian friends in high school because they seemed to have very structured ethical and moral universes, which I did not. On the other hand, it was fun to be a kid on an ashram, to do yoga every day, play the harmonium in kirtan (chanting) and read the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata in as comics.

I never really believed in God. Now I tend to think of religion, or belief, as something that people need to make them feel like life has meaning. If that makes them functional and open humans, then great. For myself, I vacillate between feeling as if the universe has intent, and power, and energy, with which I can be in tune (or not) and a pretty post-structuralist, materialist feeling that life is totally random. I find myself believing in the weirdest combination of things -- karma, astrology, tarot, herbs, chakras, qi, ghosts. But nothing organised or communal.
 
 
Ticker
14:49 / 27.09.06
My 'rents divorced when I was wee so I mostly remember the joys of the Jewish children's bible. Man, I love the Plagues! My mom was into the cultural aspects of Judaism but the local Temple was a bit too classist and we were po'. The last straw was when my older sisters started having nightmares from the Holocaust videos being shown. I'm left with an annual craving for matzah and matzah brie.

My post college bf's family was jewish and I really enjoyed revisiting the culture. However I was disgusted that he put ketchup on his matzah brie. His mom also agreed with me on that one. Sigh I loved having a borrowed hippy jewish mom for a while, I think I stayed longer in that relationship because of her...

Anyway my dad is a big ol' fortean and sort of pagan. Being hip deep in how Things Go Bad in the occult he has always had a antaganistic approach to the Divine. His family was catholic irish but his mother was excommunicated for divorcing his father.

I grew up reading Charles Fort, John Keel, and Ted Holiday along with world mythology books. My dad feed me lots of Celtic mythology and I got extra suckered in having an unusal name derived from a Pictish one. Then this happened. Later in public high school I spent a lot of time hanging out in the punk rock boutique which happened to be next to a new age store. I think I was buying Goblin Universe when I picked up Starhawk's Spiral Dance. Yeah I was sort of surprised that people were dancing around in fields, I mean shit you could get ate, you know?
Anyhow most of my peers were either in UU or out right pagan. One of my older friends was a Chaos Magician and was the only person I could talk to about some of the other occult 'dark' stuff. He also introduced me to one of my greatest addictions, fromage noir comic books. This friendship also programmed me to have a dormant attraction to hot comicbook toting chaos magicians. Oddly I only met a second one a few years ago which strikes me as quite strange. I mean aren't there rather a lot of them out there?
My older sister read tarot exceptionally well and I started using it.

College (art degree with celtic mytholgy/performance art focus) was a lot of heavy research into various world religions, philosophy, mythology/folklore and performance art/ritual storytelling. I also became more involved with BDSM. My first trip to Ireland blew most of the established ideas I had about being a pagan out of the water and I started over with a renewed interest in body modification for spiritual purposes along with ancestoral reverence. My performance art was public ritual at this point and the foundation of my practice with narrative magic began. I was very lucky to have Marilyn Arsem as a performance teacher and benefited massively from her views on the mechanics of ritual as freestanding tools. I also met some very influential people in Forteana including Patrick Harpur and his philosophy regarding the Daimonic, which was a natural continuation of my Keelian perspective. Lot's of conversations at Fortean conventions, trips abroad, and personal experience followed. I put the Fortean pith helmet on when going to religious events and gatherings. The lingering fear of the Fortean Cosmic Fishmonger/Trickster tends to make me more conservative when it comes to experimental or self invented practices.

In retrospect I did ritual to experience the liminal state and the expanded perception of reality. I never asked for stuff and it always struck me as weird that people did magic for tangible outcomes beyond the context of the sacred communion or oiling the great gears of it all.
 
 
Unconditional Love
15:43 / 27.09.06
My father is pretty much socialist with aleaning towards communism, a smatter of country mysticsm form his youth, but he is pretty much atheist.

My mother is very liberal, pretty much atheist, but i think with an underlying christian morality.

I grew up in a small town in hampshire a london overspill town. My first dreams are fast becoming a recognition of my first religous experiences, dreams from around age three of dragons, and travelling on flying carpets.

My first introduction to god and sex was initiated when i was age 5 by a paedophile, he would rape me in a cupboard and then take me into an assembly hall to sing hymns like 'jesuses love is very wonderful' with other children. I can only remember one instance of this so far. One instance is enough.

During my early years i didnt really think alot about religion or god, i loved singing hymns in assembly, without really knowing why at the time.

I took r.e at secondary school and that was my first introduction to what to my mind is a model for a real christian, he was a happy clapper guy guitar and tamborine. he was the nicest bloke really intelligent, glowy and compassionate. I of course used to lock him in cupboards and throw chairs at him, i kind of understand that as well now.

My nan lent me a book on the black arts when i 15, i used to read it out in his class, he let me, he even let us play rpgs in his class room after school, a really nice bloke looking back, shame i treated him like shit. I was a metaller during this period of school. He really liked me to read from the new testament.

Come 17 i was a goth, bands like christian death etc etc etc, it wasnt so much satanism to begin with that actually came alot later, but acid and hash, along with astral projection, yoga and shamanism.

I spent most of my late teens to late 20s completely faced, i got intrests in chaos magic, temple of psychic youth, aleister crowley, runes, tarot, all sorts of paganism, it was my out and out rebellion against christian values and religion time really, experiments with sexuality and meeting transgendered people for the first time and realising the world was like a really big place.

28 near death experience, life review and a conversation with a serpent at the point of death and passing into an abyss. This started me off on a rampant following of serpent symbolism, starting with gnosticism and satanism, satanism of the la vey kind was like self help manuals for goths, not very impressive, the gnosticism was more intresting, i was still drawn to sects like the cainites at this point anything debuched and orgiastic, later came an intrest in toto especially with reference to the tunnels of set which gave me a striking set of dreams and some dreams that were initiations. I also tryed to summon my first demon at this point with some success but with little control.

Later i developed an intrest in vodou and statrted altar work, also an intrest in tantra which led me to martial arts and back into a church. My instructor was alot like my secondary school teacher really kind and understanding and open minded, he was a man who believed strongly in god, but didnt mind discussing the more revolting aghori practices, although i am not sure the rest of the class was as open minded, i draw this from the times 3 gay guys started attending class, funnily enough it seemed the christian women who were most taken back in the class and openly hostile. I tend to put christian people in 2 camps in my head, the abusive intolerent ones that use rules as an excuse to hurt others, and the others, the truely compassionate ones that are driven by a patience and love and a real understaning of the words of the bible and how to live them.

I carried on investigating various religous structures that had appeared before my new death and some i had never considered, buddhism, sufism, religous daoism, alchemy, a deeper understanding of kabbalah and what i so called shadow or dark side really is, at least to me so far.

Just after my 34th birthday i was ready to deal with my childhood rape, i have been in therapy since early this year and have heard stories from other survivors who have been raped in religous circumstances and abused by religous mothers and fathers. I have to say what i have heard first off awakened that really hateful part of me the annihilate god part of me and all his followers, but i have two examples of real christianity in my life, two real christians actually give me some hope. I am still really pissed off that the church saw fit to shuffle people around from area to area and turn a blind eye and that schools did the same thing, i have an annhilate education aspect to my character as well, but fortunately i have met some good teachers as well.

I know find myself in a place bringing all these disperate areas together in myself and trying to unite them in a sense of humanity and hope, trying to move on with my life, i have considered dropping the spiritual all together, but i dont think so its wound in to parts of me that form my character and allow me to undestand myself, here and now.
 
 
grant
16:38 / 27.09.06
xk: I also met some very influential people in Forteana including Patrick Harpur and his philosophy regarding the Daimonic, which was a natural continuation of my Keelian perspective.

Could you explain this?

----

I'm really getting a lot out of these stories, by the way.
 
 
Ticker
17:16 / 27.09.06
I tend to put christian people in 2 camps in my head, the abusive intolerent ones that use rules as an excuse to hurt others, and the others, the truely compassionate ones that are driven by a patience and love and a real understaning of the words of the bible and how to live them.

that was a lovely concise thing to read.
I too am getting a huge amount out of reading people's histories. Thank you!

xk: I also met some very influential people in Forteana including Patrick Harpur and his philosophy regarding the Daimonic, which was a natural continuation of my Keelian perspective.

grant: Could you explain this?


John Keel in his Fortean work frames paranormal events with an eye on tangible physical evidence versus expected and assumed styles of manifestation with no evidence. To break this down a bit I'll use some examples from cryptozoology.

Someone in Idaho sees a kangaroo running through a field. More people see the kangaroo. Fuzzy photos of the kanga appear.

1. Are there kangaroo prints able to be made into plaster casts and so verified by a biologist?

2. Is there kangaroo spore such as fur or scat to be verified by a biologist?

3. Was the kangaroo captured and therefore able to be examined by a biologist?

In this case there is a high likelihood of the kangaroo being a real beastie. Maybe it escaped or there could even be a breeding population of kangaroos.

But what if there are no prints or spore? Sometimes a reasonable cryptid is presented but what evidence should be there (prints on muddy ground) is startlingly not.

People think 'escaped zoo animal' but no zoos are missing a kangaroo. Then a private owner is suspected but still no physical evidence of the animal is ever found despite numerous sightings. Keel postulates that sometimes the kangaroo in this example is not a real misplaced animal but a construct. Some other phenomenon is the cause for what people are interpretting to be a kangaroo. Gets a lot weirder when it is a saber tooth tiger or aliens but the basic premise is the same. That flying saucer in your yard has not passed through the solar system to land on your dog house. Those aliens really don't go home and unwind after a long day. They are instead very disturbing tangible props trotted out for a passion play we can't really understand and then put back on a shelf until the next time they are required.

Charles Fort and Jacques Vallee also discuss the possibility of this mechanism.

Patrick Harpur's work in Daimonic Reality: a Field Guide to the Otherworld expands on this and looks at the mechanism which he labels Daimonic from the greek daimon and how it functions.
 
 
Axolotl
18:35 / 27.09.06
Hmm. I don't normally post in the temple, but I thought why not.
My mum's family is scottish presbyterian, and my Dad's is catholic. Both my parents are ex-hippy types who had both pretty much abandoned their faiths. I'd always been taught about religion in a "this is what some people believe, but no one knows for sure, but it's nice to respect other people's faith" kind of way. So I never went to church on a regular basis though would sometimes end up there at family &/or social events: weddings, church fetes, that kind of thing. I myself am pretty much agnostic with a strong atheistic streak. I lack the conviction to really be a "proper" atheist. So pretty much your standard late 20th century UK suburban story
When I moved to Glasgow and first experienced proper sectarianism it was a very big shock to me. Not only the direct effects: Orange marches, graffitti etc, but the wider social effects like being asked if I was catholic or protestant quite casually at a party (I said "neither" and they replied, "no, ethnically" which I found strangely hilarious) and religion being part of the wider social context. Very strange for me personally.
This led me to ask questions about my own family's religion. I learnt just how cool my Nan is, partly as despite being a devout catholic she never once put any kind of pressure on my family or me and and my sister directly to try and involve us in her faith. I learnt that my great-grandfather probably would have not acknowledged me because of my "catholic blood", which kind of sucks and makes me glad I never met him.
I guess looking back on this post religion for me is interesting as a social construct and how that impacts us, rather than faith and how that effects the individual.
 
 
My Mom Thinks I'm Cool
18:41 / 27.09.06
Dad and his family are Methodists, mom was kind of agnostic or vaguely Christian and just kind went along with whatever everyone else was doing. Despite going to youth group stuff, church camp, adult bible study, etc. I never found much to make me think or feel very strongly. Church was somehow both laid back and boring and, like grant, I stopped going as soon as I left home for college (I still go on Christmas to hang out with the extended family.)

In college I began developing my own thing. Kind of nature-rific for a while but with my own weird mythology built piecemeal out of stuff I subconciously picked up out of fantasy novels or dreamed about. This was really where my "backstory" began - religion for me has always been more about what I believe and my very personal and private relationship with the divine, not with organized anything, traditional ceremonial anything, or groups of people. My beliefs at this point didn't do much to help me out but were definitely the beginning of me realizing that there *was* a very important and powerful aspect of being in a Church as opposed to having a Faith - and that while I could feel the power of having a lot of people doing their thing together, it just wasn't my thing and I was much more comfortable working outside that feeling.

Anyway as I said this new system wasn't doing much for me and I had a pretty serious crisis of faith/breakdown a couple of years after college, sparked by a nasty late night (and, I later learned, drug-induced) conversation with a close friend I had maybe too much respect for. I lived in a bad state for a while and then was more or less approached without concious invitation by the whatever-they-are I work with today, which have become a much more important and sustaining part of my life. My new system functions as sort of a superset of the stuff I started working with in college.

My faith and magical practice have always been kind of mixed up and DIY - I've had lucid dreams as far back as I can remember and have instinctively done weird things that made sense at the time but seemed crazy later - I now realize these activities were all potentially "magical". I've spent a decent amount of time reading up on theory both on this board and other places so I have a (very) shallow but broad understanding of crowley, tarot, kabbala, chaos theory, shamanism, etc. which I let inspire me as seems appropriate, but the best parts of my practice come from doing what feels right or asking for advice from above.

Part of my insistence on individuality is probably a kneejerk reaction to the conservative town I grew up in, but I feel it's gone in a healthy direction - sort of like how my sister (I feel) got into Wicca primarily to annoy our dad, but ended up sticking it out and getting something useful out of it which she still uses today.
 
 
Feverfew
18:45 / 27.09.06
I have a really nonspecific religious background, in general, but in comparison, also.

On one side, my grandfather was raised a strict Methodist but, apparently, converted to being a Baptist when he met and married my grandmother. They never talked about religion overtly or faith but they did go to church relatively regularly. The parent from that side, however, is by all visible accounts an atheist, and has never denied it.

On the other side, religion was never discussed, and takes the form of a particularly quiet agnosticism; There Is A Higher Force, but we have no idea what it is.

I am secretly envious of people who have Faith, then Religion, in that order. They seem to have something going on in their brains that I don't, and not that they're necessarily happier for it (in many cases just the opposite), but they do find a place and some acceptance quite often in their chosen religious community.

I grew up in the heartland of WASPs in Britain, where everyone seemed to have some vague Christian faith. My best friend, by contrast, for a long time at school, was and is a Muslim, but it was never - and I mean never mentioned by him or his family, or my family - it was just never brought up until around a year ago when it was brought into casual conversation. Ditto for a friend at university - it suddenly came up in conversation that she was Jewish, and it had never come up in two years of knowing her.

Neither of these things affected my relationship with them - the first I am still good friends with and the second I severed all ties with after she nearly killed me in an un-religion related incident. But they did make me introspective about my own 'religion'.

According to the 2001 UK Census, I am a buddhist. However, after a year of vague, wishy-washy buddhism I gave up and moved to a more self-contained belief. It's a strange mixture of a quasi-religious schooling, non-denominational upbringing and several years of experimenting with Wicca, Paganism, a brief spot of occluded Christianity, a love of Hindu-ism, knowledge of Greco-Roman pantheons and extensive graded study of Norse Gods.

Which probably sounds a little odd. But in short, my beliefs have evolved into:

I) Look after your family and take care of your friends, then:
II) Do right by as many people as you can in the world, then:
III) Be as true to yourself as you possibly can.

I think it's driving me mad. It's like Asimov's laws of robotics, where I can't rest unless I've made sure as many people close and far from me are ok and that I've done right by myself.

-

I think I've successfully rambled on, anyway. Religion to me is this nebulous concept that other people have and I do not - I don't have the 'religion gene' or the 'god centre' in my brain, and I do honestly wonder what I'm missing.
 
 
sn00p
18:57 / 27.09.06
I went to a Christian school when I was kid, but we all grew out of it accept for the nutters. Y’know, the fundies.
Then when I went to high school I had a lot of teachers who where religious, and resented me for not taking their ideas seriously. Also there was a higher amount of idiot/gangsta' types in my high school, and they all had cross tattoo's because P-diddy does. I personally felt very picked on and isolated just because i didn't have, what seems to me, a ridiculous assumption.

When I would challenge these things that seem so obvious to me, it was made to be some kind of ‘phobia’ or hate crime. It’s not, by the way.

In my adult life I feel so frustrated with my other supposed adults. It annoys me so much that if I have children one day, they'll fill their heads with this crap in school. It is just the height of irresponsibility to teach children these things.

Every time I turn on the T.V there’s something about Muslims, "Europe is a cancer, Islam is the cure", or someone from the bible belt shot an abortion doctor, or some war over religion. I just want to scream in their faces, ARE YOU STUPID, I GREW OUT OF THIS AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME AS SANTA, YOUR ABSTRACT IDEAS (as nice and interesting as they may be), MEAN NOTHING, NOTHING, THERE ARE FACTS IN THE WORLD, NON SUBJECTIVE, NON RELATIVE FACTS, LIKE THE MONITOR INFRONT OF YOUR FACE, WHAT YOU BELIEVE MEANS NOTHING, TRY AND BELIEVE THE MONITOR ISN'T THERE, IS IT STILL THERE?
But that's hateful right?

When I was in high school I got into magic, reality manipulation, whatever you want to call it. This interest isolates me more than anything else in the world. Any atheist will dismiss it as it just gets caught in their bullshit filter (and rightfully so). 99% of anyone into magic has this crappy faith too, and i find myself with nowhere to go for advice, it's like asking a creationist on how carbon dating works.

I feel so scared all the time because there are these nutters everywhere, that could hurt me, that could stop me having a good time, and it's allowed. Their actions are perfectly rational from the extrapolation of the original lie. You can't even argue it out. All you get is "Evolution is a theory", "science is a dogma", "prove the big bang". Why do people think that science, that facts, are what prove religion wrong (they do anyway)? If there was no science, your views would still be absurd. If we found some higher intelligence, you would still be 100% wrong.

I'm a scientist and it's disgusting how people just crap all over the facts they don't like. "Ok, i'll have nuclear power, but carbon dating is shit" "I'll have some of your geneticaly engineered wonder drug, but evoloution isn't true because it conflicts with an idea i like". "Well you don't know what holds the nucleus together, so that's god."

The people who survived in that stairwell in 9/11 came out and said "It was a miracle from God". How could you possibly believe any benevolant higher power has any influence on Earth if 9/11 happened. It's just a stupid explanation. Yknow what, it's not even their fault. It's whoever told them this crap in the first place.

That’s how it affects me. It scares me. Not because the idea of a literal God scares me. It scares me because of how the lies extrapolate. It’s dangerous and I won’t tolerate it. It’s not discrimination. It’s not wrong to discriminate against the psychotic, liars, murderers, rapists.

I try and talk to people, show them the power of truth. How it’s not easy, but it’s all there is. People don't really like truth. That affects me so much. It's like dirty handprint across the beauty of existance.

Anyhow, thanks for reading my story.
 
 
Ticker
19:55 / 27.09.06
sn00p, I was very impressed with how you expressed your feelings. 'Tis a difficult thing to do letting that show in a genuine way and yet not making the lense a definative barrier.
 
 
My Mom Thinks I'm Cool
20:07 / 27.09.06
But that's hateful right?

I would say: believing what you believe (or don't believe) about God/Gods/organized religion/etc and being willing to think critically about them and their effect on the world is *not* hateful. The way you communicate this idea to others, especially others who hold these beliefs as very important, can (potentially) be hateful, sure. Screaming at people may be an understandable response at times, but is not only rude/offensive, it's most likely counter-productive if you really hope to convince people of anything.

It's important to realize that one of the things many people find annoying about belief is the tendancy of people to resist change to the point of being unable to critique their own systems or to give other possibilities a legitimate chance, and I would caution you that this may well apply to atheists or wiccans as well as "fundies" - in other words, if it annoys you that religious people won't listen to your arguments, take care that you are willing to listen to theirs.

I appreciate your backstory. I feel slightly unsure about your contention that your children will necessarily be indoctrinated by religious types in high school. I attended high school several years ago (when pushing religion on kids in school would have been more likely) in a conservative community, the superintendent and several teachers were Mormon, our Bio teacher was a Creationist, etc, and yet I never had one bit of religion explicitly pushed on me for 12 years of public education. It was implied by things like getting these holidays off and not those, or by saying "under god" in the pledge of allegience, or whatever. And I'm sure publicly declaring some sort of other faith would have led to difficulty. But I definitely think there are at least some, if not most, schools where your kids would be just fine. Am I unusual in this belief? (are we talking about the same country, I'm in the US?)

sorry, was this threadrotty? should I reserve this for the "god is imaginary" thread?
 
 
Olulabelle
20:18 / 27.09.06
These stories are all fascinating. I want to thank everyone for contributing and creating such an interesting thread.

My contribution is as follows:

My grandfather's generation were all Christian; my great aunt was a headmistress of an all girls faith school, the sort of woman who used to physically wash my mouth out with soapy water if I swore. Big in the church. When it was her funeral, lots of important people came. Church people.

My grandfather lost his faith in the second world war, he was a major in the army and it was his job to clean up one of the concentration camps once the war had ended. The people in the local village refused to help and the things he saw affected him so badly that when he returned from Germany he became an alcoholic, and rolled an army mercedes. He was discharged.

I think because of that he discouraged my mother from believing in God and my father was a true atheist, so I was brought up with parents who didn't practice any religion.

When I was seven my father left home and my mother became very depressed. I started going to sunday school because all my friends did, and also because they used to bake flapjacks and do 'family' things that I didn't have at home. I saw Christianity as a way to have that family closeness. I didn't really believe in God, but I did all the reading of the bible and things. I think I just wanted to belong.

I went to see an Evangelist once at about age 15 - he made people cry and come to the front. I nearly did myself; I didn't recognise the rush of emotion for what it was, for the stimulation of being wound up by the Evangelist. I thought maybe I had found God.

My mother used to say that she must have done something horrible in a previous life to deserve the life she was having. We always had a buddha in the house. She burnt incense.

When my father died I desperately wanted to identify with some kind of religion, because even though he was adamant that there was nothing after death I thought that if I believed then I could somehow continue my relationship with him. I was extremely angry with him for not believing in something else. I wanted him to tell me he would be watching over me, not tell me that religion was all bollocks.

I spent a long time searching for my God. I took a truck load of drugs.

I read a lot of books, devoured all sorts of pagan texts in the search for something. I met a Norseman, I live a pagan life. I celebrate the pagan festivals.

But I mostly feel empty inside. I feel like everyone else has a God or Gods to worship. If Part E in your head is religion then I am missing my Part E. I am not an atheist because I believe in something. The closest I get to a description is to call it the divine consiousness, but I do not know how to define what that actually is. I do not have that relationship of prayer; I would not know what to say. Or whom I am addressing.

I am still looking.
 
 
sn00p
20:42 / 27.09.06
Xk: Thankyou, I liked your backstory, and your take on magic.

Pants Brigade:
It's not that i want people to hear my point of view, i just wish people would realise these universal things. I wouldn't lecture a heroin addict on why i think heroin abuse is wrong, and my take on the subject, i just wish they would give up the junk and i know they would have a happier life. I would never actually scream things in peoples faces, that's just an expresion of my bewilderment.

I'm actually from the UK, i don't know much about american schooling. In class, even in highschool, we always bowed our head for prayer. Most of our schools are still Catholic or Protestant. (this is true) I had a strongly, strongly Catholic R.E teacher. This for me, was wrong on many levels. A) She was a lesbian. I'm not an expert on Catholisim, but i don't think they like that. How could she disagree with a part of the bible, but agree with the rest? It clearly say's she going to hell. B) How could she sit there and teach us without having an agenda. You can't have a religous R.R teacher, it's not right. How did it even work in her head? "This religion is just myth, this one is superstition, this one is partial truth, this one is a different path to the same God, this one is true because i like it" It's just silly. Anyhow, (back to my point), she hated me because one day i asked "Is there anything to suggest a God?"
She said: "Yes, well you know 1 x 1 x 1, that equals 1. Well thats God, the holy spirit and Jesus. Don't you see?"
I was just... i mean what the hell... that's just giberish man. This was taught to me at a place of learning.
Anyhow i got an A+, because it's something i'm very intrested in, but all year long she was bad mouthing me to my parents.

I don't know how it is in america, but in england:
a) I was taught giberish.
b) I was discriminated.
c) I was made to pray to a God.
 
 
EvskiG
21:14 / 27.09.06
I am not an atheist because I believe in something. The closest I get to a description is to call it the divine consciousness, but I do not know how to define what that actually is. I do not have that relationship of prayer; I would not know what to say. Or whom I am addressing.

I've often wondered to what extent one can generate a mystical or magical worldview -- for example, a belief in a divine consciousness -- without adopting or assuming any religious beliefs or postulates.

This might not be the place for it, but here's what I've often thought as the best argument I could come up with:

The universe, by definition, consists of all that there is.

The universe exists.

The universe includes conscious beings -- at a minimum, human beings.

Conscious beings are conscious of themselves and at least some elements of their surroundings.

Hence -- since the universe exists, since the universe consists of all there is, and since the universe includes conscious beings, who are conscious of themselves and at least some elements of their surroundings, the universe is conscious -- and self-conscious -- in at least some sense.

Conscious beings evolve over time.

As conscious beings evolve, they likely acquire finer and more subtle perceptions and understandings of themselves and their surroundings.

While, at a minimum, human beings exist, it's probable that other conscious beings exist, whether on Earth and/or elsewhere.

At a minimum, some conscious beings have spread or are spreading from their places of origin (for example, humans are no longer simply concentrated in part of Africa).

Hence -- if conscious beings are aware of themselves and at least some aspects of their surroundings, if conscious beings are evolving and spreading, and if they therefore are acquiring finer and more subtle perceptions of an increasing portion of the universe, then it's fair to say that the universe (which consists of everything, including conscious beings) is becoming more and more conscious -- and self-conscious -- over time.

Since the universe has been around for a very, very long time, it's quite possible that the universe has gotten extremely conscious, and self-conscious, by now.

Does that equal, say, Brahman? Got me.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
03:04 / 28.09.06
I haven't been this interested in a Barbelith thread in a long time. I hope to get to some actual discussion and commentary about your stories, but I'm still savoring the reading of them. Thank you, grant, and all subsequent posters.

---

I like to tell people I was raised Beatnik, partly because it's a funny soundbite (if, in fact, they know what a Beatnik is--you'd be surprised how many don't) and partly because it connects me to a little bit of the cultural history of the place where I grew up, the Lower East Side of New York City.

My mother had left her husband and, with a toddler and two suitcases, moved to New York. Her adopted father, who had been adopted himself, is very religiously Irish Catholic, so she was raised Catholic, but by the late 70s... I don't know. Religion wasn't part of our life. She married a Russian immigrant some 25 years her senior, an artist, novelist, and drunkard who had lived in the Lower East Side since the late 40s.

Having fled Russia as a child when his parents were arrested for sedition, he was so suspicious of authority--not to mention drunk--that he couldn't hold a job. If he had any religion, it was chess. He had a lot of Russian jazz records with lurid covers. They get a little mixed up in my mind with the Children's Illustrated Bible my grandfather kept in the way-back of the station wagon to entertain my cousins and me. My grandfather never fails to mention that he prays for me, and sometimes he'll send me a sort of Catholic postcard like this one, letting me know he's made a donation in my name to St. Jude. My father would take me on day-long walks all over lower Manhattan; I have no idea, today, what we talked about.

They both had hard, tragic lives and, in my view, were beaten by them--passive, lazy, terrified. I shouldn't judge them, their lives were a lot harder than mine. My grandfather is cheerful, but he's vacuous. My father was gloomy and shirked all responsibility. I think as a result of these influences I am usually confused by any religious commitment at all--even if it's a commitment to irreligiosity. The question seems moot to me, and I think people with convictions are rationalizing their feelings of despair.
 
 
grant
03:07 / 28.09.06
I'm actually from the UK, i don't know much about american schooling. In class, even in highschool, we always bowed our head for prayer. Most of our schools are still Catholic or Protestant.

The U.S. is nearly the exact opposite, with even non-denominational "Thank you, God!"-type exclamations in graduation speeches making administrators really nervous and Bible club pages getting cut out of yearbooks and the like.

Here: Infidels.org collection of news items and the clearer Wikipedia overview.

---

I think I wrote a song about what Lula's talking about, but I don't want to pull this too much off topic. Faith, though, is always work. I don't think belief is somehow organically inborn or part of our brains, and if it was, then faith wouldn't be faith. But that's a discussion for elsewhere.

---
Qalyn: I think as a result of these influences I am usually confused by any religious commitment at all--even if it's a commitment to irreligiosity.

I'm interested in how this seems to be emerging as a thread in these stories. I think, anyway. I find a certain kind of commitment really confusing, too.

I think people with convictions are rationalizing their feelings of despair.

Heh. I can't help but hear that in a Russian accent, and it makes me smile. Which is not to say I don't think it could be true.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
03:12 / 28.09.06
Best - thread - ever.
___________________________

My turn...

Grandparents: Christians. One Grandfather died in a convent/hospice staffed (apparently) by lovely and respectful Nuns. One Grandmother was an amazingly strong Irish Catholic woman who raised seven daughters and read tea leaves.

Father: taught by nuns in Ireland and read myths as a kid; still flinches at the word "Nun". A great man, who is "English", not "Irish", and who has never forced his beliefs onto me. Not many people have dared. e.g. Dad's been married to my Mum "forever", and yet when I was a kid and he'd drive past a local church, if there was a wedding on (outside) he'd ALWAYS smile and say, "Wind down the window and tell 'em it's not too late". I did it once, he nearly crashed the car. Nowadays he talks to robins in the back garden and saves his wit for extreme occasions, to keep me grounded. e.g. I come home for a visit, he opens the door and says, "Oh...what do you want? When you going home?" Then gives me a proper hug and offers me a whiskey. Happens on average about once a year, when I visit. He's ace my ol'man.

Mum: very clever enough to have her own take on everything even though she (like Dad) never had the opportunities to study in their youth, like "we" have. She's one of the most empathic, clever, and self-driven people I've ever known.

When I was born I caught a virus. We both did. For the first two weeks of my life, I lived in a hermetically sealed wing with only my Mum's skin, shape, warmth, and heartbeat for company. Oh, and visitors wearing special outfits (apparently). But she never let me become a 'Momma's boy" either, even though I've always been as soft as jelly with a nutty centre. She was tough enough with us kids and we could see it nearly killed her to do so. She even let me leave home at 18 (a week before my dire A-level results came through her door), to fly the nest and grow; and no, not to go to a University. I had a job then. I worked "normal" for years. Hated most of it.

My own religion: I'm a story and music and laughter man through and through. I think Roald Dahl was my first god. The next Holy book that was read to me was 'The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles' by Julie Andrews Edwards; then I learnt to read myself and ate everything I could with my own "huge" eyes.

All true. And there's shedloads more, but...

Who's next?
 
 
Unconditional Love
05:48 / 28.09.06
I missed apart woke up remembering it, from roughly 12 - 15 yrs of age i was totally taken by kung fu and ninjas from watching loads of movies, we used to make nunchukas and shuriken at school. We used to run around the estates throwing lenghts of chain at each other and jumping down from trees, when we werent scouting out the local factories trying to by pass security.

i must of been maybe 14 or 15 when i first meditated, it was to the chinese or japanese moon god, there were 3 of us sat on a garage roof, with t shirts wrapped around our heads to hide our faces, and pins stuck through the end of shoe laces for our blow guns and various home made weaponry, i got the name of the god from an ADnD manual called deities and demi gods, i remember the moon behind us and just sitting while they faced me, really weird, very quiet.

Then we went off to fight another group, get shouted at by adults and generally cause havoc with crow scarers stolen from farmers sheds.

I spent alot of my early childhood running around with catapults and making home made bolas from cricket balls and hankys, i loved weapons and fighting, but i hated hurting people, weird combination.

We loved the surrounding country side and the town for different reasons, they were both giant playgrounds but with very different feelings that provoked very different games.

Games i wish i hadnt played were roll rocks down the hill at cars, shoot rockets at trains from carpet tubes and hunt the cars with a catapult.

From what i can see looking back i kind of went through various evolutionary stages growing up, living various periods of human history out through a variety of behaviours. I also understand why things like kung fu as an adult have great appeal for me i still get to run around with sticks, not much chance to throw things which is a shame, but its all done and puts alot of what i did back then into a more disciplined focus and gives me a chance to transform some of those energies in me into a more spiritual phenomena.

How life changes but some patterns seem to repeat.
 
 
My Mom Thinks I'm Cool
11:30 / 28.09.06
I would never actually scream things in peoples faces, that's just an expresion of my bewilderment.

well, then, I'd say you're not hateful at all. well done.

hope I didn't offend, I really did like your story. thanks for the clarification on us/uk school systems. guess I was, as usual, taking my freedoms for granted, as they say.

in order to avoid my constant twitch to reply to the great stories here, would it be better to have a general meta thread about responses to these, or a more specific thread(s) addressing common theme(s) (what would you call Lula's? "finding something to believe in"?)
 
 
Evil Scientist
11:55 / 28.09.06
Good thread.

My parents never really encouraged nor discouraged my religious beliefs when I was a child, (although I have vague memories of them explaining why a Catholic friend of mine was allowed wine at Communion and I wasn't, so they did try). But I went to a Church of England primary/middle school where my first real memories of religious instruction start. At that point in my life I really didn't have much of a clue that any other type of religion existed. Or rather I did but I thought everyone sort of worked for God.

Anyway, in middle school, around 12 years old, I joined a youth group called JuCo's (Junior Covenanters) which had a regular play-around meeting in the week and bible discussions every Sunday morning. This was really the point where I started to develop an interest in Christianity as a religion rather than assuming it was just something everyone believed in. We'd talk about various parts of the New Testament and how they applied to our lives and our relationship with God.

Sometimes I grooved with it. I remember, after being told that even a murderer could get into Heaven if they truely sought forgiveness from God, a sense of confusion that eventually turned into joy when I realised that it meant, potentially, no-one would be left out of Paradise. Other times I didn't mesh so well, like when I tried to explain the place of dinosaurs in the seven days of Creation by suggesting that maybe God had a different perception of time to us and that one day for him would be like centuries for us so dinosaurs probably were there and then gone from God's point of view. The teacher shot that idea down pretty quickly.

It was Father Christmas who destroyed my faith. Learning that Father Christmas wasn't real didn't instantly cause me to lose faith, but it was the opening shot on a long road towards my current atheistic outlook it was the point where I learnt that the supernatural beings that inhabited the world might not necessarily be real, it made me question. All the way through secondary school (which was non-religious and in the UK) I had an on-again, off-again relationship with Christianity. In college I had one brief and intense fling again (sadly enough after reading Stephen King's book Desolation which contains a lot of discussions about losing/finding faith).

I probably finally came to terms with my beliefs in university. I realise that, after years of calling myself an agnostic, that I didn't believe in a religion of any kind at all. I realised that faith was, for me, not enough and that if I were to devote my life to something then I demanded more than an internal sense that something was a truth, that I wanted external proof. I realised that, if God were real, there would be a very good chance that I would hate it for demanding worship at gunpoint.

I think I'm more open-minded about religion and spirituality than I have been for a long time, mainly due to my discussions with people in Temple. I can still get a bit ranty in my cups.

My atheism has taught me to have an intense respect for human life and to accept responsibility for my ethical and moral choices (mainly because I have no deity to shift the blame to).
 
 
Tsuga
15:19 / 28.09.06
I was raised Catholic as well, went to Catholic school with mass every morning, but my parents were more automatic Catholics than intensely devout, until my father had a horrific church rebirth after a weekend retreat when I was about 12. For a number of years after he became insufferably overbearing. I mean, he was already insufferably overbearing, his deeply ingrained anger and dominating intensity were still there, just channeled through devout Catholicism. Enforcment of daily family rosaries, family prayer, attendance to and attention at mass, as well-intentioned as it was, only made us all try to hide more.
I was myself still very faithful, fearful, and guilty. But I read alot of books, and the more I read, the more I realized how uncertain anything was and the more doubts I had. Maybe the extremity of the absurdity of my father's faith kind of burned it out of me. I think by the time I graduated high school I had shed any vestiges of faith.

Currently, I think the proper term is agnostic. I'm not an atheist, it's too dogmatic. I've come to realize that no matter what, I'll never know anything beyond my life and my brain, and that's fine. God or no god, universal energy or no, it does not really matter in living my life. I feel utterly non-spiritual, but what does that mean? There still may be halls of jasper or an all-interconnected-everything, I don't know. It is important to humans as complex social animals to have ethics, and I strongly believe in living ethically. If people can have faith or beliefs to make them happy or behave morally, I'm all for it. Or, as Disco said,
I tend to think of religion, or belief, as something that people need to make them feel like life has meaning. If that makes them functional and open humans, then great.
Faith sometimes makes people do fantastic things. It's just unfortunate how often faith can be maliciously distorted.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
17:59 / 28.09.06
When I was very young we went to church, my mother and I, with her husbands family.

It wasn't until they divorced that I found out I was Jewish.

My fathers side of the family I know very little about, having never met the man, but from what my mom has said at times his parents were German and moved to Montreal after WWII. I think they were Jewish.

My grandparents on my moms side both traced their roots to Ireland in a couple of generations and were Catholics. My Grandfather wasa Knight of Columbus. When my mother moved to Montreal her father told her that his family was Jewish, and they practised Catholicism as a cover. I have no idea how true that is, but before I was born my mother converted to Judaism and kept kosher for years.

So, my first memories of relgion are the Dutch Reformed Church, then I was told I was actually Jewish but we never went to temple. I went to a JCC summer camp for a couple of years, learned enough Hebrew to light candles at Channukah and recite the prayers for Passover but it was never really important in our lives.

I didn't have a Bar Mitzvah because we never had money for things like that.

It further confused things that since she was raised Catholic my mother really likes Christmas, so while I was always clear on the Santa Claus thing, and that Jesus was probably not actually the son of God, we had a tree most years.

These days I have faith, of some kind, and I identify as Jewish, because of the choices I have looked into I like it the best, but I don't really feel it.

If that makes any sense.
 
  

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