My parents were and still are devout Catholics. My 7 siblings and I all went to a Catholic elementry school and then on to "CCD" classes during middle and high school. My dad was an accountant and he used to keep the books for the church so I knew a lot of what went on there (it wasn't unusual during the Catholic service for a collection plate to be passed around. Often this is done twice, once for "general collefctions" and again later for some defined "special collection". In reality, all the monies collected were dumped into a single cash bag in the back of the church.. So much for that "special collection..)
When I was in the 8th grade at one of these CCD classes I asked some questions of the priest that was running the class concerning some conflicts I had noted in the churches teachings and was asked to leave the room. Moments later he came out and ask me to never come back again and I was only to happy to comply.
I had several friends that were Jewish and the only thing I found remarkable about them and their families was that for some reason all of their fathers had huge pornagraphy collections. As a 13 or 14 year old boy I thought perhaps I had found heaven after all but somehow suspected that the size of the porn collection didn't have much to do with being Jewish so there was little need to convert.
Later on, when I was 16 or 17 I dated a girl who's family were members of the "Assembly of God" church. She had a brother who was 23, married and had an infant. Her brother and sister-in-law gave every penny they earned to the church. At one point her brother had asked if I would help him and his wife move on a Saturday morning because they were being evicted (they hadn't paid rent in 6 months..). On the planned Saturday morning I arrived only to be told they wouldn't be moving after all because "praise God!" the money for their rent had appeared overninght in an envelope in their mailbox. A simple scam really, they had given everything they had to their church and their minister knew they were being evicted so he gave them back enough to pay off their back rent. This was a smart plan on the part of the minister since if they moved they might not be attending his church any longer if there was another closer to the new place. They'd end up giving their money to someone else. I saw this even at 17 but all they saw was that "God had blessed them!". I laughed and broke up with the girl.
I looked into the athiest idea but it just leaves me cold. I've sort of developed my own religion based on how I see any supreme being and I've managed to rationalize a pretty encompassing set of things into that. No organized religion (or unorganized such as Athesim) would accept my tennets so I pretty much disregard them all and stick with what I believe by my myself. I guess that just sort of makes me weird.
I always found "organized religion" to be an oxymoron. To me, it's one of the most disorganized factions in our lives. Aritotle's concept of God works find for me and a basic humanism. If I find humanism thwarted by circumstance, I resign myself to the randomness of life I don't have control over and concentrate on what I can personally change in myself. Proust is my favorite philospher. In fact, I'm watching the French filmed version of "Time Regained" at this moment, so I have to go -- it's subtitled, you know.
Just an illumination here ... likely of interest only to those to whom the references are not obscure;
My "Familial Religion", in fitting with my Irish Heritage, was Roman Catholicism. Much of my schooling, in fitting with the socio-economic status and aspirations of my immediate and extended families, was at the hands (sometimes "Strikingly" so ... ) of The Jesuit Order. To those worthies, I credit my critical set of mind, and its concommitant areligious philosophy. I am humbly grateful, and thank The Order respectfuly.
My personal epiphany involved, notably among other factors, Teilhard de Chardin (forgive my pronunciation ... I don't have a European fontset installed). I find considerable, even smug, satisfaction in Chardin's recent, though in so Churchly a way posthumous, vindication.
timber
Terrific responses. I really enjoyed the fishin's irony and edgarblythe's insight!
Well, my mother was Southern Baptist and married an Italian Catholic, a scandal to her WASP family. I was christened a Catholic.
Then she divorced him, in scandal, and married an Hungarian Jew from Alexandria, Egypt, also scandalous.
I went to an Episcopalian private school, a very strange school to say the least. If I interpret the rector's convoluted, self-published book correctly, he believes in a return to slavery, since it was OK'd in the Bible.
Then, as a teenager, I got "born-again" as a Southern Baptist. Several years later, I was able to shrug that off, with the help of several anthropological works. Also, Herbert Muller's
Freedom in the Ancient World was particularly eye-opening.
Now, I vacillate between atheism and pantheism--perhaps complete opposites
--but I do believe there are many truths in the Bible and in other religious writings.
Religion
Hi all. I was born Southern Baptist and never had much problem with the religion. My problem was with the church that I grew up in. My family moved to the area (where I live) in the 1920's when this particular church was just getting started and everyone was equal and friends and things were good. Fast forward to the 70's and beyond, the church attracted $$$$ and because my parents were older (everyone in my mother's Sunday school class had grown kids and grandkids while I was in junior high) and because she didn't work (not that she didn't have to, she chose to stay at home with me and my brother) and my father worked for the postal service. I wasn't the child of a doctor, lawyer, orthodontist, or well known car salesman then I was looked down upon and made to feel unwelcome. I never wanted to do anything or go anywhere with the youth group. When I was 16 I accepted Christ and things got a LITTLE more tolerable. In college I started to bring my fiancee (who was not rich) . . . I was looked down upon again. It was not just by my peers, but by teachers and church officals. I always said that I'd NEVER get married in that church and I didn't! I've been happily married for 6 years and have different religious views now. My mother and I do not agree, but I know right from wrong and practice my own way of worship. I recently went to that church for a function and it was SO funny to watch all the monied people hob-knob
I got tickled at the syrupy-sweet "Hiiieeee, how AREEEEEEEE Youuuuuuu?" like they were SO happy to see us! UGH! The whole place is going to hell for being SO fake if you ask me! I'm sorry if I've offended, i just wanted to spout off. THANKS!
I consider myself a very spiritual person.
I was raised strict Catholic, and until about 4 years ago I went to Mass faithfully. I found I left there feeling empty, not God empty but humanly empty. I felt more lonely leaving there than when I went in.
I have since formed my own opinions of God and spirituality, they are, to me, one and the same.
I think what we are taught in church is far removed from real life.
Yes, I have grown away from my religion, but not from God. In becoming more spiritual I have found God, as I see Him.
Edgar,
I had struggles with having any sense of salvation when I was a Baptist. I think this may have been something like what you experienced (I'd be interested in knowing more about your experience of it "not taking").
I do not believe that morality is innate. I think it is learned behavior. Morality, IMO, is a set of behaviors that have evolved over time because they are social tools that help us live collectively (this is not an allusion to communism) which is to our advantage. The rules are enforced socially and are held in high regard. In fact, in such high regard that religious folk even attribute them to the deity.
I don't think we ought to base something as important as morality on an epiphany or outside revelation. If we did that what would we say to someone who said, for example, "I've had a revelation, and based on my revelation, we all must..."fill in the blank. It seems too open to abuse and erratic interpretation.
Lightwizard, can you give a word or two of explanation as to what you mean by "If I find humanism thwarted by circumstance..."
I wish I were more familiar with Proust. Did he write something as brief as an essay on his beliefs? I hate to get into long reading projects.
I must say that reading through the posts in this thread has been a pleasure. Everyone seems to be expressing their gut feeling about religion. There is something real, as opposed to simply doctrinaire, about it all.
Thanks to Phoenix for getting this started.
fishin' wrote:
I looked into the athiest idea but it just leaves me cold. I've sort of developed my own religion based on how I see any supreme being and I've managed to rationalize a pretty encompassing set of things into that. No organized religion (or unorganized such as Athesim) would accept my tennets so I pretty much disregard them all and stick with what I believe by my myself. I guess that just sort of makes me weird.
I follow fishin's example.
My mother was Catholic, and dragged us to mass when we were small. My father and his family were Mormon, which was funny since except for my grandmother, all of my dad's family smoked and drank alcohol. The Mormon's overlooked that aspect because my father's family donated the land in Kahului, Maui for their church. Been interested in all aspects of religion since the Marine Corp's because "religion" seems to cause most of the conflicts in the world.
Timberlandko - could you tell me a little more about Teilhard de Chardin's "vindication" by the church?
hazlitt
We are going back more than 50 years here. Memory is not entirely trustworthy, considering I was an abused kid. I remember I was desperately seeking a higher plane, something to remove me from oppression. What I witnessed in church seemed an excercise in self deception for all involved. They appeared willing to stretch the truth in order to keep our thoughts in line. I did not appreciate preachers telling such stories as the one about the woman who lied about her tithes and so was struck dead by God. When I witnessed the excorcism of the demon from a man, I got the notion from what was said and done that it was a recurring problem to this guy; I concluded that it was a mental, not a religious problem. I frankly did not believe stories about Sampson and Towers of Babel and Noah's flood bore any reality to the real world. I asked myself, "If there is a loving God, why so much vengeance?" and "Why does he let my mother suffer so?"
I understand that people wish to be elevated from the animal kingdom and so reject instinct as something we have evolved beyond, but, I believe most of what we do is derived from animal origins, including morality and the like. No matter what religious leaders tell us, no matter what systems philosophers and lawmakers devise, we are subject to instinct first and foremost. Unless one is the product of imperfect genetic implanting at conception, unless one is corrupted by environmental factors, including possible destructive acts on the part of parents and others, we grow in an unfolding moral pattern we never truly lose.
dlowan, de Chardin's writings challenged core tenets of then current "Vatican Approved" dogma. His was more or less a Gaeist approach, dealing with the planet itself as a living organism, of which all "life" as we know it was but component. He delved deeply into evolution (apart from being a philosopher and a Jesuit, he was a renowned and influential paleontoligist). His very vocal and visible differences with conventional Church Thought nearly caused his excommunication, and did result in his being exile-posted to China and forbidden to independently publish his work. By the time of his death in 1955, he had become a "Cause Celebre" in philosophical, theological, and various academic circles. His fame and influence grew apace with The Church's embarrassment over him. It was not until the 1980s that The Church lifted its proscriptions on most of his writings (more or less because the rest of the world recognized him as the giant of thought he was), and today the work he accomplished is incorporated into the body of The Church's deeper philosophical teachings.
Much of Chardin's influence impacts The Web we have today ... he rather foresaw, even predicted, the phenomona.
Here's a link to a brief article from an old "Wired"
Chardin Article
timber
I was raised as a Catholic in a school run by jesuits, but have always been kept under the shelter of Changó (the God-Goddess of sex, beauty, war and thunder in the Yoruban religion).
My parents didn't practice Catholicism (or rather, my mother practices a sort of fusion between Catholicism and the cult of the Orishas -the seven potencies imported to the American continent by East-african slaves); they chose the school because of the academic level.
When I went to school, the priests were at odds with the Vatican. They followed Teilhard de Chardin and some of them were near the Theology of Liberation -a combination of Marxism and Catholicism, common in Latin America, specially in Brazil-. The school was finally closed because the jesuits thought they were reproducing bourgoise ideology. Some priests went to work in the slums, other went to Chiapas and worked with the indians.
I didn't consider myself a Catholic at 13, but believed very much in Christ's, the man, teachings. At 17 I approached Marxism, and Atheistic leaning Agnosticism, but still respected Changó, my protector.
As I grew older, I felt the spirituality more and more. I do believe there is a superior power, and that we are something more than cosmic dust (even that sensation is great). I don't practice any religion, but I have studied several. And my mother's faith is so strong, she makes Changó to be there to guide me and protect me.
Well I picked "some" also. I was raised a Roman Catholic by a particularly devout mother and attended Sunday mass.
Even before I tired of the religion itself, I felt "put-off" by the somewhat viciousness of the nuns, that taught us in the Irish catholic schools. They seemed like such an unhappy lot and I applied blame to the severity of the religion and the cause of their apparent misery, and therefore callousness toward humankind.
The priests fared no better in my mind, yelling about blasphemy and fornication from the pulpitt. As I got into my teenage years, I wanted to stand up right there in the church and yell back at him, asking what did he know about sex and marriage when he could have none of it?
My father was indifferent to religion - neither for nor against. He worked seven days a week anyway and so he never attended church with us. My mother ruled the roost and harped about religion day and night. She made us knee for the Angelus at 12 noon every day (when we were home) and Lent was a huge deal.
At about age 13 I stopped going to confession and communion - my mother cried and slapped me a wee bit and then at age 15 I told her I would not be attending church again. She raged and berated me and then refused to speak to me for several weeks.
Now she is fine with my lack of religious practises. When she first came to visit me in Boston, she asked where the local church was. I looked at her blankly and she finally laughed.
I realize that my morals and views of right from wrong stem from my religious upbringing but I no longer practise or take 'as gospel' the writings or teachings from Catholicism or any other religion. I take what I need and live with that.
Great article, Walter. Thanks.
timber, who has long been a "Chardinist"
I was brought up in a religion that required too much attendance -- Sunday School plus church Sunday, Wed. service, vacation Bible school. Sorry, but I learned nothing there. I learned from life. I can't remember not knowing there was God, however. Whole different matter.
Attended a Unity church for about 12 years in the 70-80s, where it was taught that God is love, is within you and we can center on that love and live from it. The teachings there had more to do with just living a functional life, you know, getting rid of the baggage.
I have no use for religion today but probably fit in with Buddhist, if anything. Try a religion now and then, can't believe what they say!
Edgar,
Thank you for the great description of your journey through the Slough of Despond.
I was converted from my parents nominal Presbyterianism, which amounted to a very vague religiosity in our family, to the full fire eating Baptist Fundamentalism of the 50s. This meant instantaneous salvation, the filling of the Holy Spirit, separation from the world (no movies, no dancing, no card playing, no smoking, no alcohol, no smooching--largely ignored, and the general cultivation of an other-worldly demeanor).
I think I got into this seeking a refuge from a home in which there was a lot of dissension (but no abuse). The crucial thing that the Baptist teaching promised that did not work out for me was the Assurance of Salvation. That is, the idea was that if we accepted Christ as savior, we would be forgiven our sins and made a child of God, and that this new status would be made manifest to us by the filling of the Holy Spirit, which was a real sentient experience making us one with God. I'm not sure I've described this as I thought I was supposed to happen, but I'll leave it at that. Well, they preached about this all the time, and people stood up in church and spoke of their wonderful relationship with God through the Spirit, etc., etc., but for me It never happened. I was a firm believer in the Bible and the ideas of the church, and I struggled with the situation for over five years thinking that I was somehow doing it wrong and that if I could only be more sincere, or more committed, or have more faith, or become less selfish, or something, God would finally accept my repentance and fill me with the Holy Spirit. It never happened. I always felt outside the circle of God's grace.
It began to dawn on me that whatever my trouble was, it was not going to be solved by the Baptist concept of God and Humanity. I think my ticket out came in three areas of thought. First, the Freudian concept of how the mind worked was, for me, the necessary foil against the thought of the Apostle Paul. Second, as for you, the thought that if God is good he would want his creatures to be happy; and if He were all powerful, He would be able to make his creatures happy; but, in fact, his creatures are not happy; therefore, God must be either not good or not all powerful, or neither good or all powerful. I know of no argument that has ever broken this conundrum, and it was very helpful to me. The last and most influential line of investigation that enabled me to exit the Baptists, was the study of Biblical criticism. Once it became crystal clear that the Bible was not the perfectly true Book containing the one true history, the one true view of God, one true source of knowledge of creation, once I saw that it was not a comprehensive revelation of God to man of Himself, error free, cohesive, free of contradiction and trustworthy in every way, it was as if the chains dropped off and I was free.
That's pretty much my experience.
I could envision the whloe scenario, hazlitt. In those things we saw the same, for the most part.
I think what has kept me entangled with religion, even though I am an atheist, is the fact so many basic human myths have been taken by the faithful and wrapped in dogma. I won't allow them to have a monopoly. Instance: Many parables of Jesus, the mental evolution forward represented by them, are the property of us all and should not be ensconced within the walls of churches. Zen Buddhism and other forms of Buddhism have always had a great attraction for me, I think because I am not entrapped by the dogma and social pressures to belong. I always see new revelations along the way, so that I will still be adjusting my life to the very end of it.
