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tsukikageI just finished taking a shower, and there are a couple things I was thinking about while doing so that I want to talk about here.
First is the relationship between my religious beliefs and my ethics. As many of you know, I am currently searching for religion. When I was a child, my mom never really spoke to me about religion while my dad frequently spoke to me about his atheism (not so directly when I wask young, but he never hid his beliefs or sugarcoated them for me). Thus, for much of elementary school I considered myself to be an atheist. I also had a great fear of death, which my dad says was the case when I was as young as three. I couldn't stand the thought that once life was over, as long as it lasted, and as much time as I had left, once it was over I would never again be conscious. (God, I feel a panic episode coming on even as I write this. *fights said episode off*) Eventually I became a Catholic along with my mom (who was raised Lutheran), and she would go with me to church every weekend. I believe I was in 4th or 5th grade at the time. At the same time every other weekend I went with my dad, step-mom, and ___-sister (don't ask) to the Quaker meeting house. As any typical elementary schooler would, I found those 15 minutes I spent in Meeting extremely boring, and couldn't wait to be let out to go to First Day School. However, as I got older I came to enjoy that period of silence, even if I would often choose not to go (usually because I wanted to sleep in or work on homework) or hang out with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tiernsshadow instead.
Eventually my mom stopped coming with me to church, and I continued going on my own. Then I slowly stopped going. At some point I felt I had stopped believing in God, and I think to some extent I never really did. I think because I was afraid of death as eternal oblivion, I wanted to convince myself that there was an afterlife. To be honest, I was also afraid of the eternal life that heaven promised... Eternity and inifinity in any form scare me, which is part of why I've never taken any astronomy classes... (Personally, if had the choice I'd chose reincarnation - you're neither dead forever nor alive forever. Of course, then there's that pesky end of the universe thing...) However, I calmed myself down by telling myself that heaven was perfect, and thus I would certainly no longer have qualms about it when I got there. In any case, without wanting to sound cliche, I was going through the motions. Just as an actor begins to feel that they are their character, by praying the prayers and attending the religious education classes, I felt that I believed, but when I stopped going through those motions the feelings of belief evaporated.
And now I still want to believe in a God, and in an afterlife. But there are so many religions out there, and so many that say that if I don't pick theirs when I die I'd prefer that oblivion. (Sometimes I doubt this, thinking I'd rather be aware of my agony than never wake up again.) But in my search, reading all sorts of religious texts and learning about all the different religions, the most important thing to me is to not join any religion again unless I actually believe it. I refuse to go through the motions, at least on a regular basis. I try to go to different churches so as to not get too used to any one.
Which brings me to what I really wanted to talk about. As I said, in essence I don't believe in God. This is separate from the belief that I believe there isn't a God, however. I just don't currently have the feeling that God exists. However, many of my feelings about what is right and wrong - my morals, if you will - are based on a sort of flip-switch system. It's like I have two (or more) boxes stored away with scraps of paper in them, each scrap with a different stance on a specific issues written on them. And if I were to decide that I believe in a certain relilgion, I would then immediately flip the switch and call a different one of my moral "boxes" into effect.
For example, my beliefs on homosexuality. As an agnostic/atheist, I believe that it's totally okay. I love the idea of gay marriage, and I fell in love with a woman I would have no qualms about marrying her. However, as a Christian, I would believe that homesexual acts are wrong, and either that no-one is truly homosexual or that homosexuals are asked by God to remain celibate or to enter heterosexual marriages of convenience. Some other beliefs I have that are subject to this switch flipping regard chasity before marriage, the wearing of hijabs, a wife's duty to obey her husband, and such. [EDIT: I tend to align these two belief systems by essenitally taking a libertarian standpoint; if someones religion says that homexual acts or disobeying their husband is wrong, then let them obey God on their own, but don't make laws about it.] Sometimes the only difference between the two switch settings is the specific reasons I hold those beliefs, but I think that's still an important difference.
I also have an odd practice of apologetics which comes down to "if X is not true, then Y doesn't make sense, but if X is true, then there are ways to explain Y; therefore, even though I believe X isn't true, since I don't know X isn't true, I believe Y is a valid belief". For example, I firmly believe in evolution and that the universe is approximately 14 billion years old and the earth approximately 4.6 billion years old. Or, at the very least, I believe in evolution and that the earth must then be significantly older than 5000 years. But... Those who believe that the earth is only 5000 years old and that we were created by God in the earth's first week, and that Satan is the one trying to convince us that the earth is 4.6 billion years old in order to try to make us lose our faith in God... Well, if you believe that, than who am I to argue? Religion explains itself.
The other thing that was on my mind was my responsibilites to Patrick. What exactly is and isn't respecting his decision? Is deciding not to go out with anyone at least until he comes back not respecting his decision? (Actually, I have my own reasons for that, so that one doesn't really matter.) What about putting up a ticker counting down the days until he comes back in my userinfo? Working during this semester to try become someone he'd be more happy with? Listening to the Reagan CDs he made me so I can hear his voice? E-mailing him multiple times a week? At the same time hoping keeping in regular contact will make him change his mind? (And by change his mind, I don't mean to something he doesn't actually want; I mean that if we actually would work out, to help him realize that.)
Then I thought... Perhaps none of that actually matters. Perhaps respecting his decision only means not directly asking him to come back to me, and not interfering if he finds someone else. Of course, I also don't want to creep him out... I don't want to become one of those scary people who make their exes feel like they have voodoo dolls of them in their house or are concocting a love potion to bring them back together against their will. However, I don't think any of the things I mentioned above fall under that category.
Basically, maybe I should stop worrying about whether I'm still hoping for things to work out, and just make sure I'm not interfering with Patrick's future.
MOUSE - Your daemon may be a mouse. You keep your
self hidden away, not because you are ashamed
of it, but because you are afraid the world may
not understand it, and may hurt it. Isn't it
strange how people can be so cruel to such a
small and helpless creature? You want to keep
that very inner part of your psyche private and
close to you, perhaps in your shirt pocket,
next to your heart.
What Is Your Daemon?
brought to you by Quizilla
First is the relationship between my religious beliefs and my ethics. As many of you know, I am currently searching for religion. When I was a child, my mom never really spoke to me about religion while my dad frequently spoke to me about his atheism (not so directly when I wask young, but he never hid his beliefs or sugarcoated them for me). Thus, for much of elementary school I considered myself to be an atheist. I also had a great fear of death, which my dad says was the case when I was as young as three. I couldn't stand the thought that once life was over, as long as it lasted, and as much time as I had left, once it was over I would never again be conscious. (God, I feel a panic episode coming on even as I write this. *fights said episode off*) Eventually I became a Catholic along with my mom (who was raised Lutheran), and she would go with me to church every weekend. I believe I was in 4th or 5th grade at the time. At the same time every other weekend I went with my dad, step-mom, and ___-sister (don't ask) to the Quaker meeting house. As any typical elementary schooler would, I found those 15 minutes I spent in Meeting extremely boring, and couldn't wait to be let out to go to First Day School. However, as I got older I came to enjoy that period of silence, even if I would often choose not to go (usually because I wanted to sleep in or work on homework) or hang out with
tiernsshadow instead.Eventually my mom stopped coming with me to church, and I continued going on my own. Then I slowly stopped going. At some point I felt I had stopped believing in God, and I think to some extent I never really did. I think because I was afraid of death as eternal oblivion, I wanted to convince myself that there was an afterlife. To be honest, I was also afraid of the eternal life that heaven promised... Eternity and inifinity in any form scare me, which is part of why I've never taken any astronomy classes... (Personally, if had the choice I'd chose reincarnation - you're neither dead forever nor alive forever. Of course, then there's that pesky end of the universe thing...) However, I calmed myself down by telling myself that heaven was perfect, and thus I would certainly no longer have qualms about it when I got there. In any case, without wanting to sound cliche, I was going through the motions. Just as an actor begins to feel that they are their character, by praying the prayers and attending the religious education classes, I felt that I believed, but when I stopped going through those motions the feelings of belief evaporated.
And now I still want to believe in a God, and in an afterlife. But there are so many religions out there, and so many that say that if I don't pick theirs when I die I'd prefer that oblivion. (Sometimes I doubt this, thinking I'd rather be aware of my agony than never wake up again.) But in my search, reading all sorts of religious texts and learning about all the different religions, the most important thing to me is to not join any religion again unless I actually believe it. I refuse to go through the motions, at least on a regular basis. I try to go to different churches so as to not get too used to any one.
Which brings me to what I really wanted to talk about. As I said, in essence I don't believe in God. This is separate from the belief that I believe there isn't a God, however. I just don't currently have the feeling that God exists. However, many of my feelings about what is right and wrong - my morals, if you will - are based on a sort of flip-switch system. It's like I have two (or more) boxes stored away with scraps of paper in them, each scrap with a different stance on a specific issues written on them. And if I were to decide that I believe in a certain relilgion, I would then immediately flip the switch and call a different one of my moral "boxes" into effect.
For example, my beliefs on homosexuality. As an agnostic/atheist, I believe that it's totally okay. I love the idea of gay marriage, and I fell in love with a woman I would have no qualms about marrying her. However, as a Christian, I would believe that homesexual acts are wrong, and either that no-one is truly homosexual or that homosexuals are asked by God to remain celibate or to enter heterosexual marriages of convenience. Some other beliefs I have that are subject to this switch flipping regard chasity before marriage, the wearing of hijabs, a wife's duty to obey her husband, and such. [EDIT: I tend to align these two belief systems by essenitally taking a libertarian standpoint; if someones religion says that homexual acts or disobeying their husband is wrong, then let them obey God on their own, but don't make laws about it.] Sometimes the only difference between the two switch settings is the specific reasons I hold those beliefs, but I think that's still an important difference.
I also have an odd practice of apologetics which comes down to "if X is not true, then Y doesn't make sense, but if X is true, then there are ways to explain Y; therefore, even though I believe X isn't true, since I don't know X isn't true, I believe Y is a valid belief". For example, I firmly believe in evolution and that the universe is approximately 14 billion years old and the earth approximately 4.6 billion years old. Or, at the very least, I believe in evolution and that the earth must then be significantly older than 5000 years. But... Those who believe that the earth is only 5000 years old and that we were created by God in the earth's first week, and that Satan is the one trying to convince us that the earth is 4.6 billion years old in order to try to make us lose our faith in God... Well, if you believe that, than who am I to argue? Religion explains itself.
The other thing that was on my mind was my responsibilites to Patrick. What exactly is and isn't respecting his decision? Is deciding not to go out with anyone at least until he comes back not respecting his decision? (Actually, I have my own reasons for that, so that one doesn't really matter.) What about putting up a ticker counting down the days until he comes back in my userinfo? Working during this semester to try become someone he'd be more happy with? Listening to the Reagan CDs he made me so I can hear his voice? E-mailing him multiple times a week? At the same time hoping keeping in regular contact will make him change his mind? (And by change his mind, I don't mean to something he doesn't actually want; I mean that if we actually would work out, to help him realize that.)
Then I thought... Perhaps none of that actually matters. Perhaps respecting his decision only means not directly asking him to come back to me, and not interfering if he finds someone else. Of course, I also don't want to creep him out... I don't want to become one of those scary people who make their exes feel like they have voodoo dolls of them in their house or are concocting a love potion to bring them back together against their will. However, I don't think any of the things I mentioned above fall under that category.
Basically, maybe I should stop worrying about whether I'm still hoping for things to work out, and just make sure I'm not interfering with Patrick's future.
MOUSE - Your daemon may be a mouse. You keep your
self hidden away, not because you are ashamed
of it, but because you are afraid the world may
not understand it, and may hurt it. Isn't it
strange how people can be so cruel to such a
small and helpless creature? You want to keep
that very inner part of your psyche private and
close to you, perhaps in your shirt pocket,
next to your heart.
What Is Your Daemon?
brought to you by Quizilla
