This is fun. I’m kind of tired of writing essentially the same angst-ridden religion blog posts anyway. I kind of wonder if it’s not time to either 1. expand the scope of this blog to start talking about other things, or 2. start a new general-purpose blog. I have one over at Blogspot, but I don’t like Blogspot, and I haven’t kept up with it in a really long time and don’t really feel like starting it up again. It’s mostly politics anyway, and I’m just not the angry fiery liberal I used to be. Anyway, here’s today’s ten:
“Cry of the Black Birds” - Amon Amarth
“Ancestor Cult” - Machines of Loving Grace
“Caleb” - Sonata Arctica
“Learning to Live” - Dream Theater
“Kullervo’s Youth” - Jean Sibelius
“Any Colour You Like” - Pink Floyd
“Little Lies” - Fleetwood Mac
“Amazing” - Aerosmith
“House of Sleep” - Amorphis
“Move Over Darling” - Doris Day
This seems more representative of what I’m listening to right now, except for the random Aerosmith song, not a particular favorite of mine.
My friend Bryant has been posting iPod Ten posts: you put your iPod on shuffle and post the first ten songs that come up.
“Beyond The Dark Sun” - Wintersun
“Papa Loves Mambo” - Perry Como
“Asteroid Belts” - The Lord Weird Slough Feg
“No Pain For The Dead” - Angra
“The Sacrifice” - Symphony X
“Farewell” - Kamelot
“A Swinging Safari” - Bert Kaempfert
“Anthem” - Kamelot
“The Human Stain” - Kamelot
“The Lady Is A Tramp” - Vic Damone
None of these are really favorite songs of mine, but the bands/singers certainly are favorites. Lots of Kamelot there, but I ahve like four full Kamelot albums on my iPod right now, so that’s not really a surprise.
When the calls and conversations
Accidents and accusations
Messages and misperceptions
Paralyze my mind
Busses, cars, and airplanes leaving
Burning fumes of gasoline
And everyone is running
And I come to find a refuge in the
Easy silence that you make for me
It’s okay when there’s nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay
Monkeys on the barricades
Are warning us to back away
They form commissions trying to find
The next one they can crucify
And anger plays on every station
Answers only make more questions
I need something to believe in
Breathe in sanctuary in the
Easy silence that you make for me
It’s okay when there’s nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay
Children lose their youth too soon
Watching war made us immune
And I’ve got all the world to lose
But I just want to hold on to the
Easy silence that you make for me
It’s okay when there’s nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The easy silence that you make for me
It’s okay when there’s nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay
I know I’ve been over this time and again, but it’s been on my mind for weeks, so I’m going to blog about it. I’m just not sure what to do, say, or believe about religion.
I like Christianity. I find it moving, relevant, hopeful, important. I like the Bible, I like Jesus, I like the richness of Christian theology, I attend an Episcopal church and I like the liturgy. But I just don’t know if I believe in Christianity. I don’t know how to. I know if I totally immersed myself in Christianity- literature, music, thought, etc., that all my doubts would fade, but that’s exactly what I did with Mormonism. It’s not because the thing I’m busying myself with is actually true, but because I’m so busy with it that I get wrapped up in it and stop questioning it. I’m unwilling to do that again because I believe it is a kind of self-brainwashing, and because I know it doesn’t necessarily last.
I like Mere Christianity, but I have major problems with almost every Christian denomination in practice (and in theology). And even when I find an unobjectionable denomination (i.e. Anglicanism), I still am left unsure if I really believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that his life and what he allegedly did are significant to me as anything other than a historical curiosity. I don’t want to be an atheist, but I’m afraid that leaving Mormonism has left me unable to deal with religion. Even if I was sure I wanted to be Christian, I wouldn’t be sure of where to start.
Can’t close my eyes
They’re wide awake
Ev’ry hair on my body
has got a thing for this place
Oh empty my heart
I’ve got to make room for this feeling
so much bigger than me
It couldn’t be any more beautiful - I can’t take it in.
Weightless in love…unraveling
For all that’s to come
and all that’s ever been
We’re back to the board
with every shade under the sun
Let’s make it a good one
It couldn’t be any more beautiful - I can’t take it in.
I talked about this before in another post, but I didn’t feel like I articulated what I was thinking as well as I would have liked, so I want to try it again. Also, it’s still on my mind so I still want to talk about it.
I feel like I’m on the verge of believing, but I’m holding myself back because I am extremely conflicted. I know I’ve been over probably a dozen problems that were “the thing” that kept me from believing, but this is the one that’s bothering me right now.
I’d like to believe, and I’d even like to be a Christian, but I’m uncomfortable with having to see the whole world and all of existence through the lens of Christianity. Its what I was talking about before when I said I was reluctant to take on a worldview, but I don’t think that expressed what I meant to express very well. I don’t want to have to interpret everything I experience and think about in terms of its relationship to Jesus Christ. I just don’t know if I’m cut out for that, and I don’t see how I can be a Christian without putting on Christianity-colored glasses.
I don’t always want to see everything in that color, that’s all. And I fear that if I’m always looking at things through a Christian lens, that my life will be poorer for it. That life and existence will be less nuanced and less
Like I said before, I’ll be getting my head into a Christianity groove, and then I’ll hear some cosmic, mysterious Moody Blues song or something and Christianity will suddenly seem so small, provincial, limited, and limiting. I feel like there’s so much mystery out there and I’m not sure that Christianity is a perfect fit. Since it’s nit a perfect fit, you wind up having to cram the universe into the Christianity shoebox, where either the universe or the box gets broken and warped in the process.
I don’t know how to articulate it better than that, so that will have to do. I’m thinking about disabling comments on this post, though, because I’m afraid that what I’m trying to explain will once again be minimized, misunderstood, and dismissed.
We watched this at church on Sunday, as kind of the prelude to the sermon. The lady who was speaking asked the congregation to say what they felt about it. One person said she thought is seemed ominous. I said it certainly was uncomfortable, but “ominous” isn’t the word I would necessarily use. It made me think of being on an almost out-of-control rollercoaster. The things of God are a little bit intense, and not everyday- they should leave us unsettled. Aslan is not a tame lion.
Just when I think that I can do this, that I can believe, that I can even be a Christian, my mind does a 180º and runs sreaming in the other direction. I find that I can “be a Christian” and more importantly want to be a Christian as long as I am immersed in Christianity. When I’m reading the Bible, thinking about religion, reading theology, listening to Handel, etcetera, then I find myself okay with Christianity and believeing in Jesus. But then as soon as something outside the box happens- in this case it was hearing a song that in my opinion hits very close to the cosmic vein, whatever that is, I’m jolted out of my Christianity coccoon and I want to wad the whole thing up and throw it away.
It might also be that the reality, the true divine, the cosmic consciousness or whatever, is really so much bigger than we can even imagine, such that it makes our religions and philosophies look small and ridiculous. When I put on the blinders, I can go straight forward, but when the blinders slip, and I realize the incomprehensible hugeness of the universe and existence, then I can’t do it. I can’t be a Christian. Christianity is much too small. It makes me claustrophobic.
I envy the people who feel like they have a real relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe it’s that personal relationship that allows them to be Christian and not feel so trapped, since their Christianity is not about religion so much as it is about spirituality. By that I mean that the rest of the peripherals don’t even matter since they’ve got a relationship withthe Great Jesus. The emphasis is totally inverted, and it’s outward-facing instead of inward-facing (I can’t explain what I man by that, but I know it sounds like something other than what I meant). There’s no claustrophobia because it’s not about a system or a worldview or anything. It’s about a relationship with a person, and they can go on adventures throughtout life and the universe together.
But I can;t seem to manage that, so I reach and grab at religion and I get a few straws but it’s not the right thing, not the real thing, and as soon as I realize it, I want to throw them away.
Like most people, I think, I don’t like to be pigeonholed. I don’t like people to assume things about me based on single facts, observations, or labels.
Yeah, I left the Mormon church. I didn’t “get offended,” I didn’t commit adultery, and I was absolutely committed to the Church in a lifelong sense before I left (i.e. I wasn’t a fair-weather Mormon). Many of my problems with Mormonism aren’t the same as other peoples’ problems with it. I’m not a bitter, angry anti-Mormon, though sometimes I am bitter and angryabout some things, sure. I’m not an ex-Mormon caricature.
No, I don’t believe in God right now. That doesn’t mean I think Richard Dawkins is a prophet. It doesn’t mean I’m angry or I hate God or anything. It also doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. I don’t really want to stay an atheist. I never did. If I can find a way to believe in God and still feel like I’m being intellectually and emotionally honest with myself, I will probably return to theism. If not, I will probably stick with atheism. Whatever your official definition of “atheism” is, and whether or not you think I should really be classed as an agnostic, is completely irrelevant to me. I don’t affirmatively believe in God because I do not recognize any affirmaitve evidence for God (even subjective evidence). I’m not an atheist caricature, and I’m also not a very good poster child for the journey into atheism, because I don’t necessarily plan on sticking around anyway.
And when I was a Mormon, I wasn’t a stereotypical Mormon. I believed that homosexual marriage should be legal. I had my own spin and my own interpretation for many doctrines. I strongly disliked some of the General Authorities (Gene R. Cook, I’m lookin’ at you). My gut always leaned in a little more of a pluralist direction than the party line espoused. I was never interested in the Work and the Glory, and I thought a lot of Mormon art, music, and film was really, really lame.
If I become a Christian, I won’t be a stereotypical Christian. I won’t be a fundamentalist caricature. I won’t blithely abandon rational thought. I won’t start lobbying for the Ten Commandments to be put up in courtrooms. I’ll never claim that I can logically prove Christianity. I won’t start reading Left Behind books. I probably won’t vote Republican. I certainly will never believe in Hell.
The thing is, I shouldn’t have to feel like I have to qualify myself like that. I wish I could just say “I don’t believe in God” and then enter into a real dialogue where people actually listen to what I am saying instead of assuming they know where i’m coming from already. Especially since I’d just as soon believe in God. I’d prefer to be religious, actually. But when I tell people I don’t believe in God, they either 1) assume that I’m a Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris clone and begin to argue with me or write me off accordingly, 2) try to convince me that I should label myself differently than I do because they don’t agree with my definitions, or 3) congratulate me heartily on growing up and leaving silly religion behind. None of those approaches comes close ot the mark, and all of them subtly influence how I perceive myself. So like I said, I’m mildly irked.
