I don't believe in God. I've thought about it a lot. I was never religious, never had any kind of 'indoctrination', but I still grew up believing there was Something. It was easy to logically discard a lot of the God stuff, but I held on to the wishy-washy stuff. It took a lot of thinking and interrogating myself to work out the ‘logic’ of what I thought.
✪ OBVIOUSLY it doesn't make sense that a God would answer your prayer to get a good parking spot downtown, but maybe he answered your prayer about getting that job you really want? Right?!! But why wouldn't he answer the prayers from parents of sick children?
✪ OK. So maybe MAYBE there is a God, but He doesn't answer any prayers, right? Like, he set everything up and kind of controls everything, tweaking things here and there, but isn't too keen on taking suggestions from us. Right? That would work, right??
✪ So... maybe there's a God who started the universe - which evolved cos Creationism is OBVIOUS nonsense - but after THAT he didn't really do anything. Like, he wrote the rules, set it all up to play out and just let it all happen. But... why would we need to believe in Him?
✪ OK. Maybe maybe God is just a kind of 'Good' thing?? Like... a kind of positive... force... or... something... I... hmmmmm...
And that's when you realise that you've just believed something was real because it's so pervasive or it just kind of 'makes sense' in the world you live in. I mean, if everyone you know and care about thinks something, it must be right... Right?? Consequently, questioning these things can be very difficult, especially if everyone in your life is 'a believer'. It becomes harder to fit in and harder to just ignore the fact that seemingly everyone around you believes in this strange bit of 'magic'...
Once you start saying you don't believe in God, you initially get silence and a lot of funny looks on people's faces. Some True Believers, despite knowing you for your whole life, suddenly think you are Evil and want nothing to do with you. Maybe they start praying for you. OK. Whatever floats your boat…
A few people might ask you questions - they too have found it less and less easy to believe - and it doesn't take much for you to explain your thinking and they agree. The both of you are relieved that there is someone else who understands.
But then some people will say 'I don't really believe, but I think you should Be Quiet and not upset the believers!' When you ask why they think you should stay silent, but the believers should be able to say what they want, you are met with silence or anger. Sometimes they only feel others should Be Quiet about certain beliefs, but not others (eg it’s OK to upset Christians and Jewish people, but not Muslims). They care most about not rocking the boat, not upsetting people and they desperatedly Need To Be Liked.
Some people are Believers - maybe they aren't Creationists, maybe they don't think prayer works, but they are desperate to cling onto the idea that there is Something. Often it’s Something Non-Specific. If you ask them questions that challenge their belief, they get angry. Perhaps this is because they know that if they no longer believe, they will lose their friends or family members who are True Believers. These people Need to Believe.
The ones who Need To Be Liked and the ones who Need to Believe are the trickiest ones to deal with. They know you aren't Evil (maybe 'evil-adjacent'?), but they find it impossible to accept you have your own position. They get Very Angry About This.
But also there are Believers who are totally comfortable with you being a Non-Believer. They don't feel threatened at all by your Lack of Belief. They answer your questions w/out anger and will say things like 'believing provides me comfort' and, frankly, how can you argue with that? Whatever gets you through the night n all that, right?
Your life becomes split between people who are Really Angry with you and a few people who are totally happy for you to live your own life and have your own thoughts and are just generally a decent person. Both groups are made up of Believers and Non-Believers.
The Angry People’s anger doesn't really come from what they believe (or don't) and it's not entirely a clash based in opinion, 'truth' or facts. They have tied their beliefs so tightly around their idea of who they feel they are as a person, that any kind of challenge to that risks their whole sense of being. It comes from their own fragile sense of self and their personal insecurities. And it's not your job to manage their mind or their insecurities. (They REALLY don't like that.)
So... you end up in a circle of Non-Believers and Believers who are just totally comfortable with other people living their own lives and having their own thoughts and don't feel threatened if people don't think the same thing they do. And this circle keeps getting bigger and bigger as more and more people realise that the Angry People - Believers and non-Believers alike - are basically just jerks.
I then took this whole process of interrogating my thoughts about religion into other areas of ‘belief’. Sometimes I changed my mind (most often when they were beliefs about things that were scientifically verifiable or not- eg nuclear power), often I didn’t (social beliefs, mainly). But even when I didn’t change my mind, I was left with a deeper, more robust understanding of WHY I believed what I believed. This means that if someone asks me why I think the way I do about something, I actually have an answer. I haven’t just taken on the beliefs of my community without thought. This also means that I piss off both rightwing AND leftwing people because I’m not hollowly tribal. Am I right? About certain things, absolutely. About other things? I don’t know. If the facts change, I’ll change my mind. That’s the best I can do.
This means that in 2023, my circle now includes people who are deeply religious, people who believe in astrology, people who believe in ghosts, people who believe in angels, people who consider themselves to be transgender or non-binary, people who vote Tory… and that’s OK with me… and they don’t care that I don’t believe in God, don’t believe in the supernatural, don’t believe in gender, don’t believe in rightwing policies….
I’m a materialist, rationalist, socially liberal feminist who just believes in me…
I do believe in Beatles though… so there’s that…
Thanks for this
On my Granddaughters 22 Birthday I lit a candle for her in a Church of England Church in Wales .
She was in Florence she had just given me a face time tour of Michelangelo,s David well mostly his Willy.
I always ask permission to photograph the candle I light .
So there we were a Buddhist lighting a candle to celebrate a Goth who was bringing her Nan Holy water from Rome we all laughed in that moment there was just love.
The light that celebrates
People so different
United in shared love
Be it a God
A baby Yoda Shannon’s favourite thing
Blessing Water
Well carved Willys
I believe in them all
I believe in love.
When you find yourself in the presence of anyone who insults you well the words the feelings
belong to them the are nothing more than sound we add meaning .
Thanks for sharing your words.