And then there’s the question of faith in God. Unless you were raised by wolves, you’ve probably wrestled with this issue at some point in your life. Who knows – maybe even wolves struggle with it. I have had a life-long wrestling match with Faith. Sometimes it pins me and I submit, and sometimes I manage to throw it off and stand in my own corner for a while. Other times I tackle it completely.
Right now in my life, Faith and I are in opposite corners of the wrestling ring, eyeing each other. While in this stalemate, Reason has crept into my corner, and he is taunting Faith mercilessly. I was raised Roman Catholic, so Reason has a lot of ammunition for taunting.
Reason: “I mean REALLY Faith. Talking snakes? Burning bushes? A piece of bread that turns into a guy’s bloody body every week? Confession? Saints? A list of arbitrary rules we’re supposed to believe was written by God?”
The list of taunts is endless.
The sad part is, Faith really has no defense. He just stands there with his sad puppy eyes, silently imploring me to leap in his direction. But I haven’t been in a leaping mood lately.
And that’s the point, really. Faith really is a leap. You either choose to believe something, or you don’t. And if you stop to reason it out, you can stay in that stalemate forever. But after a lifetime of struggling, questioning, and changing religions, I have come to the conclusion that I don’t believe in any of it. I haven’t considered myself a Christian for a long time. To me, Christ, if he existed, was a fabulous prophet that was very spiritually gifted, and helped a lot of people. He was a radical free-thinker who came to change the minds and hearts of men. But I believe he was a man, and only a man. And while his mother probably was a good person, I doubt very strongly that God made her pregnant. I could go on, but you get the picture.
So I’m not Christian, but I’ve known that for a long time. The part that makes me sad is that recently, I find myself unable to believe in God. I just can’t. As I said, Faith and I are in a stalemate, and reason has the upper hand. I want to believe, and I still pray out of habit, but Faith and I just can’t see eye to eye lately. This puts me in a lonely place. I wouldn’t say I’m an atheist. Just agnostic. For now. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
After all, this wrestling match has been going on a long time, and there’s always the next round.
I’ll keep you posted on the scores.
That's what I like about you, Maggie - no lightweight banter for you - straight for the jugular.
ReplyDeleteWhat keeps bringing me back to faith is life. Life in the sense of that weird thing that swims upstream against the entropy of the universe. Things naturally fall apart, but sometimes I'll notice a tomato sprout pushing through the soil toward the sun and I'm knocked into a state of wonder at the miracle of it all. Whatever it is that's pushing that seedling toward the sun - that's God to me. Most everything else is window dressing.
Faith for me feels like blundering in the dark toward some unknown heat source. I don't know what it is, but it feels good so I keep going in that direction.
I agree Miles (and beautifully put, by the way). While I lack faith in anything organized and already explained by others, the universe still continues to amaze me and fill me with fear and gratitude. I know there's an order to it all, and I have theories about my place in it -- I'm just not sure any of them are true, and I'm not going to try to make sense of it. I won't know the answer until I die, and for the moment, that's OK with me. I'm just glad to be here, and I believe there's a reason for it all in the end.
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