(Disclaimer: Use this template -- "tl;dr" -- when quoting the following post)
I grew up in a christian home, in christian school through 7th grade, the whole nine. After high school, somewhere along the last 5 or 6 years I decided that a break would be good for me in order to establish a perspective on my own. No small task as I've found out, especially after such long 'indoctrination'. I don't mean that in a critical sense. I was simply young, and truly had no idea what I was praying for and all. I do feel that that is the wrong way to teach a child. I see nothing wrong with people believing anything that makes sense to them. What one person is absolutely convicted on cannot be the same for all, and will never be. That's fine by me. Faith in anything should be self-appreciated, I don't think it can be taught. I understand not all religious families raise their kids the same way I was, that's good. I believe it's better for humans to have their own discoveries, whether towards god or whatever it may turn out to be.
I've had many life experiences that have made me lean both directions at different times, and what I
do know now is that I know
absolutely nothing. In only a half dozen years I've been through a relatively strong christian belief system, to complete atheism, to where I'm at now which is neither or in between.
I currently cling to a belief that there is a 'power' of sorts that underlies everything, although not a deity-type/overseer force. I describe it as a scientific power. Be it waves, frequencies, deep field, anything, whatever. I have been very interested (although still pretty ignorant) in the quantum sciences for a long time and a lot of the principles make sense to me on a deeper level that I cannot understand, or explain very well in words. A lot of this has come through to me in, I admit, my frequent dives into psychedelics in college. These substances are not completely where I base myself, but I simply use it as another tool to open up my mind to places where I would not normally look for answers.
I no longer believe in creationism in the biblical sense, but cannot prove to myself otherwise. I am ok with that at this stage. Evolutionary theory makes a little more sense to my world view, and that is what matters to me. I do believe in advancement of consciousness after this life, through some currently intangible manifestation of the law of conservation of matter. I believe consciousness is wide-spread, a web, a network. After bodily death, (whatever 'it' is) is released back into the ebb and flow so to speak. I like to entertain the idea that we've all theoretically 'drank the piss' of civilizations long gone, and I admit I think we're all space dust anyhow. In this sense, I am just as likely to in one way become part of a million different future-things through decomposition, such as a toilet/tree/wolf/air/or fire hydrant. Some options are less romantic than others.
Back on the Biblical front, and to 'their' credit, I believe it is
man's misinterpretation (and possible distortion) of the text that has led to its followers intricate practices of heavily ritualistic teachings. If god does exist, I hardly believe it matters what you wear to church on sunday, or what direction your prayer mat faces. If god exists, I think many many people have truly lost touch long ago with what the true foundations of the teachings were. That happens.
As a long closing note, I would like to switch gears and submit my latest wonderment for discussion. It started in college--I was an astronomy minor, and found an enormous amount of information supposing the whole construct of religion and god-worship was founded on observation of the night skies and the interpretation thereof. This would have begun in 'society' long before the earliest historical civilizations we know of, as humans (according to science) have been around for millions of years. I have been over 300 miles from the nearest man-made light, and I can attest to how absolutely brilliant the true/unopposed night sky is. I can only therefore imagine that long before cities and manufactured light, the sky was an extremely large part of early human's existence. Many people living in Los Angeles today, for example, have never even seen a satellite not to mention the explosive lights in the Milky Way and beyond. When I have seen the night sky, as they must have 10 million years ago, there is no other way to describe it other than one of the most captivating and soul-searching experiences one could have. It is easy to imagine early peoples attempting to make sense of what they were seeing, with stories and personifications of the 12 of the more obvious constellations (zodiac) among others. Depending on their level of competence and observation they would have been able to forecast celestial events far into the past and future, and would've wanted a way to easily pass down this information by word of mouth (ie--the early bible?). It sounds strange, and my lack of communication skills over the internet cannot fully express my points. Therefore I leave you with a video I recently, and rather coincidentally, came across that better details what I'm getting at. If you choose to watch it from the
beginning, I'll warn you it may be slightly condescending or sensationalist for some people. In that case I either will remind you to not take it so seriously, or to simply skip ahead to
here to get to the meat and potatoes.
Thanks for reading.
