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You down with G-O-D? (No, Really; Are You?)
June 17, 2008 Posted in Reality
When I tell people that I was raised with no religion, it’s usually met with a certain amount of skepticism. I never realized what an anomaly it was until I moved away for college, and childhood stories, stories from home, were a matter of course in the ‘getting to know you’ conversations, and bitching about abandoned family religion was a hot topic.
“Never? You’ve really never been to church? What about Christmas? Easter? Seriously?”
Nope, never means never. At the age of 18, I had never sat in a pew and attended a church service. We weren’t high Holy Day Jews, or Easter-only Catholics, or even Unitarians in it for the social aspect (as my Dad was raised, until he was given the option to stop going around age 12). American demographics being what they are, my exposure to religion was haphazard, but fairly broad. I had friends of many religions, though I was too young to really understand what that meant, beyond a weekly time commitment. More importantly, I knew no one for whom it was a problem that I didn’t believe, just as I didn’t care if they did.
Even with this lack of Christianity, Christmas was (and is) a big deal in my home. A tree with an angel and packages and cookies and friends and family, the whole nine yards, the family tradition. Looking back, it’s odd that we had tiny creche figures that we got to remove one at a time from our daily advent calendar, complete with baby Jesus, but it was part of the package. We believed in the story, but that was as far as it went. I knew that Jesus was a good guy, a leader of men, but…he can’t be the son of God if you don’t believe in God. So, when I moved from the liberal stronghold of Seattle to another, New York, there were certain genres of America that remained largely theoretical for me. When George W. Bush was elected President, I was genuinely baffled. Literally no one I knew had voted for him, yet he still won. Conservatives were out there…but where, exactly?
Finally, when I was 20, I found them. My long-time college boyfriend came from a Southern Baptist family in Tennessee. I didn’t know this until we’d been dating for a while; he didn’t go to church, and his religious upbringing was mentioned only in passing. So, imagine my surprise when I went to visit him over New Years, and the first thing I saw was an absolutely enormous tapestry on the wall, embroidered with a psalm. Beneath it, a bookcase overflowed with the following titles:
The Case for Christ
Falling in Love With Jesus
The Bible
Share Jesus Without Fear
The Bible, again
Champions for God by Jerry Falwell.
Uh oh.
It really should have come as no surprise when, on my last night in town, his father snuck this into an previously innocuous conversation: “So, Gemma, [boyfriend] tells us that you don’t believe in God.”
F***ck.
And the interview began. Sitting on the floor, pinching the ever-loving hell out of my boyfriends thigh under the coffee table, I hoped for some intercession, but none came. The questions about my beliefs, or lack thereof, kept coming, and awkward though I was, I tried to answer honestly. I felt like I was holding my own until we got to “Why do you think people are good to other people?”…and I stopped. This had to be a trick question, right? I sorted through the language, looking for the real target, but in the end I settled on something unspeakably halting like, “Well…I guess people have figured out that if they are kind to others, others will likely be kind them, and it creates the most happiness for the most people.”
“Oh, and God has nothing to do with it? Well, clearly I believe something different.”
And with that, the conversation was ended. At first I was just f*cking confused, but when that wore off, I was livid. Absolutely raging. I had gone to church with his family. I had bowed my head while grace was said before every meal. I hadn’t sworn once. I had respected his household and his beliefs, and here he was, implying that there was something wrong with me, that I was a lesser human being, incapable of true kindness, because I didn’t believe as he did.
Excuuuuuse me? I am kind to my friends and family. I volunteer at animal shelters, and I give pregnant women my seat on the subway. I send thank you notes, remember birthdays, and I call my grandmother. I’m not Mother Teresa, but I am a pretty good person. My beliefs are informed. They are my own, and they are a matter of personal pride.There is no void in my life, but to this man, that didn’t matter. I had been judged, and been found lacking.
After the interrogation, my boyfriend and I fought about it constantly. I couldn’t understand how someone so logical could be a part of something so rigid, and he couldn’t understand how I just…couldn’t understand it. I tried, I did. We give up believing in Santa before we leave elementary school. How could I learn belief in an unknowable God as an adult?
So, how has this affected my adult life? I still exist in a fairly liberal bubble. My community is made up of artists – writers and musicians – and there is little variety in the Bush-hating members of (as my Mom calls it) The Church of the Brunch. But, I make an effort to keep myself out of the closed-minded Liberal category – those who fancy themselves free-thinking and left-wing, yet automatically write off anyone even slightly to the right of center as ignorant.
That being said, I have learned that I am not going to change. I admit that when perusing online dating profiles, the ‘religion’ question is important to me. I think faith itself may be the important element, and the form it takes less so. However, if you’ve got it and I don’t, that’s all well and good, but it is one of the few differences in my life I have found to be truly irreconcilable.
[photo courtesy of www.sweden.se]
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Christine says:
Tue, 17th Jun 20084:26 pm
Ah, religion. I too was never brought up very religiously. I had been to sermons a couple of times when it was demanded by some of my family. And when I would listen to it all I would question all of it silently.
My current boyfriend’s family is Irish and thus are pretty Catholic. I’m not sure if he’s told them I’m an Atheist but I’m kind of dreading the conversation. A bisexual Atheist? Blasphemy!
So I understand your situation. I’ve been questioned many times though I have yet to get into a serious debate about G-d. I’ve read many online though which are very interesting.
Laura says:
Tue, 17th Jun 20087:54 pm
I was raised to be religious, my mother was part the teacher person in charge of bible school for little children, myself included. I was fascinated by the stories of the bible, but as I grew older, that’s all they really were. Stories. I could never believe that any of it was true. I am now agnostic. I’m still not completely sure what’s going on in the cosmic atmosphere, but I don’t believe that the god so many people have created in their minds is the right one.
It was a matter of some contention in my family, as I was an acolyte at church since 3rd grade (carrying lights and crosses down the aisle during services) When I no longer believed, I resented my parents making me continue to acolyte.
We used to go to church a lot when I was young, now we go for Christmas and sometimes Easter. None of the rest of my siblings are very religious, and honestly, neither are my parents. They believe, but we’re no bible thumpers and they are very open minded to many ideas that most christians abhor.
I held off telling my friends for years, in fact, I’m pretty sure some of them still don’t know. There are a few of my friends that are very christian, and I respect that, I have no problem with people having something in their life that gives them comfort or hope. I’m not sure they would feel the same way. I sympathize with your predicament- I really could never date someone so close-mindedly religious.
Carly - Grinnell says:
Tue, 17th Jun 20089:19 pm
This is a great issue for discussion. I’m Christian, and I am torn about describing myself that way. On one hand, I am very religious and I believe deeply in God. On the other hand, I dislike associating myself with the word “Christian” because I am so, so not into so many of the things that liberal society thinks of as Christian, particularly evangelism. A great number of Christians seem to think that the world would be a far better place if everyone in it became a Christian. I think the world is wonderful as it is, and I would never want all of my friends, let alone all the world’s people, to be Christian. How would I and others continue to learn so much from other religions and cultures if everyone was Christian?
My boyfriend is Hindu, and he and I have never run into any disagreements about religion–nor have our families. Thankfully, we all seem to preach respect and tolerance before we preach religion.
Allison says:
Wed, 18th Jun 200812:21 am
It seems like you had a bad experience with a very religious community, but please, don’t write off all religion for it. I grew up in a Lutheran church- acolyted, volunteered, went to 4 years of communion classes, in high school I even gave a sermon, all the time feeling like a fraud because there was so much that I questioned.
In the end I went to college and after declaring a minor in religion, I became a buddhist. I still have questions, and I find today many people write off religion as an outdated system by which to define moral and ethical values. I don’t think that’s it at all. I think most religion is based fundamentally on the desire to have a connection with the greater world.
That being said, there are many adherents to religion that do not see it that way, and continue to follow unquestioned tradition. It seems these are the people you came across, and that in your day-to-day life you are not exposed to the religious structure that defined so many.
I don’t know if you are better off than those raised in the church or not. You were certainly not subject to any of the confusing stories we were told were true, and you learned your morals and ethics and became a socially healthy person without religious guidance- which I do think is possible. Probably more possible for you than for many religiously oriented children.
I really don’t know what my point is here, except to say that religion, at least for me, is a viable thing, something that, through its origins, has taught me more about the world than anything else I have ever known. I accept that you do not want to change, but I think at least it would do some good to try and understand the religious lifestyle, if only so that you can relate to people outside your niche. Because while you do not practice it, religion is certainly still operating in the world.
Steph says:
Thu, 19th Jun 20088:53 am
I’m pagan. My boyfriend, being hispanic, is Catholic. But he doesn’t believe in much of Catholic doctrine and when we get in to religious debates he ends it because he doesn’t like “thinking about it”.
Brawrg.
Christy says:
Sun, 22nd Jun 20088:05 pm
tolerance. thats something this country needs more of. how can we be called a melting pot of cultures and not keep an open mind to accommodate different cultures and beliefs? I’m a Christian as well, but at the same time i think its interesting to learn about other religions and beliefs. I agree with Carly, without diversity how else would we learn from each other.
sertrbl says:
Sat, 18th Oct 20088:21 pm
"How would I and others continue to learn so much from other religions and cultures if everyone was Christian? "
not to pick at you, but it would be great if there were no more Nazi's… but it wouldn't in any way prevent us from learning about them.
in other words, as a biblical Christian i believe others wont be saved eternally if they arent Christian… yet we can still learn about other religions much in the way that we learn about ancient cultures now.