Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Thoughts, Hope, and Much Love to You

The music I chose for Linda's memorial video reflects what she loved and the faith she believed in.   It is the music that she sang with friends and family, and then her boys picked it up which eventually led to the creation of their own Southern Gospel group, "Music City."  Even though I don't share in the belief anymore, I value the tradition and how Linda's beliefs influenced everything she did and who she was. My desire was to show her  heart in the way that I think she would have wanted it remembered. My leaning towards non-theism is not an emotional decision, not one based off of any injustice one may perceive in my life.  It is purely a causative reaction to an insatiable curiosity.  When I was a Christian -- I was a Christian -- period.   I read myself out of my faith.  When reading the Bible, I found parts of it tremendously morally offensive that could not have been written by a god of love, thus I wanted to know where the Bible came from if it was not from a loving god.  I needed to know how it was compiled, and by whom. And, thus with all of this unearthing over the past 15 years, I came to the conclusion that it's not something I want to be a part of--and, that that is okay.   "Be curious, not judgmental." (Walt Whitman)

Life is not fair.  We are born into cultures, religious systems, families not of our choosing, but of circumstance, and with that sometimes we can and do escape the negativity or poverty of our culture, social status, level of education, etc.., but often either we don't see the penury of our circumstances, or we are born into a country where it is next to impossible to pull yourself out of destitution and superstition.  

*Thoughts I wrote previously (while still in my 30's) (lol), but I feel are worth sharing in light of the recent terrorist attacks.  
I've been reluctant to talk about my beliefs for several reasons, but mostly because I have dear friends and family members I do not wish to offend who are devout in various religions ranging from Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, and Muslims.  And, within the Christian community itself, I have dear friends who are Catholics and some who are members of various popular Protestant sects and some who are members of not-so popular-groups such as the Mormons and the Seventh-Day-Adventists.  I have little desire to convert anyone to my beliefs, nor do I want to cause hurt or fear to my believing friends who might worry about our "salvation,or maybe even their own.  In addition, this was a very arduous journey out of religion for me, and one I'd recommend only if you are unsatisfied with what you find in your system of faith, holy book, and or god(s).   I share Thomas Jefferson's view in which he stated, "I never considered a difference in opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a cause for withdrawing from a friend."  With that said, I am going to share what I currently believe, with the hope you will not take it at all personally, and with the knowledge that my ideas will likely continue to morph with time as I continue to learn and discuss ideas with friends.  As Winston Churchill said, "To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often." :-)

Religions, as a rule, try to gain converts and as a result can cause painful rifts among friends and family.  I know every religion sincerely believes it has the "truth" and that the end justifies the means; however, as I approach 40, I see clearly the brevity of life and for my own benefit and my family's I need to speak openly and honestly.  Maybe my "coming out" so to speak will spark an honest discussion and more unearthing of truths.  The more I learn, the more I realize how desperately ignorant I am, and this ignorance frightens me.  What else do I not know that could possibly help me live a better life?  A healthier life?  A happier life--one with knowledge that will benefit our precious posterity?  So, I keep studying and talking and thinking and writing. I want to unearth as much knowledge as possible to share with my family before I die, so they can pass the torch on to the next generation, and to generations after that as we all keep learning and attempting to make this world a better place.  Because really, isn't that what life is all about--sharing love and knowledge that benefits our world? 

What I have observed is that in general religious communities tend toward selfishness while promoting inclusiveness and group-think.  When I would question the core doctrines of our church, or contradictions I found in the Bible, I would often receive hostility and rejection in response--not from our pastoral friends, but from lay people.  The ones who have studied the Bible in great depth, along with its history and textual criticism tend to know that it's not holy script sent from the hand of god, and therefore I have found them to be much more tolerant and reasonable. I believe most clergy do not hold their doctrines tightly.  I, personally, could not stay bound to the Bible--especially as a mother of two daughters.  The holy books are filled with sexismviolence, racism, and are overtly ignorant in science and history.  I do understand the cultural pull of Christianity and the comfort it brings to think that we won't truly die, and that there is a mansion waiting in heaven where we can live in a blissful state forever with our loved ones, but what I don't understand is why we cannot live a loving, happy life here on earth with the knowledge that it will simply end someday?  Doesn't the brevity make it all the sweeter and more precious?  It's the temporariness of things that make them exciting and pleasurable -- dessert, travel, roller-coasters, love-makingconcerts, reading a good book, movies, etc.  I think all of the longing for a better place "somewhere beyond the blue" causes extreme cruelties and unkindness's here on the only planet we know--the only life we know we have for certain.  If we keep hoping for something better we sacrifice the here and now, and may miss out on the only heaven we may ever have. 

For years I felt rejected by God when reading the Bible.  Women were missing, and if they were there, their names were often not included.  They were raped, mis-used, murdered, etc. It was horrifying.  Every morning, I'd start the girls' day with singing Christian songs and reading from the old and new testaments.   I often found myself, explaining to the girls "that our God does not feel this way toward women/girls--that it was the male author's opinions and culture of the ancient text" while at the same time teaching them that "anything is possible with God" and that "God is all powerful" which led me to wonder, if God is "all-powerful," why did he not intervene on behalf of women, and why did he not defend them in his holy book?  My heart broke.  I had been rejected by my biological father, and clung to the idea of a loving heavenly father who would never leave me, but through the reading of the Bible, I realized that half of the population was blatantly and cruelly rejected by our supposedly all-knowing, all-loving god--our "heavenly father." 
When the girls were 5 and 8, I remember reading to them out of the book of Esther for our morning devotions.  My memories of Esther were sweet and were of Esther's strength and pure devotion to God, but by the end of our reading I was raging with anger at the injustice and grotesque control of women.  In the story, Queen Vashti is deposed as queen because she refused to come and dance before the king and his drunk friends. The King's advisers encouraged the king to depose her as an example to all the women in the city so that they would not "despise their husbands" and stir up rebellion in the kingdom from Vashti's "disobedience" to her husband -- this was such a disgusting and disturbing thing to read to impressionable little girls. I told the girls that Vashti's choice was noble and brave, and that she was a wonderful role model of a strong, confident womanand that there is never a time when one should bow to anyone's demandespecially a demeaning demand such as Vashti was givenQueen Vashti gave up her title as "queen" and all her riches and freedom in honor of her self-respect.  She is an amazing example for girls to be reminded (by a beauty queen herself) that self-respect is infinitely more valuable than fame and fortune.  But, the Bible and our church (the Seventh-Day-Adventist) glorified gorgeous Esther, and how her submission to God and the king saved the Jews... 
I myself have lost much due to religion, but I did not realize how much I had lost until I removed myself from it. I mourn all of the wasted time and energy and feel terrible about indoctrinating my vulnerable children.  It was not fair to them--not fair to be taught "the truth."  I heard a great thought by a fellow free-thinker, paraphrased here: "if you want to indoctrinate your children, teach them one religion, if you want to inoculate your children--teach them all religions."
Take care of you.
xoxo~Autumn



6 comments:

  1. Autumn. Há muito tempo estamos tentando obter notícias de vocês, mas isto não tem sido possível. Por favor, conte-nos como Vocês estão. Tina e eu continuamos morando no sítio (little farm) em Santiago-RS. Abraços. Aguardamos!

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    1. Valdelir,

      E muito bom de ter noticias de voce. Eu espero tudo é muito bom com vocês. Eu e a minha família está bem também. Eu sempre lembro você e tem lembranças lindas de vocês. Um grande abraço. Autumn

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  2. I consider myself a "reluctant Christian" and when I take the test on Belief.net to see which religion I most closely align with it is not Christianity. My questioning of religion happened gradually and mostly because many devout Christians dismiss the many world religions without learning about them. I also don't understand how people can profess their faith and yet not respect that of others. And while I'm at it I don't understand how people can disobey the simplest of laws (paying taxes, speeding, cheating) and yet feel just because they go to church they are good people.

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    1. Hugs to you Barbara! I should take the test you mentioned and see where I fall on it. I had to "come out of the closet" so to speak because my life was built around my church, and now that it isn't I needed to unencumber ourselves by publicly acknowledging where we are at and why I no longer say things like "I will pray for you", etc...I needed my friends and family to know that I still care, and will be expressing my love and thoughts through different language. Thanks for your friendship!

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  3. Hi Autumn,

    You have some very good and complex thoughts, and I thought that I'd share a somewhat adequate response. I'm not a big fan of communicating in 2000 characters or less, needless to say about 144 :), but most of all I do care about these questions. Feel free to read or ignore the response linked below. Either way, I really hope that you are enjoying life apart from some difficult questions and situation you have to go through. Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours. The link to response is below:

    http://jpst.it/Dtb1

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    1. Hi Andrey,

      Thank you dearly for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response. I printed it out and read it to my entire family. I think if you re-read my post, you will see that most of what you wrote about was addressed. As you clearly realize, there is so much to learn, and we have only scratched the surface. Much peace and love to you and yours from us. Thanks again for your engaging letter and Happy Thanksgiving!

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Thank you for your kind comment. Autumn & Andrew