I know this is a shot in the dark, but wondering if anyone goes to a church, what their religion is, and...
I'll just narrate at you, and see if that helps you in any way! It'll help me to organize it, that's for sure :)
I'm not sure what my relationship with religion is. It's very blurry.
Keep in mind, that said, that I have significant difficulty with identity. I couldn't even tell you my gender. Or my mom's.
Religion is a bit identifying -- from culture, experience, brain structure (no, that does not automatically mean I think religion is "just biological/structural"), to our pasts.
My mom grew up in a Catholic household, though it was absolutely a bad environment. By the time I was born, she was an agnostic. However, she did occasionally say things about energies, ghosts, and such. Very, very occasionally. When married to my father, she was not allowed to talk about anything spiritual, except once to be used as a tool to tell his children that there is no Heaven.
My dad grew up in a Jewish household. My great grandfather on his side had an interesting relationship with religion. He was a refuge from Russia (because of being Jewish) and my last name (which I obviously won't share - because unfortunately it's a bit well known (my dad's parents are professional musicians with huge businesses with movies, shows, and other commonly seen things)) is uniquely Russian and Jewish. We were raised to be very proud of this. However, my great grandfather did not want to teach Russian or Hebrew to his children. He seemed like a sweet man, but held a lot of secrets. He wanted his kids and future grandkids and great grandkids (me) to be thoroughly American. Definitely not communist or spies... lol.
My dad, however, was somehow COMPLETELY atheist -- the bad, aggressive kind. I have no idea why and probably shouldn't dig (he was traumatized, but also a psychopath, so...). This is kind of weird, because he used all kinds of traits to make him feel different and more important than everyone else. Usually these were insane lies about being an astronaut -- but he NEVER used being Jewish as a reason to be cool. He did use "babies aren't human until they're two years old," though.
My dad was so against religion that he tried to disown my twin brother when he was 12 years old for "coming out" as a Christian.
My mom protected him and told him that he loved him no matter what his religion was. Bad night for her, but brave and loving.
When I was in elementary school or so (can't remember the timeframe perfectly -- maybe middle school? Can't remember if it was before or after I was kidnapped) my neighbor R I think had started to suspect something. We (my brothers and I -- my sister was basically locked up) would go over to R and his wife D's house to play with their son. They are still my neighbors. They are and were VERY Christian. Religion interested us kids. We had little exposure to it thanks to my dad.
In elementary school, my very Christian teachers and peers (in a public school! Teachers broke some laws!) would sometimes show me pity when I didn't get their religious references. They'd give me child versions of Bibles that kind of insulted my intelligence but I always appreciated it. I was severely neglected and this religion thing was the only thing that got me attention so far -- besides being insanely depressed and showing up to school with a limb occasionally with no context.
In middle school I befriended another adult man, but this one was a true friend. I mean that -- he never molested, raped, or kidnapped me. He talked to me like an adult, like we were platonic friends. He was more of a father to me than my actual father; when I went to college, he congratulated me and gave me money for textbooks. He was a Christian man, and frequently would advise me with Bible verses and teachings.
So... that much be when R and D started taking my brothers and I to their church. We would literally sit in the rain outside, away from our dad, on Sunday mornings and then go into their car to go to church with them.
It somehow wasn't against my father's back? He was uncomfortable with it, but somehow agreed that it was educational for us somehow. A cultural experience. My mom must have done something?
Anyway, we made friends in the church and after a year of spiritual goodness the church invited us to be baptized.
My little brother and I were so excited about this -- thinking it was the one and only thing we needed. A way to get into Heaven, and be out there with our religion and all the love we had felt. The God that this church knew was so kind, so forgiving, and so protective.
My dad had to agree, though. Because I'd have to go back that night. My neighbor, R, who I mentioned had suspected a problem, said that maybe it would be best if he talked to our dad for us. Although he phrased it like a question, kindly asking our permission to do so.
He went to my backyard, where my dad was smoking cigarettes and drinking vodka. My little brother and I were elsewhere, but somehow I know what happened? My dad told him off, said we were never allowed to go back ever again, and told my neighbor that religion is stupid, fake, all that. The atheist argument, only meant to be insulting.
We never did go back. But I believed in God for a while. I don't know how much, but I did. My neighbor friend -- the platonic adult -- told me in secret about his dream where he felt he was talking to God. I brought that into my head whenever I got doubtful.
The transition out of that happened later. It was my ex. She was, like my father, very anti-religion. The Christians SHE knew were dark, sketchy, evil, abusive. They used religion to hide how evil they were. She hated religion.
I began by telling her it didn't have to be that way, but eventually gave up.
What really hit me was when she declared that she had "become gay" for a girl in middle school. I loved her, and that was difficult for me. I went into the forest and hiked and thought it over. Talked to my mom about it. Accepted it.
When I saw general Christians not acceptIng it... I became more doubtful.
When I started studying religion in general, it changed everything. I'm very scientific. Therefore, I collected raw data from actual studies and analyzed them. I try so hard not to be biased.
I saw where all religion in my area came from. I saw the ancient studies, the Jews who were polytheistic even in Abraham's time AND after. Another Jew who fled from Russia when my great grandfather did wrote books on what was found, too. I loved them.
I saw which god was chosen from a polytheistic by Jews, in a time where all gods and goddesses were like spirits of nature. There was a most powerful one, one who was hard to speak of or to because no one was worthy of his holiness.
Then it morphed into henotheism -- which is the belief that there ARE other gods besides yours, but yours is most powerful.
I saw Jews get beaten up, and try to say that their god would cause an apocalypse -- and, when that backfired (other civilizations love disproving apocolypticism) they shunned it, when back to the regular, "God sees you and gives you a choice to behave correctly and control yourselves, or else your village will burn, or your cattle will die" -- never an apocalypse, never seeing the future.
Jews became monotheistic after much abuse, after trying to separate themselves from polytgeists who were violent, oppressive -- too common so that they could use religion to hide their flaws.
But I found proof even within the Bible that they had believed in more than one god existing. There is a contest, for example, of who's god is stronger -- who's god could light their own sacrifice. Check out the original language of this story.
Then Christians happened (I feel that's well known) and I got around to studying the Bible. Realized the symbolism -- taken right out of Greek plays on purpose to showcase how their God was not nearly as needlessly cruel or not literally insane. (Read: Bacchae by Euripides if you don't believe it.) I saw evidence not only of just Jewish mythology, but of a polytheistic culture that no one wants to cite or prove.
Then Christians wrote the New Testament -- and after doing a very thorough analysis, I saw it was Apocoloptic Judaism. It was humans being previously human -- trying to make sense of a horrible trauma. Is Jesus was our Lord -- then what the hell happened? Hadnt he promised to save us? Why did he die -- and suffer gravely?
They had to make sense of this, or admit they were wrong. But they KNEW they weren't wrong. They needed to analyze this, to make sense of it. God must have had a plan. He couldn't be killed.
That's the New Testament. It's a way to analyze and therefore answer these questions. It ends in apocalypse, as religions of the past did whenever they needed hope that they wouldn't be crushed out of existence.
At the exact same time as this research, and of studying Sumerian gods in particular (Abraham knew them himself -- he came from Ur, and his God can be found there as one of the pantheon, when you know what symbols and depictions you see), I started learning about other religions. Asian, Middle East, Europe.
Islam in particular. I have Muslim friends who were willing to talk about it, and I had book upon book of it. Hinduism and Buddhism intererested me too -- though a friend from Nepal warned me of the horrors and abuse she'd seen from extremist Hinduism. Our friend who had been to parts of India for charity saw similar awful, awful things. What she told me was so disturbing that I ended up avoiding it for my sanity. I'm sure there's a good Hindi out there -- but something about it was off to me by then.
Anway, I became a big fan of Muhammad. I realized that he was actually an amazing human being, very full of love and doing the right thing. His life story was the most inspiring thing I had ever read. I understand to an extent what he had been through -- trying to make sense of terrifying circumstances, and trying to put good into a world that was violently against it. Being part of the most powerful clan means nothing when your are also an orphan.
I did not join Islam but I respected it -- the origions, in particular -- even more than before. I love talking about Muhammad.
But I know where his religion came from too. The god that was the same as the Jewish god. The same as the Christian god. I have followed him through history and know, now, that if i ever wanted to fit into a religion, i would always be confused for now on.
Also, that whatever God is MUST be more ancient that monotheism. His origins are old -- and a nature spirit. An earth-based religion.
In high school I joined forums (one in particular) that dealt with Earth-based religion. Spirit guides, totem animals, other Native American things (from multiple cultures North-and-South-America-wide) -- which was particularly hard for me. Because my kidnapper was Native American.
Now my brother-in-law is, and though he's very intimidating and depressed and political-in-your-face, he's a good man. He would never do what my kidnapper did.
So, yeah. In conclusion, I've explored religion a lot. It's blurry for me. I can't see a religion without seeing a huge, big picture -- without knowing that it's a part of being human, no that it's tied to us trying to underStand... a lot of things.
It's very confusing, especially for someone who can't say for sure where I belong, religiously. When people ask me this question in outings, I freeze up, not knowing how much I can say, not knowing if I can ever really belong to a category. I won't say I'm atheist, I won't say I'm agnostic, I won't say I'm Christian, I won't say I'm Muslim, etc -- I have no idea what anything I've learned meaned in relation to MY identity.
But elephants also have that part of the brain that humans do, that lets them form religion... yeah, elephants are like humans. :) I wonder what it's like for them.
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Adding to say:
Part of my trauma involved losing my identity forever. I was not a human being. So, I didn't have a religion. It wasn't that I was atheist or agnostic -- it was that it was a topic that had become completely meaningless.
You don't care about the politics of trees in a forest becoming tall enough to BE the canopy. It's a meaningless topic for most humans.
That's probably why I'm so confused, why I search so thoroughly until it literally made no sense anymore. Looking for as the lobe in the brain that influences religion (if you have epilepsy that's centered here, things get incredibly interesting) -- I zoomed so close to the beach line trying to understand where the shore stops and the ocean begins that I was looking at atoms. Atoms are not oceans or shores.
Not that I would say that I DON'T believe in god. But I'm not sure I can say that I DO, either.
It's become so, so blurry.
