[raisingirl]

Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret.

(Bump)

[ellenevenstar]

Ooh, no.. I didn't mean to suggest that I thought you had consciously constructed your belief system. I agree with what you say about people taking bits from cultures one does not participate in. I think, though, that as the world becomes smaller that it will be harder to distinguish between what is and is not one's "own" culture, or the culture that one "participates in". Like, when I was living in London, I was picking up bits of Indian, Bangladeshi, Somalian, Afro-Caribbean etc... culture in the different neighbourhoods I lived in; this wasn't a conscious effort, just being part of a community. Being an Australian means that, although I have Anglo heritage, I am influenced by the other cultures, including Aboriginal, around me... I'm not going out there and taking it, it is imbuing me as I live my life and meet lots of different people. I guess that might be what you mean by "participating in" culture - having it contribute to who you are and what your beliefs, values and attitudes are...?

[grenadine]

thanks, ellen...it's not, however, as if i'm consciously trying to hybridise religions - it's more that i'm trying to explain how i see religion through my cultural hybridisation. since i think culture determines the language/expectations we have for religion, it could hardly be otherwise (and that's why i'm extremely skeptical of people seeking spirituality who embrace religions of cultures they don't participate in; i tend to think they should take voltaire's advice and cultivate their own gardens)... anyway.

there's an anglican church in san francisco that prominently displays the creed "we believe in one god, known to us in jesus christ, known by other names in other traditions" or some such. i think that's splendid.

[ellenevenstar]

i see god as begotten within us: our life is a creation of our mind, and our mind is inhabited by (inhabits) god. we create religions in order to express/honour god in community

I love it, grenadine. I find the hybridisation of religion so interesting. Many write it off as eclecticism and call it a cop-out but (when it is done properly) it opens up so many mind-blowing parallels and intersections between cultures and human experiences.

[grenadine]

ellen (i love your avatar, btw; it reminds me of ellen allien for some reason),

neither, really. i don't at all think god is a psychological fabrication - that would make me an atheist, and i've always been more comfortable as a deist. and i don't think god is collective in its origin/nature; only the expression of god is social/collective, IMO. i believe that god is immanent and is known individually by each person; i also believe that god is universal - everyone has one. you could construe god as an organ, and that's not a terrible metaphor. or you could construe god as "conscience," "ethics," or "good," and i wouldn't disagree with that either, though i think that's an unnecessarily bloodless and cartesian way of looking at it. i don't believe god can be empirically proven or known or that it matters what colour jesus's hair was, except as a point of cultural curiosity (i also don't care if he was shacking up with mary magdalene; the sermon on the mount is still great...for that matter i'm not really invested in the idea that jesus was jesus, or that jesus was, at all...which is why i think certain tr*lls have really got the wrong end of the stick).

i should add that my own understanding of god is hybridised by accident of birth: on one side of my family i come from a tradition of children being raised in buddhist monasteries, and that worldview is still dominates us culturally; on the other i was raised in the high anglican tradition and came to love the ritual and mysticism of that.
i have never seen those two traditions in conflict. it has always seemed obvious to me that they are responding to the same primal human compulsion - a compulsion for (rather than to) god.
so these ideas:
1)What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. (from the dhammapada)
2) God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made. (from the nicene creed)

seem entirely coherent to me, and i see god as begotten within us: our life is a creation of our mind, and our mind is inhabited by (inhabits) god. we create religions in order to express/honour god in community, which is a lovely idea; then we kill people who belong to other religions, and we damage the go(o)d within us.

also, i'm under no illusions that i am a great theologian manquee, though my understanding does seem to me more inclusive, harmonious, and sensible than most!

does that help?

eta: actually, the one thing that doesn't make sense to me in the nicene creed is the tense. i would say "are" made. that about us which is god is eternal. making is eternal. etc. (that must be the cultural buddhism kicking in).

[ellenevenstar]

I agree with just about all of those points, grenadine, but I am curious as to what you might mean when you say "contains or creates god within us" - do you mean that you think that god is a psychological fabrication, or that god is an entity created by or contained in collective energy / belief?

[grenadine]

i believe that each of us contains or creates god within us and that the "naming" of god as jesus, yahweh, etc. is the cultural consensus/manifestation of individual spirituality. because of that, i am skeptical of conversion to religion of another culture.

i believe that organised religion is a social force that can also be spiritual and can work for incredible good or incredible evil. i believe that jesus would not have agreed with many of the teachings of contemporary and historic churches.

i believe that authentic spirituality cannot be defined by external texts or creeds, though it may be (partially) expressed through them.

and because of that, pherber, you're no longer the only "totally different" one. none of those other boxes fit at all.

eta: it's so interesting to think about stating my beliefs in this way. i only hope they're not totally incoherent!

[doodlebug]

Hello all...deepest apologies for being AWOL from the thread so long. So many things going on in my life right now, which are, naturally, resulting in even more spiritual awakenings...when I feel less tongue-tied (keyboard-tied?) about it, I will try to write more.

In the meantime, I wanted to give this thread a bump! And also to post this really interesting article/interview I just finished reading on Salon.com. You may have to watch a brief ad before being able to access the article.

[ellenevenstar]

Wow. Thanks for sharing that amazing story, Onna-Otaku. Love prevails.


OK What do people think of this?
"Feminist christology, argues Rita Brock, should liberate Christ from the unholy trinity, father-son-holy ghost, that has cradled Christ in its patriarchal arms. Speaking of Christ as the principle of erotic power, "the power of our primal interrelatedness," she attempts to save Christ from captivity to Jesus and to patriarchy. Her christology is not centered in Jesus but in relationships and community as the whole-making, healing center of Christianity She moves beyond Jesus as the Christ. Christ is identified as the Christa / Community of erotic power of interconnectedness, the revelatory and redemptive witness of God/dess's work as wholeness of community in history. Jesus neither reveals nor embodies this principle or power of Christa / Community, but himself is brought into being through it and participates in the recreation of it. ... "Using feminist experience and analyses of male dominance and a feminist hermeneutic of erotic power on the biblical texts, it is possible to catch gimpses, within androcentric texts, of the power within the Christa / Community"... The Christa / Community of erotic power is the connectedness among members of the community who live with "heart," the human self and our capacity for intimacy."
(Tyron L. Inbody The Many Faces of Christology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002) 128.

[Onna-Otaku]

whoo... this one is a doosy... so here I go...
I was baptized into the lutheren faith when I was an infant, something I see as wrong. I think people should choose to be baptized. The only reason I'm ok with it at all is because my grandma died soon after that, and she was rather religious. I'm glad she saw me baptized.
When I was six months old, my grandmother killed herself. It is still a mystery today, what with her religiousness, and how my grandfather only "found" the suicide note a few months later, even though there was another, smaller one found immeadiatley after she died. There is rumours floated around that my grandfather murdered her, but I suppose, almost two decades later, that is between him and god.
I found out what happened to my grandmother when I was six or seven. It bothered me profoundly. At that point I was going to sunday school every sunday, and I had learned that those who kill themselves go straight to hell. I didn't like the idea of my grandmother being in hell. But that was my only problems with my faith so far.
My mother says that I started throwing tantrums when she tried to get me to go to church, but I remember no such thing. I didn't attend church or really think about it again until I was 13 and moved to northren nevada, where my grandfather and step-grandmother lived. I loved singing, and wanted to be in the choir, so I was. and everyone told me what a beautiful voice god had blessed me with, and it made me happy, because, you see, I was not a very happy little girl.
The stipulation was, however, that I continue with my confirmation classes, because technically you're not allowed to be in the choir unless you're confirmed, at least in that church. This is where it went wrong. I continued with them, and sometimes even ignored the things I disagreed with.
we had a little workbook. They had a list of true and false questions, about dogma, really.
"A good and pious man who lives alone and rarely comes and talks to people reads the bible everyday but never goes to church, this man will go to hell."
In my brain, I thought "oh, that is so obviously false..." But I was wrong. My teacher said he's going to hell, because he "never celebrated his faith with other people."
"Isn't that a little harsh?" I said.
"It is in the bible"
"Where?"
" I don't know exactly..."
"Well, I need you to show me, because I think you're wrong."
"I don't need to explain myself or the workbook to a teenager."
"Well then you're not doing your job, are you?" Boom. Just like that, the teacher asked my mother not to bring me back. And because of that, all the sudden, my voice wasn't so pretty anymore, and I was out of the choir. and I stopped going. and I was angry. when I moved to california with my dad, I was open to new things. I tried paganism, and "intuition medicine" (which I still do sometimes, it's not really a religion) and finally I was and athiest. And was a strange aithiest. I knew god was there. but I refused to believe in him. I turned away from him. and thus started the worst years of my life.
I moved back in with my mother, and she had changed. she abandoned me. she would leave for weeks on end. Leave me alone in a bad neighborhood in and apartment that had a back door that wouldn't lock. But then, all of the sudden, I had a boyfriend. That was strange. I had never had one, nor had I ever had a guy show interest in me. But now I had him, and he kept anyone from hurting me, and he made it so I wasn't alone. I found out later that he was a true to the bone christian. He was converted at a concert, like you TG. And he felt it his duty to become a pastor, but not now. he said he wasn't ready. of course, this man turns out to be Mr. Otaku, but that's later. Well, we decided the we were meant for eachother after about two months of dating, but we weren't engaged until much after that.
Then he had to move a thousand miles away.
My mother had come back and decided that she wanted to be my mother, so about after a month after saying that Mr. Otaku could stay, she kicked him out to the street. and he had no where else to go but LV. and it was terrible. and I hated god more and more and more. and then I moved down to be with him two days after I graduated. and I still hated god.
But then something happened. my anger cooled. I began to see signs everywhere. I started to believe a little. Then things got terrible in LV, but I didn't loose my faith. instead I began to look for signs of what I must do. and it became clear that I needed to go back. we needed to go back. and we did.
and things are still hard. I'm broke and in debt. Mr. otaku is unemployed.
But I believe in god. I believe jesus christ died for our sins. I believe everyone should be accepted for who they are.
and I'm finally happy.

[ellenevenstar]

Wow, thanks for this thread, doodlebug. This topic has been chasing itself around in my head for a long time!

I would call myself a liberal - maybe even radical - Catholic. There is so, so much that disturbs me in this Church, and some days I don't even know whether I believe in God, so what keeps me identifying with this religion?

I was brought up in a left-wing Catholic home - I was always taught that following gospel values was counter-cultural and I spent twelve years in great, relaxed, co-educational Catholic schools which reinforced this.

However by the end of my school years, I was feeling angry and rebellious, HATED going to mass every single Sunday morning of my life, and was smart enough to see through what I still see as disgraceful hypocrisy and cover-up in the Church hierarchy.

I pretty much totally rejected Christianity for a couple of years there but still pursued religious studies in my undergraduate degree, looking into Australian Aboriginal spirituality, the occult, magic, Eastern religions, mysticism, even did a little Sanskrit! I got heavily interested in ancient goddess worship and various forms of neo-paganism. Like pherber, I still love the moon as well as other sublime natural symbols of divinity and power.

I decided I wanted to be a teacher and that I would like to teach in Catholic schools because I saw that they were one place where some of the best things about my tradition were truly lived out in hope-filled, compassionate, aware communities. I therefore attended the Australian Catholic University to undertake my Education degree. I remember the day I made the decision to go there, it just felt right on a gut level even though I knew that it went against what was going on in my head. It was weird.

I encountered two or three truly inspirational academics at ACU, with whom I still work, who presented to me a range of theologians' visions of Catholicism (liberation, cosmic, feminist) that were more radical, and made more sense to me, than anything I had previously encountered.

Now I am a Study of Religion teacher and half way through a Masters in Theology. My beliefs are not fixed - some days I believe in a traditional God-type being, but more often I believe in a dynamic energy which links people to one another and to their environment, that has benevolent intentions and is involved in a special way in our creation and sustenance.

I believe that many spiritual leaders have existed who have taught humanity truth and wisdom, but the tradition into which I have been born reveres Jesus as our 'son of' this universal energy. I believe that Jesus showed humanity the way to overcome the darker side of human nature by striving in the way of radical love and forgiveness. I believe that after his death, his friends experienced his presence or guiding force among them in a new way - it is Jesus' example of love and definace of bullshit and following those beliefs through no matter what that can save humanity from pettiness, emptiness and depravity.

I would like to think that there's something after this life but I can't yet quite come up with a coherent argument as to how there could be. Is our personal energy spark absorbed back into the universal energy, like the belief in moksha held by Hindus, perhaps?

I REALLY don't think that this is the only way and I don't desire to make others think the way I do. Althouth I sometimes find evangelical Christians intrusive, I do respect that they are actually authentic enough to do what their beliefs demand of them. I disagree with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church on just about everything, but my experience of Catholicism in my family, in the schools I have attended and worked in and in my parish (where the gay and lesbian pride choir regularly sings and is part of our communion, for example) where I go to mass about 5 or 6 times a year, has been wonderful.

It has been so enjoyable to read what has already been posted here and I look forward to more!!

[pherber]

God loves you pherber.

Yeah, but the feeling ain't mutual.


*goes to check out ignore function*

[pherber]

Nutella!

[pherber]

Oh, that's a little misunderstanding.
When you vote, there's several options, and I clicked the last one, that *literally* says "I believe in something totally different". After voting, the percentage and how many votes the options got show up. The last option only had one vote. Me!
Of course I think *everyone* is different in what and how they believe, else we wouldn't need this thread.
I also don't think I'm more "special" because of my eccentricity.

I really love this thread, it's such a great topic!

[erinjane]

pherber, I don't think you're the one person with different beliefs, in fact everyone's beliefs in here seem to be pretty different and individual from eachother.

I don't really know how I feel about mass organized religion. On the one hand, I don't pay too much attention because it doesn't really effect me, but on the other, I think that sprituality is a very personal thing and should be discovered on your own.

[pherber]

Oh, shit, it had to be me, being the one(!) person believing in something totally different.

Well, I'm not even sure, if it's so different.

I wasn't baptised, and raised atheist, by lefty hippy parents.
I don't really believe in anything, which makes me mad sometimes, because I think (and worry!) about death way too much.

For some strange reason, I get extreme pleasures from the moon, to the point, that I have to get up at night and just to admire it's great beauty...it's made me quite an insomniac.
Luckily my neighbours haven't seen me yet, when I'm standing on my balcony in a pink nighty and squeak excitedly "Oh fuck, how beautiful! Oh my, oh my..!"

They say that the moon is the great goddess of the pagans, but I'm not sure, if I can relate to that.

I also have my own god, some kind of spaceman, who I met in London's Covent Garden, he helped me grow up, but that's another story..
I also have an altar/shrine dedicated to Keith Moon.
O.K. maybe I'm just a little nuts.

[ginger_kitty]

One reason on a long list of my reasons not to follow organized religon, is I don't like things being pushed at me. I bring this up b/c today, my hubby and I went to a local festival. The festival had nothing to do with god or religon and yet at one of the main entrances there was a man passing out free bibles. We didn't want one and he stuck his arm out farther and said "free gift" after we had politely said, "no thanks". I practically had to shove the man away, b/c he was waving it right in my face. Then after leaving we were walking home, and some guy said "Hi" we said "hi" then he said "Praise the lord", we were both kinda like whatever and kept walking without commenting. So the guy apparently took offense and said "It is Sunday", annoyed I flipped him off. So he started yelling about god punishing me. Way to make me believe, I thought.

So here's my question, why can't people just be happy that they have thier chosen religon and leave others alone? Why try to recruit other followers? Like the angry little jesus dude that roams our board and the UberChristians, tallgirl mentioned in her last post. I am unsure how any one can find comfort in those sort of tactics.

I hope it was okay to post this in this thread.

[doodlebug]

Hey all...I'm around, just not up to posting in the thread right now - too much anxiety about other stuff going on in my head. So glad this is still going, though!

[crazyoldcatlady]

tallgirl, looks like you had an honest-to-goodness, text-book "epiphany"

[battygurl]

Tallgirl, thanks for posting. It's so frustating to me that the trolls (both online and real life), create an environment where people are reluctant to talk about their beliefs. It's so ridiculous that they shut down the kinds of conversations they purport to be encouraging.

On another note: Newsboys! I went to a Christian bible camp in junior high, and the Newsboys and DC Talk were all anyone listened to. We thought we were so hip, listening to Christian rock. Hee.

***
ETA: this next section is just general thoughts and not addressed to anyone specifically
I'm not sure if I've said anything about my background here? I grew up in and out of the United Church, which is very in line with the moral values I hold today. I had female ministers more than I had male ones, and the church believes that everyone, from young kids to elderly people have valuable contributions to make to church life and community. So, as a kid I wasn't told to just shut up and listen, but to explore, offer opinions, lead prayers or call and response and ask questions. In youth group we respectfully learned about other religions, such as the Jewish faith and we had a First Nations medicine man visit and talk about his faith. There are openly gay and lesbian church members, including ministers and [whatever is higher than a minister, I don't know the terminology]. Abortion is between a woman, her doctor and God, and the church takes no stance on what God would have to say about it. Divorce is acceptable, and in cases of abuse, encouraged. At the same time, marriage is not something to be entered into lightly, and people are encouraged to think about the responsibility that comes with it before doing it.

I'm still trying to figure out how Christianity fits into my current spiritual beliefs, or if it does at all. Part of the reason I fell out of the church was that I didn't like the way the body, especially the female body, was so denigrated and thought of as shameful. Looking back, I don't know if this went on in my church specifically, or Christianity more generally (it was hard to tell because a lot of members of our church were more conservative, so it may have come from them and not the church itself). I've since learned a lot about the political and social forces that shape what's in the bible and taken for doctrine, and it has less to do with the word of God and more to do with how people in power wanted to control society through the church. I don't believe Jesus cares who I'm fucking or what else I do with my body, so long as I'm taking care of myself and not hurting others. I think if I wanted to be a Christian again, I'd have no trouble reconciling that with my politcal beliefs and sexual orientation(s). But now I'm not sure if I want to. Since turning to other spiritual ideas, I've grown a lot, and learned new things. Sometimes I feel like I was only a Christian because it offered easy answers: I'm forgiven for everything I've done, God is taking care of me, there is a heaven and I can get there.

***

Reading the lyrics to one of the songs tallgirl posted, got me thinking. "I did not make it/no, it's making me." I wonder how much of what I believe (see my earlier post below) is real and how much of it is what I would like to believe. And is there a difference? I believe that we shape the world around us with our thoughts and beliefs. We have the power to shape the fabric of reality. So what I would like to believe and what I do can be the same thing. But how do I know that? I feel like most of what I believe comes from within me, and yet I have moments where I know with every fibre of my being that what I know is true, and that it is beyond me and bigger than me.

I like that I don't know everything there is to know, and that I have room to challenge beliefs and have them and evolve.