What You Ought to Know About Me: Part 1 - Metaphysical Beliefs

What You Ought to Know About Me: Part 1 - Metaphysical Beliefs
Disclaimer: the major religion featured in this story, namely Protestant Christianity, is not my current belief. What does this mean? I'll talk about why and how my beliefs changed, what aspects of religion have affected me, and what I currently believe. If I challenge your faith and deeply held dogmas, I do so with the intent to broaden your mind, not belittle your soul. My intent is not to offend anyone, rather to explore metaphysics, as in "religious beliefs that cannot be proven by science or evidence." Don't send me your long letter explaining how I should believe the way you do, trying to proselytize me “back to the faith.” As always, comments are welcome.

I suppose it's in fashion to extend PTSD trigger warnings to topics that may be traumatic or uncomfortable for readers with bad past experiences. I respect that if you are reading one of my posts about religion, you have either the discretion to choose your reading material for yourself or the gross inattention to detail that would lead you to read something that may bother you. So by all means, if stories about the intersection between conservative fundamentalism and religion may bother, upset, or trigger you, stop reading and hang on for a more palatable topic. Otherwise, read on.

This story, in unrevised form, was once titled "How Religion Logic-ed Itself Away".
Now it is untitled, other than “Metaphysical Beliefs.” My hubris, once strong, has been broken. I won't try to convince you that your beliefs are wrong. But I will tell you how I came about mine.
From my earliest memories, I was raised Christian. Or rather, as much as anyone can be raised to belief something, I was trained in the dogma and doctrine of Protestant Christianity. Some of my earliest memories of socialization are in being among other small children, being taught biblical ideas. A child, not old enough or agile enough to tie a shoe, being asked to recount the biblical creation narrative, being told that wrongdoings are sin, and that when you do wrong, God is going to punish you.

We went to church at least biweekly. On Sundays, there was early morning bible study for the parents and Sunday-school for the kids, followed by a joined Sunday Service. And then again, on Wednesday nights, for kids' bible clubs, where candy and toys were used to encourage rote memorization of the verse or passage for that week. I stayed in this program, albeit across different churches, until graduating high school.

The first church I remember was a larger church, complete with an orchestral choir, but it was farther from home, too far to commute at two hours distant. By the time I was 6 or so, we had transitioned to a more local church. This was a traditional protestant church,that my grandparents had started attending years earlier, so even though my grandparents had moved out of state before I was born, the other congregants were all people that my family had a history with. For example, my mom went to high-school and college with some of the women, now themselves mothers.

Now when I was about 7, our church went through a series of changes. The old Senior pastor resigned and retired (out of age, not any shame). The new pastor was a kind, nice, intelligent sort of fellow, although looking back I'd say he was socially a bit odd. He would teach faith logically, presenting presuppositions clearly, and building upon them with reason. True, faith necessitates assumptions of things not observed, so it can't be proven. But faith built with logic is stronger than faith built without logic.

However, this season of rationality was short lived, only a few years. The pastor's wife divorced him to go live with her lover. Yikes. Well, of course this set the prim and proper ladies of the church chatting, and soon the pastor, through no fault of his own, lost his position, and was dismissed in shame. You see, that's the thing about my experiences with religion. It doesn't matter what a person does as much as what people think of a person.

His replacement was the polar opposite. Logic, reasoning, acknowledging the presence of assumptions? No! For him, everything was "Faith, faith, blind faith". Faith, built on logic? No! Dogma and acceptance of what he said! Looking back, I see him as representative of most evangelical Christianity today. “Accept that what I believe to be true is true, and you get to go to heaven!” Nothing more than candy and trinkets for adults.
Here is where my story takes a dark turn.

By now, we had moved, and disgruntled with the “candy-coated gospel”, my parents (read: my mom) decided to change churches. After cycling through a few churches, we settled on one that pleased my parents. Nominally a more critical and reasoning church, again despite unproven assumptions, this group worked out most things logically. And from a significant amount of time here, I learned church-logic (question everything, except the things we can't prove). Every church I've spent a significant amount of time in had some sort of logic, yet all failed at the point of examining the assumptions.

Why is this a dark turn? Well, did you know that puritans still exist today? You see, the Puritans were an English Calvinistic sect of Protestant Christianity. Which became Reformation Protestantism. Or in this case, Reformed Baptist Protestantism. The “Reformed” refers to the reformation of the 16^th Century, which, applied in England, was the Puritans.
So when we moved to this seemingly more logical Reformed Baptist congregation, what I experienced was remarkably like visiting Salem in the 1600s. I will share with you a few anecdotes of the many that are seared into my memory.

First Example: While it's not that uncommon in American churches, this church focused more energy on “sexual sins”, including anything viewed as homosexuality. This wasn't a place of open minds, where people could talk about the many different factors involved in identity, no, this was a place where any “sexual deviancy” was directly caused by spiritual warfare, a direct attack and temptation from devils and demons. One of the last sermons I endured at this mouth of hell was a two hour long rant from a visiting pastor that ended in vehement calls to purge the congregation of homosexuals, advocating that they be expelled (since we can't kill them the way god wants without getting into legal trouble). Yeah, he mentioned that “god says that it is better to be dead and stoned than gay.” That really was damaging as a young closeted queer person.

Second Example: Not to say that this church hates on just gay people, there's plenty of hate to go around. Remember, all of these beliefs are based on the unchallenged assumption that the bible is true, and extrapolating from there. By which I mean to say “hate the fornicators too!” One Sunday, at the beginning of the church service, I got to witness a public excommunication. You see, one of the college students who attended the church had acquired a girlfriend, and reports (rumors) that they were sleeping together had made their way to the pastor. So start the church service, and then the pastor presents the charges to the church members, the members vote then and there, and the poor college student is immediately removed from the church.

Third Example: The aforementioned was not the only excommunication I've witnessed. The next is when a couple in the church separates, pending possible divorce. The church government hears about it. And divorce is a sin. Screw you, get out , don't come back.

Seriously, this church was the most rational I've attended (as in, despite unwarranted assumptions, based everything on logic), but is also the scariest group of people I've ever met. These aren't people that have trouble with empathy, these are people who think that god is sending you to hell so why bother caring about you.

Fast forward to college years, when I had my first real introduction to academic logic. Sad to say, I never learned to think critically in high school, in home-school at that point it's all rote memorization and stimulus/response type stuff. It was only in community college, through the process of examining things scientifically, that I learned to question the initial assumptions my faith was based on. I spent months poring over any materials related to critical thinking that I could. And when examined, Christianity fell apart.

Sure, if you take the existence of a god as given, and assume that god is omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (everywhere), and omnipotent (all powerful), then everything works just fine. God just does things he wants to and you deserve it, so screw you, ZAP! (Lightning bolt) To use a Biblical analogy, it doesn't matter if you've built a house of logic, if you build it on the foundation of sand of faulty assumptions, the storm will blow it down. The presuppositions of Christianity assume a lot without any evidence, and this is called 'faith'. I call it 'bad logic'. Example: You never hear Christians say 'if god existed...', yet you always hear 'god must exist because...' Many christians try to prove god from the assumption that there is a god. No one comes to the conclusion of god without first assuming god.

When I told my parents, they asked me which of my professors and friends were teaching me to 'hate god'. Here's my response. No one. No one taught me to 'hate god'. My professors taught me logic, and I learned to use it. If anything, Christianity had taught me to accept assumptions without reasoning.

See, here's the part where it gets fuzzy. Now, five years after rejecting Christianity, I can't tell you what I believe. I'm not sure.
I can tell you what I don't believe. I don't believe in divinity. I don't believe in prescribed ethics.

I can tell you that I believe in science, or rather that by using reason and math, we can become better at explaining the world. But I also believe that we can never explain everything 100%. Godel's theora are responsible for that.

What do I believe religiously? I suppose you could call me an atheist agnostic. I don't believe that a god exists, but I may be wrong. I don't believe that anything truly matters, but that gives me the freedom to do anything. I suppose I'd fall somewhere in between zen inebriation and ascetic anhedonia.


Now, I don't condemn Christians.
Believe what you want, just make sure of two things:
1.) Make sure your belief system does not harm or discriminate against others. This includes politically, people! If someone else wants to do something that doesn't involve you, your property, or those under your care, then even if you think it's wrong, you don't have the right to stop them. Now, I'm not saying don't stop murderers. Those you should stop. But, for example, if someone identifies a certain way, that doesn't directly affect you so just shut up.
2.) Examine yourself logically. If you are fine with certain assumptions, great, but don't expect everyone to be. And that also means you don't get to walk around telling everyone else they're headed for hell. Sure, you can believe that, but I believe that churches are establishing a physical manifestation of the idea of hell on earth. That doesn't mean I should run into churches shouting “Judge not lest ye be judged! Woe to you teachers and hypocrites, you who are like whitewashed tombs, filled with death!”

That being said, I do take several key ideas from Christianity as well as other religions. If there's anything we can learn from Jesus, it's to be kind and respectful of each other, to not point out past shortcomings, but to be supportive and loving. Religions throughout time have worked to tell people how to behave toward one another, and I respect this. I want the love of Christianity, the selflessness of Buddhism, the respect of nature of the Animists, ethics, etc.
Religion, as a social construct, bears intersection with different systems of belief.