Thoughts on Faith

Faith. I grew up Christian. I went to church with my mom almost every Sunday until I became a teenager. I was even in a youth group called Awanas. Truth be told, my relationship to faith and Christianity is complicated. I’ve been too blessed in my life to be atheist but I don’t have enough faith to call myself Christian. I’m clearly agnostic. I don’t believe I need a book or religious leader to know how to be a good person or find my way to the afterlife. How you treat others matters more to me than how or who you worship. I’ve known people with my disability completely devout to their faith live a shorter life than mine and others live to their 50’s. I know others without faith have the same dichotomy, so who knows what that means. For some reason I get upset when people say it was their time. Sometimes it is too early and they should’ve had more time. Unlike a lot of people, faith provides me no comfort for these questions. Same thing with going to church. A lot of people can worship at a church and feel the presence of something but I always felt nothing but silence and my thoughts. I also see people so insecure about their faith they try to force others to live a higher standard than themselves. The numerous anti gay Christian politicians caught with men or on their fourth marriage. That being said I pray to whatever being that may or may not exist when life is too much to handle. Does it help? Who knows. Does it provide comfort? Maybe. The thing that makes religion difficult is my mind is logic based and science oriented. This is mostly the product of a neurodivergent brain. Religious institutions have accepted scientific truths before. The big bang theory and the age of the universe is one of them and the evidence was so strong that the Catholic Church had to agree. Some people are a little too dogmatic in their beliefs. I’m also not very comfortable with the origin story of Adam and Eve as the beginning of humanity. Who were their children making babies with? Gross and uncomfortable that thought is. With that in mind I tend to believe evolution is how we got here but I’m told this is blasphemy. Though a clergyman first developed the concept of evolution. My take, god had to simplify things for ancient simple people. Could you imagine explaining the age and beginning of universe, evolution, cosmology, and physics to our ancient ancestors? We were wiping our ass with sticks and sand trying not to be eaten by lions, tigers, and bears. I feel it’s okay to be somewhat in the middle. At one point we used to believe the earth was the center of the universe and people were murdered as heretics for questioning. All pushed by people in power using faith to control for fear of losing that power. My controversial opinion about people saying the bible is the word of god is counter with, it’s written by men interpreting the word of god. So it’s imperfect which makes skepticism of dogmatism a healthier way to approach Christianity. When we blindly accept the biblical as absolute truth we do a disservice to ourselves, humanity, and god. It leaves people blind to control of those in power. This makes me think of the story of Abraham being asked to kill his son to test his faith. I would probably go to hell in that story because I would’ve said hell no do it yourself. It’s not that I don’t have faith but I have strong convictions that may not be in the bible. No person or entity calling itself god could convince me to kill a child. Maybe we took the wrong lesson from that story. This highlights my problem with not questioning the bible and faith. I will continue to question because I’m not so lost I don’t know right from wrong. Maybe I do have faith but of a different kind. Even though I’m agnostic I have more Christian values than church people and bible thumpers.