several years ago, after one of my grandmothers died, i sat in a car with my father outside a funeral home.
he said to me, "one thing i regret is not providing a religious background for you and your brother." he was upset that rob and i had grown up without having gone to church.
i looked at him and said, "quite frankly, i'm glad you didn't make us go to church. you gave us the ability to make our own decisions about religion."
i don't think he really liked my response.
his original statement may have been some kind of hidden judgement -- your life could have been a lot better if you had gone to church, and it's all my fault for not forcing it upon you. -- but more likely he was just sad that i don't share his beliefs.
i do wonder, though... if i'd been forced to go to church, would i believe in god now? or would i still find myself sitting in a pew, as i did yesterday, just waiting for it to be over? if i had gone week after week, could they have pounded it into me, or am i just naturally wired to be a disbeliever?
i know a number of people who went to church, uh, religiously as a kid, then "wised up" and lost their faith as a teenager or adult. i'm always curious to talk to these people and inquire about that moment when the light bulb went off in their head. "hey, you know, this really isn't for me." that moment fascinates me.
i like to think there's something holding this universe together. some sort of harmonic frequency, maybe. an energy field of some sort. but i don't think it has anything to do with a conscious being, or a dude in white robes. whatever it is likely doesn't know that i exist, and doesn't care. but i don't know if i would have different opinions if dad had forced me to go to church when i was a kid.
Posted by xta at August 16, 2005 03:42 PM | TrackBackMy parents started late with me. I was about 8 years old. That might be partly why it didn't stick. Who knows. I'd be happy to talk to you about it sometime.
nature vs. nurture :)
we'll be trying to figure that one out til humans wipe themselves off the plant. for religion, i tend toward the nurture side of the argument when it comes to being a specific religion; empirical data seems to prove that.
however, when it comes to simply being spiritual vs. not (and in my mind, one doesn't need to believe in a god or gods to be spiritual), i tend to think that's more inborn-- nature.
Posted by: lisa at August 16, 2005 06:06 PMfunny, I just so happened to see this today:
http://www.400monkeys.com/God/
Posted by: pinky at August 16, 2005 06:58 PMwe started doing the sunday school/hebrew school/occasional synagogue attendance thing when i was in first grade and i've been pretty into the religion thing ever since (although my younger brother could not care less about religion and hasn't observed anything in years, and my sister goes to actual synagogue even less than i do). however, i think a lot of what appeals to me in reform judaism is the social justice aspect, and that we can choose which parts of the tradition are meaningful to us, and it's ok to struggle with belief in god, and so on. i never felt pressured to think any certain thing, which makes it all a lot more comfortable--i can just enjoy the community and the spirituality in a way that works for me.
i will make any hypothetical kids i have go to sunday school and hebrew school, though, and then they can decide for themselves whether or not they're into it, like my sibs and i did.
so to make a long comment short, i do think maybe some people are wired to think about it a certain way, no matter how they're raised.
Well, I was raised going to church and as a parent I'll be dragging my kids along before too long. But one of the things that happened in my house is that my parent always tried to put things into terms more in fitting with what I now think of as a more reasonable belief system. Such as my parents were always really comfortable explaining Bible stories as metaphors - not history.
I do believe that there is something holding the universe together, and maybe it's just gravity and that gravity is god, I don't know. I like to think it's sentient but I also don't believe that if it IS sentient that it gives a shit what we do.
I want to take my kids to church to help re-inforce the morality that is important to me.
I am leery of too much religion in my religion, which would probably explain why we haven't gone yet.
This from the woman who was married "IN THE NAME OF GAWD AND THE GREAT STATE OF TENNESSEE!!!!"
Posted by: Gidge at August 16, 2005 08:35 PMi was raised catholic and attended catholic school up through 8th grade. i don't know where this came from, but i believed that the entire thing--church, god, catholicism--was an elaborate hoax and when you turned 16 your parents would sit you down and tell you. then you were in on the hoax and you had to play a part in it, for the benefit of everyone under the age of 16.
i went to public high school and stopped going to church, as did my older brothers and sisters. out of the five of us--all raised catholic, all attended catholic school (some of them up through high school)--only one is attending church regularly, and that after an absence of 15+ years.
i really, really wished i believed in god, but i just don't.
Posted by: mykull at August 16, 2005 08:40 PMI was raised southern baptist, and I was quite the godly teenager until the pastor and youth group leader started mealy-mouthing about the dinosaurs and putting up posters making fun of evolution around the same time I was taking AP biology. um, no thanks.
Posted by: kelly at August 17, 2005 09:15 AMi always wondered just exactly what people find objectionable about god.
after having wrestled with a number of significant philosophical issues, i find that a theistic position is far less objectionable than people think. and i can say that authoritatively, having completed graduate degrees from a secular institution in religion and philosophy.
Posted by: mr. she-dork at August 17, 2005 03:56 PM