Back at it

Hopefully, all of the recent drama in my life is over and I am back to normal. It is hard to define normal sometimes. But I am here trying to do some work, not really getting much accomplished. I guess that is normal.

My recent experience at a church-based memorial service has me back to considering the role-if any- of religion in my life. I suppose it is the big life events which tend to bring these issues to the forefront. Births, deaths, weddings and such are events which almost all religions mark with special rituals and ceremonies.  It is logical that such events which are universal in the human experience would be times that religion develops within a society.

My religious upbringing was Lutheran. My mother was raised Methodist; her mother was Methodist and her father Catholic. My father was Norwegian Lutheran. Neither was super religious, but we went to Sunday school each week, we were confirmed and during the seventies, I was marginally involved in the “Jesus freak” phenomenon. For a very short time.

Overall, I consider myself culturally Christian. That is because although I was raised Christian, it has never been a particularly strong influence on my life. We did choose to have our children baptized in the Methodist Church, but stopped attending once they were grown. It was more social than religious. My husband in particular, wanted them to have some religious education as a background  “protection” from cults (this was not long after the Jim Jones tragedy).

I found that I easily remembered the liturgical basics of the ceremony during the memorial service. It is amazing how those things are imprinted on the brain. It is easy to see how they may be comforting to someone who likes routine and ritual.

But it was just a ritual. I do not believe it. I agree with some of the tenets-at least in their most optimistic version. I think that I live “Christian values” to a greater extent than some of the “Christians” I have met. I respect their beliefs, and I do not try to sway them from those beliefs. But if I don’t believe it, what do I believe?

A blogger that I have followed recently discussed the bigotry of the religious against the non-religious. Another has been having ongoing discussions with me about her experience as a Jew in a mainly Christian society. I would not insult her by trying to claim Judaism as my religion, as I see it as beyond a religion, it is an identity, it is an ethnicity, a world view. But I do feel that  I am in sync with some of the ideas I have learned about within Judaism. I need to know more about it.  It seems that religious issues keep presenting themselves to me, forcing me to consider my beliefs more seriously.

What has become crystal clear to me is that I am the one not educated about religion. I have a general grasp of some of the basic tenets of Christianity. But it was not until recently that I learned that there are several chapters of the new testament which were purposely excluded from the Christian Bible. By whom, I ask? I need to know more about this. In hearing more about Judaism, I am impressed at the depth of study and knowledge of my fellow blogger. I am stupid. Not only of Judaism, but of my ancestors and the religion I have been born into. Atheism/Agnosticism: I know that a fellow blogger has declared himself an Atheist, and that he knows vastly more than I about the history and tenets of religion. If I am going to reject religion as my belief system, then I need to know what it is that I reject-all of the details., beyond the fact that I do not believe that one guy’s magic means that all of the believers (and only them) will live in another realm after their physical death. Talk about your cult!

It is an interesting conundrum. To whom does one turn for an education on religion? It would seem that the religions themselves may not be particularly objective nor even complete in the education they would provide as to their own religion. A secular education may not be objective in the opposite manner. I am an educated person. I am intelligent. I don’t feel ready to embark on a formal educational course, primarily due to financial constraints. 

During the past several months I think I have blogged about this. But now I am putting out a question. Does anyone have a suggestion for an education resource which is fair, objective, reasonable and focused more on the historical facts than the “faith” part of religion? I don’t believe, I am not looking to become a believer, but I want to know about it beyond what I got from Sunday school and religion class.

I’m back at this issue……..and I want to make an educated decision about where I stand, what I accept and what I reject. Anyone?

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