Therefore I Am.

It always starts with a creeping feeling of being different. Of being somehow wired differently, in some fundamental way. It sneaks up to me and whispers, You are not of these people, and as soon as the thought has been had, I know it's true. That I've been fooling myself, thinking I can have the kind of faith I see around me and still be who I am. From the outside, it's all I want. When I get inside, I can't put it away from me quickly enough. It smothers. It does not think; it just blankets everything and takes away its value, makes the things I love into things that are said to be shameful. I take a thought and think it as I am so wont to do, turn it over and peer at it and study all its nooks, come up with an answer I can live with, and then immediately compare my answer to the answer of the Christians around me and feel some kind of way about it: sorrowful, or guarded, or angry. Never satisfied.

Example: sexuality. And I'm not talking gay, straight, or bi here. I'm talking sex, period. Any kind of sex. Kinky beyond imagination or good old-fashioned, straight-laced, missionary-style, stay-under-the-covers and for-heaven's-sake-leave-the-lights-off sex. Last time I was at church, I got treated to a sermon on my church's thoughts about sex and felt like I should have my hands cut off, my eyes burned out, and my dirty, dirty tongue removed from my mouth -- and then I got pissed, because religion has been shaming biology for centuries. For the sake of trying to explain what I mean, I will confide that I once conducted an experiment in my own personal sexual values, to wit: I wanted to see if I could have casual sex. Just go out and have sex, all "Slam, bam, thank you ma'am." So that's what I did. As luck or whatever you want to call it will have it, there seem to be a lot more people willing to lay you and leave than there are lay you and stick around to love you. Out of curiosity, I found one of these ladies and, well, laid her. And summarily got laid by her. (And if this kind of talk bothers you, go grow up and come back later.)

As it turns out, I did not enjoy this arrangement. Zero fun. I actually got bored right in the middle of the whole process. Casual sex is not for me, but I don't feel the least bit ashamed of myself for having tried it. And if I had enjoyed it, I'd still be doing it, and I wouldn't be ashamed of myself then either. You know why? Because I am a human being. I have biological drives. Caging or stigmatizing them in ways I do not feel compelled to do is against the very nature of nature. I've always thought it ten thousand different kinds of extra-special bullshit the way we human beings keep clinging to beliefs that are fundamentally designed to shame us. It's almost as if we want to be punished. Religion defines morality, and morality defines religion. It's screwed up.

Example: Sanctity of Life Sunday

I once heard someone say during a sermon on this particular Sunday morning that there is no such thing as an unwanted child. I almost got up and walked out of the church right then. Say that to an unwanted child. Obviously this woman had never been and unwanted child, or no such thing would have ever left her mouth. She was raised in a nice Christian home by a nice, law-abiding family. She was treated fairly and with kindness. What about children whose fathers rape them, whose mothers sell them for cocaine? Children who waste away in their cribs because no one can be bothered with them? Tell one of those children there is no such thing as an unwanted child, and see what she says. I don't feel I'm amiss in my conviction that sometimes, no life is better than a life of misery and suffering. I personally could never have an abortion, but I am not ashamed to say that I don't find it completely repugnant and that in some cases, I even advocate for it -- and that in any case, it is not my place to choose for someone else what to do with a pregnancy. I am not the Procreation Police. And to head off a common argument: yes, I value my life and I want to keep it. But I have no memory whatsoever of being a zygote or a fetus, and therefore would not value life if I had never known myself to have had it. You can't miss something you aren't capable of identifying as yours.

To be perfectly honest, I would be better served right now by making a list of things I do not believe:

1. I do not believe Sin fell upon humankind because Eve ate a damned apple. Ridiculous. It's a myth, a tool to explain why bad things happen in the world. Every religion ever conceived has had such a story.

2. I do not believe a man named Noah built a boat and put two of every kind of animal that has ever existed upon it. I call shenanigans. Do you know how many species of insects there are, alone? Millions. There exist on this earth animals no human eye has ever seen. The Ark? Myth, myth, myth. Look up The Epic of Gilgamesh. 

These are just a few things. There are more. Many, many more. Jonah got swallowed by a whale and lived in its belly? Bullshit. Samson was strong because he had long, luxurious hair? Bullshit. What boggles my mind is  the general inability and/or refusal of so many people around me to see these things as what they are: stories. Fables really, generally having morals apparent or hidden. What's even worse is the way things are twisted to suit so many personal uses:a thing is a story when that suits us, or a hard and fast commandment when that suits us.

I'm not saying anyone from my church intentionally does any of this. They don't. It's all subconscious, but then, that's the problem: so many people only think that they are thinking, or learning, or teaching themselves -- when really what they're doing is regurgitating everything they've been told to think in slightly different costumes, so that essentially everyone ends up with the same damned circus.

Sometimes I envy people this. Sometimes it seems that I was born a thinker, an analyst, a cynic, a truth-seeker, and that I have never been truly at rest in my own head since the moment I knew I was alive. Sometimes I think it would be a relief to be one of the sheeple, to walk within well-defined parameters. It's hard to think so much. Sometimes I think things that absolutely terrify me, but I can no more not think them than I can hold my breath and expect not to faint. All this thinking is a part of me, even when I want to run from it screaming with my hands over my ears. If I cease to think, I cease to be. I think, therefore I am. If I think not, I am not. Etcetera. 

I try to tell myself that I can hold to my own convictions and continue to commune with my church-going friends on a sermon and study basis just to take what I need and leave the rest, just to feed my own spiritual hunger and leave the table when I'm through, but I have an inherent problem with this: it's a lie by omission. I have stopped going to Bible study because I don't believe that one book is the be-all and end-all of the Divine will of the universe, but I don't have a right to dismantle the faith of people who do. By trying to work my spirituality into their sanctions and biting my tongue instead of calling bullshit, I am leading them to believe that I am of like mind when in fact I am not. I don't like this because I don't like fooling people to achieve my own ends. But spiritually, I am lonely. I have only met one other person on par with my thoughts in these matters: Biz. Without her, I would be stranded on a desert island of spiritual isolation, and I am overjoyed to have her. But something in my human make-up craves more ... belongingness, is the only way I can describe it. I usually laugh and say I flout convention, but the cold, hard truth is that we all want to groupthink. We all want a merry little band of kindred spirits to bop around with. I belong to a group of people who like to say we laugh and flout convention. I need that. And I need something else, and I'm not getting that something else.

I often wonder if I keep trying Christianity because it's ingrained. I run forth and keep hitting a wall: bump, bump, bump. Then I wonder if I'd fit in anywhere: would a make a good Buddhist or a Hindu or a Taoist or a Pagan, or an adherent to Pastafarianism? All Hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster; holy is He. Sometimes I wonder if deep down I'm an atheist, and the thought terrifies me so much that I'd rather keep fooling myself than admit it. Why else would I keep putting my idiot self through this?

If my brain had an "off" switch, I might actually rest someday.