Religion is always one of those tricky
things. I was lucky enough to never have such matters forced upon my
life. The religious extent of my childhood was being christened,
attending my sister's christening, and going to a primary school that
had prayers in assemblies. Moving into my teenage years, my worldly
views and scope expanded and I thought, 'Well, out of all the
religions, Christianity sounds about the best'.
Things really took off around the age
of fourteen or fifteen, when I started praying nightly. There were
six prayers I'd always try to say (in my head) before I drifted off
to sleep.
- - The Lord's Prayer (or at least my garbled attempt at it).
I was aware of the fact that missed out / messed up a few lines, but never really cared enough to learn the proper thing. I always opened with this as a sort of general prayer. It felt terribly rude requesting the prayers that followed, without paying some respects first. - - Prayer of Financial Stability.
Speaks for itself. I was aware I was in a nice home with nice things, and didn't want that to change. - - Prayer of Protection.
This was to protect me from threats both supernatural and realistic. The full list of things I prayed against was: ghosts, ghouls, phantoms, spectres, wraiths, spirits, poltergeists, demons, monsters, aliens, fallen angels, insects, arachnids, weirdos, psychos, nutters, mentalists, murderers, rapists, kidnappers, thieves, stalkers, yobbos, vandals, vagabonds, zombies, and husks. - - Prayer Against Nightmares.
This might have been what started it. At about this age, I was absolutely petrified of having nightmares. I still imagine them to be highly unpleasant and rarely have them. But at this age I could not imagine anything more terrifying. - - Prayer Against Nastiness.
I might be able to deal with other people's stupidity now a days, and back then I was certainly able to do so. But at the same time, I did reason that it would be far easier if I simply prayed people were nice – and didn't want to beat me up. - - Prayer Against Mini / Waking Nightmares.
Ah ha! Nightmares again! Yes well this was a protection against what I deemed mini / waking nightmares. They were a particularly nasty variety that could be encountered when just on the fringe of sleep. You could be thinking about some perfectly innocent thought, when suddenly one line, phrase, or image, would come crashing out of nowhere, on full volume, right in your face, like a really horrid jump- scare.
That was that, my nightly prayers for
the next six or so years. However with the realisation of my
homosexuality, there came the realisation that some aspects of
Christianity kind of treat that as an abomination. So in lieu of
this, I decided to call myself a 'Custom Christian', picking and
choosing the parts of the religion which best suited me (the prayers
and Heaven / Hell system).
From here, nothing really changed until
I met my boyfriend. It just so happened that on some nights, I forgot
to pray. I had in fact prayed aloud once, just to prove too him that
I did. But on the nights I didn't, I had no idea why. I think,
looking on then and now, I stopped because he replaced what prayer
was there for. I prayed mainly for protection from various things.
When I was with him, I felt safe enough as I was. This was
especially noticeable when, on the rare occasions when for one reason
or another, we slept separately – I automatically prayed.
Thus, last year I downgraded myself
from 'Custom Christian' to 'Decidedly Agnostic'. My mind developed a
more scientific edge. I can safely say that I have seen no conclusive
proof that ghosts or aliens exist. I'm open to the possibility, I
simply haven't seen anything to convince me. The same goes for God. I
believe it's far more likely life originated from the Big Bang,
rather than the Garden of Eden. I almost thought it was disrespectful
to keep praying, especially
if I didn't really believe in what I was saying.
But then there's the Heaven and Hell
conundrum. The other reason I believed in Christianity. It comforts
me a great deal to imagine that bad people get what's coming to them
and that nice people get to live forever in paradise. But even my
idea of afterlife is skewed. I decided that if I went to Heaven, yes
it would be brilliant having my own patch of afterlife designed into
my perfect world where I could do whatever I wanted forever and ever.
But eventually I could imagine it would tire. So I decided that my
afterlife will be a multiple choice one. Heaven / Ghost /
Reincarnation. I think after several (hundred?) years or so, I'd go
for reincarnation, just to see how differently things could turn out.
This vision of the afterlife is the one I still hold.
But is that fair? Why should I get to
have a Heaven, without believing in the rest of it? That's just it, I
only seek a Heaven-like state. I don't really think I'll have the
power to live in Paralex, or fly, or spawn infinite chocolate. Maybe
it's just the final moments of a dying mind, the last spark of brain
activity warped into the span of an eternity, where my consciousness
experiences whatever it wants to, until I can finally come to terms
with nothingness.
So it comes to pass – I think I'm an
Atheist. Of course I was presented with a common problem when I
confided these feelings in my boyfriend. He was initially
uncomfortable with the idea and asked: “Well what's the point then?
If you don't believe in anything?” I'll admit this shut me up for a
little while and actually made me reconsider the whole thing. It must
be such a cold and sad world for Atheists.
Except not really. Because I would
never say that I don't have belief or faith. I believe completely in
the capacity for goodness. I have faith that Humanity will always do
the right thing, in the end. Just because I don't worship a man in
the clouds, doesn't mean my life is empty. Not one bit.
Sure, Christianity is still a great
story and I don't think any less of people who believe in that or any
other religion (except when it leads to pointless intolerance). If
God descended from the sky right now, with complete proof of his
existence, I'd be one of the first to fall down and eat my words...
… Or on second thought, I'd probably
presume he's a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, who was masquerading as
'God' to win over gullible Humans!
