migblog

"atheism is a philosophy without hope." -- dr. william lane craig at the existence of god lecture in wheeler auditorium, february 21.

yes, i know what you're thinking. why did i go to such a lecture? in light of many things that have been happening, i decided that a relationship with such a being -- a person, i guess -- would have been really fundamental and helpful during such times of crises. not to say that i'll only look to god for crises, but the fact that he will listen at anytime and to know that someone out there doesn't care about all the false fronts i put up (if you only knew what was going on inside my head...), that someone will love me for who i am and not what i am. it's a truly beautiful thing to have such the relationship with god.

and i'm very appreciative of the level of respect that dr. craig showed to non-christians at the lecture. smack in the middle, he said, "must we believe in god in order to lead good and decent lives? no." the fact alone that he acknowledged atheistic premise made me want to get up and shake his hand. he made many good points, most of what i was brought up with (growing up roman catholic and all), that really made me re-evaluate my current religious situation.

i think somewhere around last week or two weeks ago, sam, kim and i talked about our relationships with god and religion as a whole and how it affected our lives. i recounted how i felt cheated and misled by the catholic church, smokescreening me of all the hypocrisy of the "evangelism" that they preached about. it said once to "love your neighbor," but then "stone him to death" if he ever said the lord's name in vain. or how sins, no matter how big or small, would still land you in hell. the fact that stealing a car and killing somebody would ultimately lead to the same place irked me. i know that altogether it was a different level of objective "wrongness," but still, hell is hell and that was that. salvation seemed to be impossible and unreachable, something only priests and nuns and holy people would be able to achieve.

then the whole sex scandal happened with the catholic priests. i was ashamed to say i was raised catholic when the shit hit the fan. salvation then seemed to be impossible for the holy people too -- they gave in to the temptation that was right before them, something they should have rejected so easily with the aid of god. how was a regular person like me, a daily sinner, an atheist, even, going to get saved?

what bothered me with the smokescreening and the hypocrisy was that the church never gave us reasons as to why things were the way they were. it wasn't cool to me that they were telling me to preach about being humble and modest while they were trying to remodel the church, and how church had become this routine of sit-kneel-stand-kneel-sit, and then it turned into a game of "who could donate the most money to the parish this week" which made the church look like embezzling politicians struggling to stay alive. then my church all of a sudden had to have the best wine, the best facilities, the best organ, the best pews. i didn't care, i only wanted to get close to god. and i didn't know that i had to pay a membership fee to do that.

church became an absolute joke to me once i moved to california. coming from a strict catholic background, i was surprised my mother didn't go to church as often as i was used to. every sunday morning used to be the time to look your best and have something to chat up with the priest as you entered the cathedral. now it was get up saunter around the house. i remember going to church frequently my seventh grade year. and then i fell out of the catholic belief system as my faith in the church deteriorated. i stopped going, and every time that i did go, it felt superficial and superfluous: christmas, easter, thanksgiving... church became synonymous with holidays, and then it became commercialized, and then it cheapened the experience. so much for god, i was thinking, i could might as well be at work right now getting paid.

atheism, then, seemed to be the most logical step in order to maximize my growth as a person as well as life experience in general. in a lot of my lowest times, in transition to becoming an "american," an adolescent, and a child to a mother (whom i had not seen until four years previous), i was doubting whether or not god could help me. everything seemed harder to do. i felt ridiculous trying to stay sane in transitioning -- i had no friends, the parent figure whom i had known for so long was literally halfway around the world, and this newfangled demand on church was straining me. the easiest thing to do and cope with was ridding myself of the worries about god, about whether or not he would consider me a good person for doing such a thing.

it hit me finally that god was something i was forced to live with. i didn't want that kind of relationship with a person, where i'm forced to spend every waking moment searching for approval and love and salvation from this imperfect life. i wanted the imperfection, i wanted the ugliness to shine, i wanted life to be life, as actual as it is, with the dirt and the guts that no one ever gets to see or hear about. i was content in knowing that sooner or later i might have to eat my words and come back to god someday, but i had to take the time to stop my ties with him and re-evaluate my life altogether. so many things were changing at once, and i couldn't handle searching for god's approval every time i did something new or out of the ordinary.

and so i am an atheist. like i said, it might change sooner or later, who knows. god can wait for me just a little bit longer because he loves me. and the fact that he does, without me even acknowledging his existence (yeah yeah, i'm being so hypocritical right now), it makes me feel good about the stance i'm taking.

marking the survey out during the lecture, sam put in "all of the above" when prompted to put your choice of religion: christian, agnostic, atheist, and other. i think i'm more in the same boat as he is, where we're constantly changing our views on the same subject.

who knows if there's a god. if there is, cool; if there's not, cool. my premise still stands: be a good person. it'll pay off in the end.

posted by Open Source Food @ 11:07 PM