oh, god.
I don’t remember hearing much about religion until we moved to a small village when I was seven. Suddenly we were in a more middle-class area, and not only did it seem like everyone there went to church, it seemed like everyone there wanted us to go to church, too.
That wasn’t likely to happen.
I can’t think of one member of my family who ever expressed a belief in God. My grandma always said the Bible seemed like a load of made-up stories to her, that she just couldn’t get behind the concept of some bearded man in the sky watching over us. And she used to teach Sunday school.
My Dad has no interest in religion, no time for spirituality. My mum hedges her bets and always ticks the “agnostic” box on forms that ask for religious information. But I wasn’t christened, because my parents thought it would be hypocritical considering they had no intention of ever going to church.
Image: Flickr/takomabibelot
When the kids at my new school found out I hadn’t been christened (and only God – or whoever – knows how we got into that conversation), they couldn’t believe it. They said that unless you were christened, you didn’t really have a name. Maybe didn’t even exist. You were certainly going to hell. Who had told them this? Their loving Christian parents, of course.
I had one friend whose mother refused to speak to me as if I was a human being. From what I could gather, this was because I didn’t go to church – and didn’t even feel bad about it. When I was eight, she acted as chaperone on a school trip to one of the local churches (yes, there were several). It was my First Time.
We’d been told to bring some money with us for the collection, but I was scared because I didn’t know how these things worked. It sounded simple enough: add money to the plate that was passed around. But how much money? Did I have to say anything? Which direction should I pass it in next? What if it was too heavy for me to hold? There was a lot to worry about.
That morning, my mum handed me a little baggie with some change in it and told me to relax. So I did. When the collection plate came round, I pulled out the baggie and confidently emptied it onto the plate. Too late, I realised there was too much money. It fell for what felt like hours; an echoey, jangling cascade of ten- five- and two-pence pieces. Everyone turned to look at me. People started giggling. My friend’s mother, sitting at the end of our row, loudly whispered to the woman next to her, “Some people have no idea.” My face flushed.
The religious didn’t take me into their fold that day. In fact, their opinion of me soon worsened as my parents did something even more shocking than my collection plate fiasco: they got divorced.
As my Dad moved on to another wife, I moved on to another friend, Ella. Her mother didn’t approve of me either. She held a yearly Christmas party and Ella was always allowed to bring a pal. Every year except the ones we were BFF, that is. “Sorry Diane, family only,” her mother would say, smiling beatifically. Behind the scenes, she told her daughter I was a bad influence. Of course, it was no big deal that her own good friend had just moved in with a married man, tearing apart two families in the process. She went to church.
Do I sound bitter? I am, a bit. But mostly I just want to make clear that religion and I started off on the wrong foot. And not just socially. There was religious instruction (read: brainwashing) at school, too. We were made to bow our heads and say the Lord’s prayer at every assembly for years on end. For years on end I bowed my head and, resenting being told what to do, kept my eyes open and studied the floor, allowing my mind to wander.
After one assembly, when I was about thirteen, a local religious group came to school to hand out Bibles. A gift, no strings! (…Except read it, love it and join us in prayer, hinted their smiles.) As they passed through our ranks, I cringed to see friends of mine who were self-declared atheists meekly accepting their Good Books. When the Bible-givers got to me, I stuck to my principles. “No, thank you.” A few weeks later, our Religious Education teacher told us all to bring those same Bibles to school. Instead, I brought my grandma’s old Sunday school Bible, the only one we had.
“What are you doing with that? Where’s the one you were given?” The teacher shouted at me from the other side of the room.
“Oh, I didn’t want one of those. They said it wasn’t compulsory…” I trailed off.
“What a STUPID thing to do!” She screamed, slamming her hand into a desk.
By the time I got to university, I was a pretty devout religion-hater. All my friends from school were atheists, except one, My Most Religious Friend, who sometimes went to church five times a day. For fun. (I accepted this because she was so unlike my other friends: she was upper class, a size six and had sex on a regular basis. She was clearly a different species.)
Then something surprising happened. At university, I made great friends with three girls who were on my wavelength, who were kind and funny rather than judge-y or pious.
And every one of them was religious.
At first, I was prejudiced against them. I didn’t understand their faith. “How can otherwise intelligent people go to church? It makes no sense,” I thought. And sometimes said. Still, they learned to love me despite my rampant atheism. As I told them, more than once, I didn’t lack belief. I actually had a wholehearted belief that God did NOT exist in any form that any religion had ever espoused and was just a concept to make us feel better about the futility of life and the inevitability of death.
Then when I was twenty-seven… well, it’s kind of embarrassing. But I had what could perhaps be described as a… um … OK. Here’s the thing:
I had a kind of… religious experience.
I was being treated by a psychologist and one day in 2006, she was guiding me through a self-help technique which involves tuning in to your body and feeling what emotions are there, until (eventually) you get to a happy place, or at least a happier place. I desperately needed some relief from the crushing depression which had plagued me since I was nineteen. So screwing up my courage, I dived in. I slowed my breath, lowered my shoulders, focused on bodily sensations… and…
WHAM! I felt a huge, heavy brick of grief, right in my gut. Owowoowowowowowow.
“It’s okay, just focus on it, let that feeling come in, accept it, and then let it go.”
I breathed it out. I breathed in. The brick felt slightly lighter.
“Now what feeling might be under the grief, just poking through?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just tune into your body and see.”
Okay. Deep breath… focusing. Sadness. It’s sadness! Tears started to flow. I felt devastated. But I was also on a high. I didn’t feel numb with grief for the first time in a long time. It was wonderful, feeling so horrible. I cried some more.
On we went, through regret, despair, anger, sorrow, each layer of feeling subtly different, each revealing another. Until, finally:
“And now what’s here?”
“Relief,” I said at last, realising it was true. I felt calmer, more at peace.
“And what’s under that…?
WHAM!
For the first time I could remember, all anxiety and negativity fell away. I was filled with pure, unadulterated hope. In fact, it felt like I was shimmering with it, vibrating. I was swooning. I was swimming in a pool of exquisitely clear turquoise water. I wanted to stay there forever. It was incredible. It was transcendent. Then just as suddenly, it was over. And I felt changed forever, in some small, secret way.
If I had been a religious person, I would have probably thought I was communing with God in those wonderful moments. With my atheist background, I understood the experience as coming from my own brain, but what if it didn’t matter which interpretation was the ‘right’ one? In fact, what if they were both the same thing?
I didn’t become a Believer that day, or any day since, but I did become a believer, small b. What some people might call God I prefer to think of as a universal life force, like Tao or chi. Some call it Truth.
A few weeks after my Religious Awakening of Sorts, My Most Religious Friend and I went to a wedding together. We got talking about religion (because what else do girls talk about when there are no decent single men?) and realised – amazingly, to me, as I recalled her frequent church visits – that we were more or less on the same page.
“I don’t think going to church makes you a better person or anything,” She said. “I just feel really close to God there, and it makes me feel good.”
“I think I’ve experienced the feeling that some people call God,” I told her. “I just don’t feel comfortable calling it that.”
“Well, the name doesn’t matter – it’s the feeling that counts,” she smiled, making the point I was expecting to have to argue.
Ugh. I knew what this meant. I could no longer screw up my face in confusion at the ultra-religious. I could no longer love my friends except for their religiosity. I had started to become… tolerant.
That doesn’t mean I’ve become a fan of Christianity, or any other organised religion. I flirted with Buddhism for a while, then I read a quote from the Dalai Lama about homosexuality being unnatural and thought Oh, no.
Since childhood, I’ve seen too much ignorance and intolerance from religious organisations to ever find the church a place of love. But a couple of years ago, I spoke to a woman who was horrifically abused as a child, and she said that church was her only safe place during that time. Hearing that, I felt my prejudices loosen a little more.
Now my only quibble is with extremists. I find fundamentalist atheism (those books and TV shows which aim to definitively prove that there is no God) as offensive as fundamentalist Christianity. Plus, people who spend their precious time on earth trying to convert others to their viewpoint using science and “logic” are completely missing the point. The point being:
a. There may be no logic to ANY of this
And
b. Those who B/believe don’t care about scientific evidence: not because they’re a bunch of backwater hicks but because the loving embrace of God/chi/Truth feels better than winning any battle of egos.
These days, if someone asks me about my faith, I say it’s complicated. And when it comes to form-filling, I no longer tick the “atheist” box with pride.
The “agnostic” one is much more inviting.
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This needs to be published properly!
(I laughed, I cried…) What a wonderful writer you are. Wish I could take the credit…
Love you xxx
I’m learning to be tolerant in the other direction.
I’ve never been much of a churchgoer, just a believer. And not a scary-ass, convert all comers believer. Just a quiet, this-is-what-I-think-is-there believer. And I suspect not even the Pope believes in a ‘bearded man in the sky’. For some reason that’s become the default description for children, but it’s not one I or any of the people with faith I know think much of.
But I did get heartily sick of being hated and scorned by people who didn’t even know me just because I happen to see things differently, and because some people claim to be religious and are also arseholes. That’s like saying all people who are parents are completely abusive bastards, because some are, and being a parent is a choice, like faith.
People are so quick to blame faith instead of blaming people.
I never had a problem with people not believing, or believing there is definitely nothing; I still don’t. But I do have a problem with liking people ‘EVEN IF they ARE religious’. I’m not having a dig here; I did the same in the other way! I used to like people ‘EVEN IF they ARE atheists’. Sure, my friends are going to make lots of choices I’m not that keen on, but if I have to itemise and exempt all the things they do that I don’t like before they’re deemed good enough, then why am I friends with them in the first place? Oh, yeah, cos their faith – or lack of it – is probably nothing to do with anything and pretty much none of my business unless they choose to make it so. (In which case our friendship might be over because they’re bossy and interfering.
)
I’m glad that you’ve found a way to deal with other people’s belief, just as I’ve found a way to deal with lack of it. It’s a much nicer place to be, isn’t it?
Hi Alex,
“Sure, my friends are going to make lots of choices I’m not that keen on, but if I have to itemise and exempt all the things they do that I don’t like before they’re deemed good enough, then why am I friends with them in the first place? Oh, yeah, cos their faith – or lack of it – is probably nothing to do with anything and pretty much none of my business unless they choose to make it so. (In which case our friendship might be over because they’re bossy and interfering.”
That pretty much sums it up! I feel faith is intensely private. But I’ve known more people who disagree with that than who agree, unfortunately. How interesting that you’ve come to it from the other direction – the world really *is* a better place when we can respect each other’s beliefs. And I do (now) respect even very traditional Christians – up to the point they spout hatred (including homophobia and misogyny, which I why I’ll never respect this Pope).
Btw, I do know that not all Believers are into the whole ‘big man in the sky’ myth, but it was pretty standard when I grew up and grew sick of religion. Perhaps it proves that making faith simple for kids isn’t the best way to get them interested. (And maybe they could make their own decisions later instead of having it forced on them. Good morals don’t depend on religion, after all.) x
ps: And thanks Mum/Maz, for laughing and crying etc!
Although I never had any negative experiences of religion growing up (pretty much your average CofE ubringing, plus brief ‘teenage Christian’ phase), I’m pretty much on the same page as you are now – agnostic, and comfortable with that.
Really interesting article, Diane! I’m born and bred Catholic, very comfortable with my faith, but endured similar bullying to you because of it, both through my childhood and into adulthood. (For example, when I lived in Scotland, a group of D’s acquaintances expected me to be a Bible-bashing conversion machine and to hate a particular gay fellow in their group. They were so far off base, I couldn’t believe it. And they were predominantly horrible to me because I was Christian.)
I don’t really have much to add, only that I’d like to share that my experience has not been of the ‘big bearded guy in the sky’, rather, that God is Love. That pure feeling you felt in your meditation with your psych – that’s what my time with God feels like.
Also, I really dislike “Bible-bashing” or forcing one’s beliefs down someone else’s throat. Instead, I believe in living life by setting a Christ-like example: of compassion, strength, love, friendship.. all those wonderful qualities, which I think anyone would appreciate in others around them. I also believe in a life of learning, because I want to be the best person that I can be… not necessarily because “God tells me I have to”, more that I’m happiest when I do these things (so it doesn’t bother me that the Bible does suggest taking that particular path
.
Anyway, mainly rambling. But thank you for the opportunity to learn more about you and to share something of my own heart.
xx
What a fantastic post. I really enjoyed reading it. I was brought up a Christian too unfortunately but I never subscribed to it.
I’m an agnostic like you, and also very happy.
Hi Anne-Marie, Erin and Siriol *waves*
Thanks for your lovely comments.
Erin, you sound like the best kind of Christian, it’s so sad that people haven’t always given you the chance to demonstate how lovely you are. I too think that Christ was a fantastic role model (and that he wouldn’t care less if people feel the love of God in church, at home, or in some secular way which rejects the term ‘God’ entirely – what he was trying to teach was beyond words, after all). x
Diane – I think you’re right. I feel closest to God when I’m singing/playing piano/listening to beautiful music, in the sunrises and sunsets, in majestic nature, in the smallest most perfect little flower.. I don’t mind going to Church (am a bit lax about it, admittedly), and I believe in and have a relationship with Christ every day (not just Sundays), and I too think what he espoused was, as you said, beyond words.
I’ve really enjoyed reading the Bible recently (a friend suggested it), because it’s not really something I’ve ever done. There’s a lot of beauty in it (including cognitive behaviour therapy!), some very good advice and some beautiful frameworks to build a life on. I actually find it quite calming. Except, y’know, the fire and brimstone chapters. *g*
I’m with your mum. I read this with my mouth hanging open in awe. You are amazing.
Wow, thank you Keris. That means a lot. xx
Shall we start a mutual appreciation society?
Can I join the fan club? Amazing Diane, just amazing.
Thank you Zoe! I’m blushing now. x
My friend once said to me: “I believe in god like I believe in this table. I know it’s here but nobody wants to hear me go on about it.”
I’m in the maybe camp. I’m a non-practising Jew. Or rather a non-observant Jew, for reasons so well-thought-out that when, say, a rabbi asked me, my answer made so much sense he agreed. (But it’s all a bit personal to go into on t’internet.) And I am not a non-believer. I have my own personal reasons for possibly believing and they are my own business; and if they are down to nurture and culture and are thus manufactured (as a friend insists they must be – though he claims to believe in Darwinism but, when I asked him, admitted he’d not READ any Darwin) then, well, so be it.
I despise militant atheism, because I don’t think it’s nice to imply all religious people are stupid. Someone (I forget who…) recently said militant atheists can be the worst for being dogmatic. And I just think people should open their minds a bit. Like when they say it’s obvious there’s no god and atheism is obviously right. Okay, then. How did we all get here, please?
The day I become an atheist is the day someone figures out the answers to life, the universe and everything. Because we don’t know, and none of the people who claim to can answer these big questions. I’m happy sort of believing and not really knowing.
/waffle
Ha, I love your friend’s comment. I really respect believers who don’t shove it down your throat.
I’m happy not knowing, too. And if someone else thinks they do ‘know’, well as long as they’re not trying to convert me then that’s OK too.
“maybe they could make their own decisions later instead of having it forced on them. Good morals don’t depend on religion, after all.”
If you’ll forgive the religious reference, amen to that.