Watching "The Idiot" performed by the Plano Senior High theater during senior year was probably the closest to a religious experience I have ever felt, and led me to swiftly and deeply fall in love with the entire cast. Dostoevsky is all about passion; I wonder if I'm not predisposed to being a religious individual myself. I feel like there's something greater to life than what I've been exposed to, but while I'm tempted to translate the feeling into some sort of spiritual explanation, I don't think there exists a proper vehicle for my doing so.
I'm not writing this to disprove Christianity (or any other religion for that matter), but rather to explain my agnosticism.
But after a long conversation with Ning about Christianity today, I've realized that there are certain aspects that I just can't buy into my worldview (sorry, Ning). Listed, they are:
1. The institutionalization of faith-- Religion is something that I see as something that should be first and foremost a personal experience. If I were ever align myself with anything remotely religious I don't think I could ever bring myself to join a church, a fact that means that I would never be able to fully inject myself into any established religions.
2. Monotheism-- I just can't. If someone were to decisively tell me that there exists a greater, godlike force out in the universe, I would be far more willing to accept it as a possibility than the idea of a God-with-a-capital-G.
3. Ideas that come from the Bible like the Armageddon, the fall of man, and even the idea of following kosher, if I'm going to be fair-- All a bit of a stretch of the imagination, I'd say. And don't get me started on the whole "man used to be pure and is gradually becoming more and more depraved" argument. I don't believe humanity is on a downhill spiral, but that's my personal belief and I won't spend time arguing a tangential point of view that will take too long to explain.
4. Other people-- It's fun to talk about religion on an informative this-is-what-I-believe this-is-what-you-believe basis but if it's going to be about missionaries and people telling me what I should believe, that just kills it for me. Just give me the texts and I'll interpret them my own way, kthxbye.
On the contrary, I like to believe that the world is too big for one person to fully comprehend, physically or metaphysically, and that while there are beliefs out there that I can't accept into my personal canon, I can at least keep an open mind and try to understand why other people can.
Also, and this is a remnant from years ago, but I still believe in being Good and Loving Well. Maybe I'll change my point of view as I age, but at nineteen-going-on-twenty, religion-wise, it's all I really need.
In the end, it all comes down to something that Charles Bukowski said, a quote I loved when I was seventeen and still love today:
For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
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