I talked a lot about how my Christian upbringing influenced my ideas about sex in a previous post already, so I'll try not to get into that aspect again here. (If you haven't already read that post, and the others about my thesis, that might be a good place to start.)
I wasn't just raised Christian (Protestant, Baptist, if we want to get specific about it), I loved Christianity. I really did. (I thought I was supposed to.) I loved getting dressed up. (I loved being told how adorable I looked when I was dressed up.) I didn't so much love sitting in the pews during the sermon, but I did love Sunday School, with its fun stories and songs and craft projects and games. I loved VBS (Vacation Bible School) every summer. Again, I think it was the songs and craft projects and games that most lured me in there. I loved singing. I also enjoyed Wednesday night groups (Awana, Pioneer Girls), and youth group, once I got into middle school. I didn't have any real friends at church - or else I would have loved it even more - but sometimes I was able to wrangle friends from school into coming with me.
Most of my friends were not Christian - at least not the way I was. Others were Catholic, and had a Bible that looked slightly different from mine. When we talked about our different experiences, theirs didn't sound as fun as mine. They complained about going to Catechism. It didn't seem to be a defining aspect of their life like my Christianity was in mine. Others weren't Christian at all - though, growing up hearing about missionary trips to convert Catholics to Protestantism, I was kind of under the impression Catholicism wasn't Real Christianity either. I probably lumped my Catholic friends in with my Hindu friends in the categories of my mind. (I didn't know anyone Muslim or Jewish as a kid, but my hometown did have a sizable Indian-American population.)
Other friends seemed not to be religious at all. I knew them for several years before I learned that their families might go to church for Easter or Christmas. I had assumed they were non-religious, even atheists, for two major reasons - 1) they never mentioned religion at all, and 2) they were my "geeky" friends, my friends interested in science and math. You know, atheist subjects. Even if I had known all along that their families were "Holiday Christians," I probably would've still lumped them with the Catholics (etc.). The "Not Real" Christians. The "Not Good Enough" Christians. My family went to church every week, multiple times a week, when my brother and I were in elementary school. We subscribed to Christian magazines. We watched Christian movies. I read Christian romance novels (those geared toward teens and adults alike).
I'm not saying all of that was a bad thing. I'm just describing the way I thought of Christianity. It was a part of me, like having blonde hair or enjoying creating art. It was not a part of my friends' lives (neither was blonde hair, or an interest in art).
This didn't bother me. It was just a fact. I didn't try to "convert" my friends into doodling all over their school papers, and I didn't try to convert them to Christianity. When I did bring friends to church, my purpose was mainly so that I would have someone to talk to at those events, not because I was trying to change them. The only friends I asked to come were ones I knew were Christian already (or nearly so - many were the Catholic friends I knew). I didn't ask the friends I thought were non-religious. I certainly didn't ask my Hindu friends. I thought their parents wouldn't let them come.
And I think that's telling, right there. That I had so many non-Christian friends at public school, but never tried to convert them. Yes, Christianity was important to me. But I kept it separate. I could whole-heartedly believe anyone who didn't believe Jesus had died for their sins would one day burn eternally in hell, and I could be close with people who didn't believe in Jesus as Christ at all (whether because they'd told me, or because I'd assumed), and this did not seem like a contradiction to me.
I have always been good at compartmentalizing.
Or maybe the word is "avoiding."
The way I saw other religions was this - they were fabrications. They had been created by humans to try to explain their world. They were modern mythologies. Christianity was exempt from this status, simply because it was the one I subscribed to.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to seriously consider the possibility that humans had also created Christianity. It took until my junior year of high school - the year I took AP World History and AP English.
I don't remember much of what I learned in 6th/7th grade history (the years we were supposed to be taught "World History"/Western Civ type stuff) - because the teacher didn't teach much of it, or because I spent most of those years passing notes back and forth with my friends (or both) - but the parts I do remember were things that more or less upheld my view. The things we learned about ancient civilizations/Biblical Times occasionally failed to match what I had been taught in Sunday School, but I could easily dismiss these discrepancies by saying, "Well, the school has to teach it that way, talking about Jesus only as a historical figure and not a savior. It's a public school."
Then 8th and 9th grades were U.S. History, and 10th grade was Economics/Government. So it wasn't until 11th grade that I learned any World History again. And this 11th grade course (being an Advanced Placement curriculum) went into a lot of things I'd never been taught (or barely taught) before - Judaism and Islam, Ancient Chinese dynasties, Mongols, the Ottoman Empire, Africa, etc. It probably didn't hurt that at the high school I saw some girls walking around with hijab, and that I had attended (and participated in) the annual Celebration of Diversity that the high school put on every January. I was there for French Club, but most of the participating clubs were ethnic clubs more so than language clubs, and I saw traditional dances from Africa, Ireland, Poland, China, India, and the Middle East. Simply put, I was seeing plenty of evidence of different cultures (and, by extension, different religions), at the same time that I was learning about their historical roots.
The "Aha" moment didn't come from my AP World History class, though - it came from AP English. Our teacher was eccentric to say the least - though he was young, he was bald; he detested the fluorescent school lights and brought in dim floor lamps for his classroom; and he daily took off his shoes and sat, cross-legged, on a pillow on top of his desk to facilitate class discussion. We read novels (Pride and Prejudice, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Beloved, Waterland, The Tempest, Heart of Darkness, etc.) but we also read a ton of articles. Articles that had critical analysis of the books we were reading, articles that discussed the history in which the novel was written, articles that touched on similar themes, etc. So many articles. Most people hated those articles. I did, too. Usually. But I was also a good student, and so I actually read them all, marking them judiciously like we were supposed to.
And one of those articles changed my outlook on Christianity. I may have gotten to this point on my own; perhaps even AP World History, and the friendships I'd forged with a diverse group of people, which were only deepening with time, would have gotten me there junior year without AP English to goad me. But I credit that article as my catalyst. Because that's the truth.
I wish I knew what the article was, or could find it again. I wish I could remember what book/unit the article was part of. All I remember is this -
It was about art/artifacts found in the very first human civilizations, and the notion that ancient humans probably believed in a Great Goddess - centuries before any patriarchal religions were born.
The claims the article made stopped me in my tracks. The article argued that it made sense that humans might deify women before men, given the observable differences between the sexes. Women bled for several days in a row every month - yet didn't die. A man who bled so copiously would never make it. Women also created life - birthed new, tiny babies from their bodies and produced the nutrients necessary to sustain them. Ancient people didn't understand science; they hadn't made the connection that a man's sperm was just as necessary for procreation as a woman's egg. They only knew that women seemed capable of things men could never do.
The evidence (besides it just being, when you think about it, common sense) is enormous - mainly the "fertility goddess" sculptures found all over the world, in nearly every culture.
That article spoke to me. For one thing, I felt like I finally had proof of womanhood's greatness. I had always been outspoken in defense of girls. "Girls are smarter than boys!" "I'm proud to throw like a girl!" etc. (I played softball. There were several pro-girl-athlete cheers that I learned.) But the reason I felt obligated to say such things, to defend my gender, was because I knew there were people who disagreed; who said the opposite. I knew we were on "the losing side." That article made me feel like we could be on the winning side. That there could be things we were inherently better at, things we'd once been deified for, of all things!
It was an idea that made me really, really excited. Because I'd grown up entrenched in a patriarchal religion? Maybe. But more I think because of the whole patriarchal society - not just the church I attended.
The second thing that article did, of course, was convince me that Judaism/Christianity was not the world's first religion. That this idea of the Great Goddess, like the idea of the gods on Mt. Olympus, was created by humans to explain their world - and that if every other religion was a human fabrication, a human structure, Christianity must be too.
It also convinced me that society decided how it wanted its religion to look. That the society that had produced Christianity, and the society that upheld it today, wanted a patriarchy. That they could've chosen something else. That they could've deified women. But they did not.
I did not immediately wash my hands of Christianity. It was a couple more years (until I moved out and went to college) that I started feeling comfortable thinking of myself as an atheist. Cognitive dissonance is not quickly resolved. But that article was the spark that lit my fire.
I don't believe in the Christian God anymore; but neither do I believe in a Great Goddess, or any specific deity. The article didn't "convert" me. It just made me recognize the questions I had been neglecting to ask myself about my religion. I think I always knew something was "off" - that there was something about Christianity that I found doubtful, or something about it that I wanted to dislike - but until I read that article, I didn't let myself go there. The article didn't "change me" - it helped me recognize who I actually was.
I am not against the idea of god(s), or Christianity. It's just not for me. I want to make that clear (because I know some people who read this blog do believe in god(s)). I know that religion can be a great and wonderful thing for a great many wonderful people. I know it can be used for good (and has been). But it is not for me, and it would be a lie to pretend that it is.
I wasn't just raised Christian (Protestant, Baptist, if we want to get specific about it), I loved Christianity. I really did. (I thought I was supposed to.) I loved getting dressed up. (I loved being told how adorable I looked when I was dressed up.) I didn't so much love sitting in the pews during the sermon, but I did love Sunday School, with its fun stories and songs and craft projects and games. I loved VBS (Vacation Bible School) every summer. Again, I think it was the songs and craft projects and games that most lured me in there. I loved singing. I also enjoyed Wednesday night groups (Awana, Pioneer Girls), and youth group, once I got into middle school. I didn't have any real friends at church - or else I would have loved it even more - but sometimes I was able to wrangle friends from school into coming with me.
Most of my friends were not Christian - at least not the way I was. Others were Catholic, and had a Bible that looked slightly different from mine. When we talked about our different experiences, theirs didn't sound as fun as mine. They complained about going to Catechism. It didn't seem to be a defining aspect of their life like my Christianity was in mine. Others weren't Christian at all - though, growing up hearing about missionary trips to convert Catholics to Protestantism, I was kind of under the impression Catholicism wasn't Real Christianity either. I probably lumped my Catholic friends in with my Hindu friends in the categories of my mind. (I didn't know anyone Muslim or Jewish as a kid, but my hometown did have a sizable Indian-American population.)
Other friends seemed not to be religious at all. I knew them for several years before I learned that their families might go to church for Easter or Christmas. I had assumed they were non-religious, even atheists, for two major reasons - 1) they never mentioned religion at all, and 2) they were my "geeky" friends, my friends interested in science and math. You know, atheist subjects. Even if I had known all along that their families were "Holiday Christians," I probably would've still lumped them with the Catholics (etc.). The "Not Real" Christians. The "Not Good Enough" Christians. My family went to church every week, multiple times a week, when my brother and I were in elementary school. We subscribed to Christian magazines. We watched Christian movies. I read Christian romance novels (those geared toward teens and adults alike).
I'm not saying all of that was a bad thing. I'm just describing the way I thought of Christianity. It was a part of me, like having blonde hair or enjoying creating art. It was not a part of my friends' lives (neither was blonde hair, or an interest in art).
This didn't bother me. It was just a fact. I didn't try to "convert" my friends into doodling all over their school papers, and I didn't try to convert them to Christianity. When I did bring friends to church, my purpose was mainly so that I would have someone to talk to at those events, not because I was trying to change them. The only friends I asked to come were ones I knew were Christian already (or nearly so - many were the Catholic friends I knew). I didn't ask the friends I thought were non-religious. I certainly didn't ask my Hindu friends. I thought their parents wouldn't let them come.
And I think that's telling, right there. That I had so many non-Christian friends at public school, but never tried to convert them. Yes, Christianity was important to me. But I kept it separate. I could whole-heartedly believe anyone who didn't believe Jesus had died for their sins would one day burn eternally in hell, and I could be close with people who didn't believe in Jesus as Christ at all (whether because they'd told me, or because I'd assumed), and this did not seem like a contradiction to me.
I have always been good at compartmentalizing.
Or maybe the word is "avoiding."
The way I saw other religions was this - they were fabrications. They had been created by humans to try to explain their world. They were modern mythologies. Christianity was exempt from this status, simply because it was the one I subscribed to.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to seriously consider the possibility that humans had also created Christianity. It took until my junior year of high school - the year I took AP World History and AP English.
I don't remember much of what I learned in 6th/7th grade history (the years we were supposed to be taught "World History"/Western Civ type stuff) - because the teacher didn't teach much of it, or because I spent most of those years passing notes back and forth with my friends (or both) - but the parts I do remember were things that more or less upheld my view. The things we learned about ancient civilizations/Biblical Times occasionally failed to match what I had been taught in Sunday School, but I could easily dismiss these discrepancies by saying, "Well, the school has to teach it that way, talking about Jesus only as a historical figure and not a savior. It's a public school."
Then 8th and 9th grades were U.S. History, and 10th grade was Economics/Government. So it wasn't until 11th grade that I learned any World History again. And this 11th grade course (being an Advanced Placement curriculum) went into a lot of things I'd never been taught (or barely taught) before - Judaism and Islam, Ancient Chinese dynasties, Mongols, the Ottoman Empire, Africa, etc. It probably didn't hurt that at the high school I saw some girls walking around with hijab, and that I had attended (and participated in) the annual Celebration of Diversity that the high school put on every January. I was there for French Club, but most of the participating clubs were ethnic clubs more so than language clubs, and I saw traditional dances from Africa, Ireland, Poland, China, India, and the Middle East. Simply put, I was seeing plenty of evidence of different cultures (and, by extension, different religions), at the same time that I was learning about their historical roots.
The "Aha" moment didn't come from my AP World History class, though - it came from AP English. Our teacher was eccentric to say the least - though he was young, he was bald; he detested the fluorescent school lights and brought in dim floor lamps for his classroom; and he daily took off his shoes and sat, cross-legged, on a pillow on top of his desk to facilitate class discussion. We read novels (Pride and Prejudice, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Beloved, Waterland, The Tempest, Heart of Darkness, etc.) but we also read a ton of articles. Articles that had critical analysis of the books we were reading, articles that discussed the history in which the novel was written, articles that touched on similar themes, etc. So many articles. Most people hated those articles. I did, too. Usually. But I was also a good student, and so I actually read them all, marking them judiciously like we were supposed to.
And one of those articles changed my outlook on Christianity. I may have gotten to this point on my own; perhaps even AP World History, and the friendships I'd forged with a diverse group of people, which were only deepening with time, would have gotten me there junior year without AP English to goad me. But I credit that article as my catalyst. Because that's the truth.
I wish I knew what the article was, or could find it again. I wish I could remember what book/unit the article was part of. All I remember is this -
It was about art/artifacts found in the very first human civilizations, and the notion that ancient humans probably believed in a Great Goddess - centuries before any patriarchal religions were born.
The claims the article made stopped me in my tracks. The article argued that it made sense that humans might deify women before men, given the observable differences between the sexes. Women bled for several days in a row every month - yet didn't die. A man who bled so copiously would never make it. Women also created life - birthed new, tiny babies from their bodies and produced the nutrients necessary to sustain them. Ancient people didn't understand science; they hadn't made the connection that a man's sperm was just as necessary for procreation as a woman's egg. They only knew that women seemed capable of things men could never do.
The evidence (besides it just being, when you think about it, common sense) is enormous - mainly the "fertility goddess" sculptures found all over the world, in nearly every culture.
That article spoke to me. For one thing, I felt like I finally had proof of womanhood's greatness. I had always been outspoken in defense of girls. "Girls are smarter than boys!" "I'm proud to throw like a girl!" etc. (I played softball. There were several pro-girl-athlete cheers that I learned.) But the reason I felt obligated to say such things, to defend my gender, was because I knew there were people who disagreed; who said the opposite. I knew we were on "the losing side." That article made me feel like we could be on the winning side. That there could be things we were inherently better at, things we'd once been deified for, of all things!
It was an idea that made me really, really excited. Because I'd grown up entrenched in a patriarchal religion? Maybe. But more I think because of the whole patriarchal society - not just the church I attended.
The second thing that article did, of course, was convince me that Judaism/Christianity was not the world's first religion. That this idea of the Great Goddess, like the idea of the gods on Mt. Olympus, was created by humans to explain their world - and that if every other religion was a human fabrication, a human structure, Christianity must be too.
It also convinced me that society decided how it wanted its religion to look. That the society that had produced Christianity, and the society that upheld it today, wanted a patriarchy. That they could've chosen something else. That they could've deified women. But they did not.
I did not immediately wash my hands of Christianity. It was a couple more years (until I moved out and went to college) that I started feeling comfortable thinking of myself as an atheist. Cognitive dissonance is not quickly resolved. But that article was the spark that lit my fire.
I don't believe in the Christian God anymore; but neither do I believe in a Great Goddess, or any specific deity. The article didn't "convert" me. It just made me recognize the questions I had been neglecting to ask myself about my religion. I think I always knew something was "off" - that there was something about Christianity that I found doubtful, or something about it that I wanted to dislike - but until I read that article, I didn't let myself go there. The article didn't "change me" - it helped me recognize who I actually was.
I am not against the idea of god(s), or Christianity. It's just not for me. I want to make that clear (because I know some people who read this blog do believe in god(s)). I know that religion can be a great and wonderful thing for a great many wonderful people. I know it can be used for good (and has been). But it is not for me, and it would be a lie to pretend that it is.
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