Agnostic in America
Being agnostic in America is tough these days.
Even when you live in Cambridge, Massachusetts...but maybe that's just because my mother is still only an instant message away. "Do you go to church?" her purple text shouts above a calming pink background.
I don't have anything against churches. Well, maybe just a tad against those that interpret my natural curiosity and intellectual skepticism as proof of certain damnation. Call me sensitive, but it's not a pleasant vision, my friends and I the seasonings for a stew of globulous primordial slime forever nearing boil. Plus, I've grown somewhat fond of my recalcitrance, offering it as a slightly more matured substitute for the Betty Boop curls and bright red lipstick I wore when I first moved to Boston 10 years ago.
There's this belief among the country's most conservatively religious, especially those in leadership positions, that nonreligious folk are immoral. And yet, there is Tom Delay indicted on a conspiracy charge; there is Bill Frist under investigation for a shady stock trade; there is Pat Robertson suggesting we kill another country's president. My agnostic friends and I, we're low-key in comparison.
My friend Meghan went apple picking recently, and spoke to me of the guilt she felt in sampling the apples that had fallen to the ground. "I went out of my way to find ones with worm holes," Meghan offered in an attempt to assuage what was eating away at her. I absolved her of this dubious transgression as best I could: "Some four year old might have slipped on it," I said. "He would have had to go home early and miss the hay ride."
I am of the mindset that morality comes with natural human development. You learn many important things early in life: if you see that you have hurt someone, you will commonly feel uneasy for doing so; when you are kind to someone, when you visit an elderly person in a nursing home, when you raise money for a community in need, you feel happy, alive. Just as we learn to breathe, we learn to love and care. The assertions of the conservative right that only those who believe in God know right from wrong have endlessly been disproved not only by their own subversions of the belief system they advocate, but by the beautifully compassionate and selfless actions of all the nonreligious people I know.
Several years ago, I was a volunteer at Ground Zero in New York City. I chatted daily with a certain construction worker who would come to the food tent for lunch. Once, he stopped on his way out of the tent and asked me, point blank, "Are you a Christian?" I hesitated to answer, afraid that I would be asked to leave - the organization I was volunteering with was evangelical Christian. Finally, I told him that I wasn't. "What motivates you?" he asked incredulously. I was incredulous in return. How could desire to bring comfort, to help, be overlooked as the universal reality that it is? "You can't leave with more than one orange," I said, resorting to the authority I held during my shift as food guard.
"No mom, I don't go to church," I reply in some mundane default text. Lying to my mother just doesn't seem necessary; heck, it's not even an option. More importantly, I have no interest in becoming a member of a church. And in my mind, the values I very consciously try to follow are accessible to everyone, whether they bite into some prohibited apple or not.
jem
Even when you live in Cambridge, Massachusetts...but maybe that's just because my mother is still only an instant message away. "Do you go to church?" her purple text shouts above a calming pink background.
I don't have anything against churches. Well, maybe just a tad against those that interpret my natural curiosity and intellectual skepticism as proof of certain damnation. Call me sensitive, but it's not a pleasant vision, my friends and I the seasonings for a stew of globulous primordial slime forever nearing boil. Plus, I've grown somewhat fond of my recalcitrance, offering it as a slightly more matured substitute for the Betty Boop curls and bright red lipstick I wore when I first moved to Boston 10 years ago.
There's this belief among the country's most conservatively religious, especially those in leadership positions, that nonreligious folk are immoral. And yet, there is Tom Delay indicted on a conspiracy charge; there is Bill Frist under investigation for a shady stock trade; there is Pat Robertson suggesting we kill another country's president. My agnostic friends and I, we're low-key in comparison.
My friend Meghan went apple picking recently, and spoke to me of the guilt she felt in sampling the apples that had fallen to the ground. "I went out of my way to find ones with worm holes," Meghan offered in an attempt to assuage what was eating away at her. I absolved her of this dubious transgression as best I could: "Some four year old might have slipped on it," I said. "He would have had to go home early and miss the hay ride."
I am of the mindset that morality comes with natural human development. You learn many important things early in life: if you see that you have hurt someone, you will commonly feel uneasy for doing so; when you are kind to someone, when you visit an elderly person in a nursing home, when you raise money for a community in need, you feel happy, alive. Just as we learn to breathe, we learn to love and care. The assertions of the conservative right that only those who believe in God know right from wrong have endlessly been disproved not only by their own subversions of the belief system they advocate, but by the beautifully compassionate and selfless actions of all the nonreligious people I know.
Several years ago, I was a volunteer at Ground Zero in New York City. I chatted daily with a certain construction worker who would come to the food tent for lunch. Once, he stopped on his way out of the tent and asked me, point blank, "Are you a Christian?" I hesitated to answer, afraid that I would be asked to leave - the organization I was volunteering with was evangelical Christian. Finally, I told him that I wasn't. "What motivates you?" he asked incredulously. I was incredulous in return. How could desire to bring comfort, to help, be overlooked as the universal reality that it is? "You can't leave with more than one orange," I said, resorting to the authority I held during my shift as food guard.
"No mom, I don't go to church," I reply in some mundane default text. Lying to my mother just doesn't seem necessary; heck, it's not even an option. More importantly, I have no interest in becoming a member of a church. And in my mind, the values I very consciously try to follow are accessible to everyone, whether they bite into some prohibited apple or not.
jem
posted by jemcollections at 10:42 PM
1 Comments:
What's up with all of these comments from morons looking for a free-advertising opportunity? Find some other, more legititmate way to sell your crap. Leave this site for those of us who want to share more profound ideas. In other words, leave my sister alone!
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