When friends become one with...

I am frustrated by religion. That is as good a way as any to get to the point of this matter, the point of which is obfuscation. A common trend that I have experienced with religious peoples is a sense of close-mouthedness, a holding of tongues. There is an openness with their spirituality only expressed aloud when in the company of others spiritually sensitive.

My own undisguised atheism causes this wall between myself and religious friends. I used to share a sentiment occasionally about arguments in which both sides believe that they are correct. I would suggest that the problem arose from my belief that I was correct and my opponents belief that he was correct, the difference between the two sides being that I was actually the only one justified in believing in my own correctness. Now this may seem bull-headed, but at times it must necessarily be true that in an argument one side is wrong, and the other right. Some one's anger is unjustified.

But he lies that problem. My realization has slowly become the fact that people, friends will believe whatever they want spiritually. I know this, I have come to my own decisions this way, and will not be swayed by argument. I believe this to be true for most others. Yet still it would be unfair to say that when I find a friend gravitating towards religion or even spirituality, I put up a wall. I believe that they put up a wall as well. Of course most well meaning people leave you to your own beliefs. Some are aggressive in their prosthelation, which is frustration. But I find infuriating, passive imposition of belief. Discovering perhaps that a recent medical or family tragedy was prayed for by a friend or a friends church. To me, offensive even is the phrase, "You'll be in our prayers."

And so as we youngsters in our low twenties gravitate towards whatever spectrum of spiritual involvement we choose, there are consequences for everyone. There is not benign force behind spiritual involvement of our nonreligious friends. For me, the expression and open practice of spirituality is akin to placing a member of a non-christian religion in a christian church ceremony. Would we make special accommodations for our friends of different faith? Yes, indubitably we would at least be mindful of their sensitivities. But for atheists, there is at least some taste of what it feels like to be marginalized and ignored by the dominant culture. Not as if my complaining is really justified on this front, but I feel at the least this is a growing, yet untended to population.

My final issue with spirituality and religion is this inward looking behavior. Praying and meditating can both be valuable tools, but I find their principle issues to be selfishness. Even a group in which a communal spirituality is felt, i.e. holding hands in a circle for either prayer or some other ceremony, this is selfishness of a group. For me a more valuable exercise would be an admittance of our singularity, our individualism. We are not special, because there is nothing to value us besides ourselves. In that realisation we must embrace our individualism, and look outward and embrace the individualism of those around us. They exist by chance, are fleeting and for some reason we find value in them. Do I need more? No. I've never thought that Occam's razor had much worth since it is so people-centric, but I like the fact that simple is the overriding rule for the universe. It illustrates my final point; the questions we ask are wrong. Why are we here? It can be answered with a simple inversion, because we are here. If we think about the times in our experiences that questions are answered so simply that they provide no valuable information, then perhaps the question itself is valueless.

I believe there is a creative exercise, or if there isn't there should be, in which there is a leader who has no goal in mind for a story and allows the responders to create it on their own. So if the leader begins with a question like "What happened?" and the responders are only allowed to respond with statement questions like, "He got caught?" then you begin to see a story of questions created. If someone were to ask, "There is a God?" then now there is. Someone else says, "He looks like us?" I guess that's true too then. Or perhaps a non-theistic view could be expressed by someone saying "I am one with the universe?" and "I am the sound of the trees rustling on a spring day?"

I believe in very little except what I believe in.