A Letter to My Mother

A couple of years ago, my mother converted to a Christian belief system – one that is near fundamentalist. She had never been religious before and we used to be able to talk about anything. We talked in reasonable and rational terms (well, pretty much). When she told me about her conversion, I admit I reacted rather vehemently. You see, I have spent years “recovering” from a fundamentalist belief system. I felt I had lost my mother all over again.

A little history:

When I was 3 years old, my parents divorced. Somehow, my father got custody of me. Unheard of in the very early 1960’s. Well, he left me with his mother (for 5 years until he remarried) and prevented my mother from having any further contact with me. When I was 18, I asked him for some data on her so I could find her – like a birthdate. He told me he “did not remember”. I still remember my ex-husband’s birthdate, but perhaps he was “just being a guy” in not remembering birthdates. Finally, when I was about 26, my mother contacted him (again). He relented and gave her my address. (More on this whole story in a later post),

Suffice it to say that my mother and I got along great. I found out where I get some of my characteristics. Finally I no longer felt like the black sheep. We have remained close ever since. Not so with my father. I have not spoken to him in many years. Not because of the issue with my mother, though. I have not spoken to him because of his current wife. (Which is another story for a later post.)

Back to the present:

Well, my mother has told me she is praying for my soul. I have told her I am praying for hers. We achieved a truce last year, but of course, she can’t resist bringing up her religion in nearly every conversation. My fear of having a wall between us has been realized.

Last week, she wrote me a letter. Yes, a handwritten letter. In it, she asked me to write to her about why I have “turned away from my faith”. Wow. She was wise to suggest writing as the medium of exchange as it retains space and distance so I can gather my thoughts before expressing them. We will have less room for argument.

I began writing and wrote so much stuff that I have had to set it aside for a time in order to gain perspective. I wanted to keep it simple for my first response. I envisioned a simple letter with references to more info upon request. I love my mother and do not want to overwhelm her. Yet, I do want to connect. Perhaps, she would ask for further information and we would develop a written exchange of ideas. Yet, as I sit down to write, I find I cannot keep it simple.  (it is a bit of a long read)

Here then, is my letter to my mother

(I have exchanged names for generic title to preserve privacy. I have used excerpts from some of my previous posts – where appropriate, I have designated them as such.):

Dear Mom,

Wow.

When I read your letter, I was moved by your desire to understand me better. I think it is wise of you to suggest writing about this. You are right, it will help us exchange ideas rather than argue about them. Although, asking questions and disagreeing is not necessarily arguing.

That first evening after reading your letter, I wrote a lot. Then, I had to sit on it for awhile. I wanted to keep my first response simple. Then, you could ask for more and I could try to give it. I found I could not keep it simple. I edited the best I could.

First, I want to apologize for my vehement response when you first told me about your new beliefs. I was so terribly afraid of losing you to “religion”. I was afraid of the wall that would go up between us. Although I respect everyone’s right to believe as they choose, I cannot agree with Christianity. Actually, I cannot agree with most religions as they are presented.

I do take wisdom from many of the religions I have looked into, but I do not believe that any of them are “The Truth”.

Christianity is particularly difficult for me as many Christians see it as their duty to convert everyone. They believe they hold the abosolute and the only truth; and everyone else should believe as they do. The fundamentalists are the worst. I know, I was one – Southern Baptist is a fundamentalist denomination. I worried that you would try to convert me. I don’t want to be converted and I don’t want to argue with you. How am I supposed to react when I don’t agree and I can’t go along with you on this topic? Yet I don’t want to fight. This is the wall I feared. I felt like I had lost you all over again…

My deconversion happened over time. Little by little over the years as I searched for “truth”, I have come to where I am today. Some of the factors contributing to my deconversion are: the events in my life, my fiercely independent nature, my study of various philosophies and religions, and my use of reason over the years.

So, here goes.

Background (my mother asked for this information because she did not raise me and does not know everything of my childhood):

My grandmother started me out with the Southern Baptist denomination. When my father married his current wife and I went to live with them, I continued to attend church even though they did not. I was a devout believer and was baptised at around age 10. As a teen-ager, I even taught vacation bible school. I was involved with the youth group as well. I prayed a lot.

First events and conditions that I remember causing me to question:

-Faith did me no good. My Stepmother was still abusive. God did not protect me. In fact, I have had periods in my life when I had “faith” and periods when I did not. Life seems not much different either way – good things and bad things happen. Some, as a natural consequence of choices I made and some random (luck).

-At age 16, I had a question about religion. ( excerpts from “Beginning of the End of Belief“.) I went to my pastor and asked. I was told that since I was female, I was not allowed to ask the pastor questions directly. He said I needed to ask my husband or my father. I was not married and my father did not attend church nor did he read the bible. I belonged to a very small church and my pastor knew these things. I even pointed them out to the pastor. He insisted I talk to my father.

I was shocked and confused. I ask you, does having a penis somehow endow males with spiritual knowledge? It made no sense to me (still doesn’t). After all, if I have a medical question, I ask a doctor, etc. I had a spiritual/religious question, so I went to the person who was trained in religion and spirituality.

The more I think about it, the more It seems to be a way to make sure the females only know what the males in their life (fathers and later husbands) want them to know. Maybe that pastor did not want to step on another male’s toes by giving the female any information her father or her (theoretical) husband did not want her to have.

That was the beginning of my deconversion from Christianity. I did not give up on Christianity yet, though. I have always had a deep need to seek Truth, and I am stubborn. I thought maybe it was just this church….Oh, how I wanted to believe.

In my search:

I went on to try various churches – Presbyterian, Episcopalian, etc. I read about Buddhism, Hinduism, and a variety of other religions. I read about various philosophies and more recently political theory. Early on, I decided that all the religions had something to offer. I also decided that no one religion was “The Truth”…

Then, the more I read, the more I came to believe that religion is created by man.

Civilization needs a code of conduct in order to function properly. Mankind, as a species, has the capacity for reason. Alas, as a species, we have not fully developed this capacity. Religion has the advantage of bypassing reason – we follow the rules “because God says so”. Who could argue with that?

Politics and religion have long gone hand in hand. In fact, religion has long been a tool of politics. Influence someone’s beliefs and you have influence over their minds. With this influence, you can more easily control people’s behavior.

Constantine knew this when he created the Roman Catholic Church. He was a pagan, himself, but the relatively new “Christianity” was growing. This early Christianity taught people that they did not need church or priests to commune with God. They were not as controllable with these beliefs. So, Constantine got a committee together to decide on what books would be in the bible. People were much more biddable when they had to follow the priests rules.

I Just Don’t Know (I included excerpts from one of my previous posts “I Just Don’t Know“)

I thought I should clarify something. I have stated I am no longer Christian. Many might assume that I am an athiest. I am not. I am agnostic.

Quotes from Wikipedia (online encyclopedia):

“Agnosticism (from the Greek “a,” meaning “without,” and Gnosticism or “gnosis,” meaning knowledge) is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims—particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of God, gods, deities, or even ultimate reality—is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently unknowable due to the nature of subjective experience.”

“Agnostics claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of God or gods; or, alternatively, that while individual certainty may be possible, they personally have no knowledge. Agnosticism in both cases involves some form of skepticism.”

What this means to me is that I am “without knowledge” or “I just don’t know”. And, I am certainly skeptical!

Agnostics come in a variety of flavors. There are those like me who are quite unconvinced either way. We simply cannot or will not choose atheism or religion. There are those mentioned above that are agnostic first but choose to follow a religion anyway. (I have tried this many times, and it just doesn’t work for me). I am sure there are those who are agnostic, but choose atheism.

In many ways, being agnostic frees me up to explore the various philosophies, religions, etc without prejudice. (Okay, maybe not absolutely without prejudice, but then I don’t believe there is much that is absolute in this world.) In this exploration, I am free to adopt aspects of those philosophies and religions that make sense to me. My beliefs, opinions, perspectives seem to be continually changing as I learn things. This seems to work best for me. Of course, I do stubbornly hang on to certain beliefs and opinions. It is not easy to admit when I am wrong, which is what you must do in order to change a belief or an opinion. The more invested I am in a particular belief, the more my ego fights to hang on to it.

There may be a “creator”, but I really don’t believe this “creator” to be any of the gods of any of the religions. Nor, do I believe that this “creator” takes a personal interest in individuals. If there was a “creator”, he/she/it simply made the world (or universe) and let it go as it would. Why else do we have free will? We are born with the capacity for free will. Although, not all of us use it.

Some Questions I have considered:

-Does God exist? Is Jehovah (of the Christian religion) the one true God? If not, is some other god the one true God? If Jehovah is the one true God, do I worship and love him?

- what evidence do we use to answer the questions about God? We have books of scripture, like the Bible, and observation of reality. Science has become the formalized system of observing reality. The Bible is the Christian book of scripture. Since I know more of it, than books of other religions, I will be referring to it.

So, we have Scripture and Science.

Science produces reliable, predictable, and observable results. Prayer and Scripture produces random, unpredictable, and often unobservable results – you must take it on faith.

-The Bible is put forth as the word of God. Is it meant to be interpreted literally? Or, is it to be taken metaphorically? Christians are told to follow it. They are told that the whole bible is God’s word. But, it is full of contradictions. How do you know which parts to follow? Do you go by what the clergy tells you? After all, they are also only human.

-(excerpts from previous post “God vs the Bible” – Revisited“) If the Bible is the word of God to be taken as metaphor, why are the metaphors so sloppy as in the Creation Myth. Grant that “days” spoken of in terms of “on the first day” could be metaphoric for eras or ages, why not correlate the “days” of creation more closely with “ages of creation”…

According to my bible:

* first day: God separates light from dark, calling light “day” and dark “night”.
* second day: God creates an expanse between the waters to separate water from water – water under the expanse and water above it. God calls the expanse “sky”.
* third day: God creates land and seas, and goes on to create vegetation.
* fourth day: God creates the sun, moon, and stars. (What? Plants coming before the sun, moon, and stars? Why not create these “light sources” on the first day along with “day” and “night”?)
* fifth day: God creates living creatures on land and sea.
* sixth day: God further specifies that the land produce living creatures according to their kinds, and finally creates man (in God’s image) to rule over everything.

Were the Bible written by humans some thousands of years ago, I would not be so critical of their mistakes. After all, they were human. Humans make mistakes, and they did not have the scientific knowledge that we have today. But if it is the inspired word of God, I admit I would hold it to a higher standard. Or if humans are created in the image of God, as the Bible states, does that mean that we make mistakes because like God, we are not perfect…

-If Christianity were the one true religion, why is it not older than any other religious scripture? Did humans just discover “the one true religion” a few thousand years ago? What about all the people who came before? Why didn’t God reveal himself to them? (Christianity is patriarchal, but matriarchal religions are the oldest forms of worship.)

-I think it would be a horror if we still followed all the laws of the Bible. Have you read Leviticus? It is in Leviticus that the laws are mostly written. Among other things, it says homosexuals should be put to death. The bible tells us that God created us. If God created us, why did he create homosexuals if he hates them so much? Maybe God is not perfect. There is a lot of evidence that homosexuality is not a choice, but that it is just the way some people are born. Do you really believe that if it were a simple choice, that people would choose it when it means such persecution? Actually, it may have made some sense to discourage homosexuality back then, as it did not produce offspring. For some reason, they thought they needed more humans. Most likely, they wanted to grow their tribes in order to be more powerful than the other tribes.

I think we have enough people now. In fact, this planet is getting crowded. As a result, we are fighting over oil right now. Soon, we will be fighting over water. Have you read the news lately? There are droughts in places that droughts are unheard of. This is not “God’s wrath”, but the natural consequences of our actions on this planet.

-The story of Job is particularly disturbing. Basically, Jehovah said that Job was a rightous man and would not turn from his faith. Satan said sure, but you won’t let me test him. I bet he would crack if I had a go at him. So Jehovah, to settle a bet with Satan, gave permission for Satan to do what he wanted – stipulating only that Satan must not kill Job. So Satan killed Job’s wife and children, and took all Job’s wealth away from him. Sure, in the end, Jehovah got Job a new wife and new goats. But, what about the original family, don’t they count? Why did Jehova have to prove anything to Satan? Job was a “good boy” and kept his faith, I guess a new family is just as good as the first one. After all, in a patriarchal system, women are property and not really any more important than the goats. How could I love such a God? I cannot. God is supposed to be the father figure. I think this is a rather warped image of a father. If my own father did this to me, I would hate him. Yet, we are told this story as a guide to keeping faith no matter what. I think it teaches us to put up with whatever abuse the authorities want to put us through.

-Or, what about the story of Abraham? Jehovah told him to kill his only son! Sure, Jehovah stayed his hand in the end, but what do you think the son felt when he saw that his father was about to kill him? And, that God had told his father to do it? I think that even if Jehovah is “the one true god”, he is a sadistic, twisted one. We are told that God is omniscient, didn’t he already know that Abraham was faithful? Why did God need Abraham to be willing to kill his son for God? God can strike me down, but I will not love him. It is not love if the alternative is eternal death. It is fear.

Many denominations talk about being “god-fearing” in the same breath as they say God is a loving god and you should love him in return. Is it a loving being who inspires fear and demands adoration “or else”?

Oh, how I wanted God to love me. But, if this is love, I can do without it.

Love,

Your Daughter.

I am attaching copies of my previous posts – “The Garden of Eden” and “Liberals, Conservatives, and The Garden of Eden“.

I really want my mother back.