I am a former Catholic. I do not believe in the Catholic/Christian concept of God. I am a pantheist, I believe the divine is that which causes everything in the universe to cooperate and relate. I think the laws and forces that govern the universe are the divine, because they fulfill the role that people assign to the divine, being the cause of everything, being in control of everything etc.
I have always been a person interested in spirituality and religion.When I was young, my sister attended a Catholic university and studied theology. I recall her telling me how theologians had argued about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin, and how Mary gave birth to Jesus without him leaving her body in the normal mode. One theory being perhaps he flew out of her ear…And I remember even then (I was about 7 or 8) thinking that these people were nuts. It was incredible to me that grown educated men would waste time on such utter nonsense, and then try to convince other people to believe it, when it made no difference to anything, and had nothing to do with real people’s lives.
The next big wake up call was the May Crowning event when I was in 8th grade. We had one every year, but, being the 8th grade class, I participated more fully in the planning and execution of it that year. The first commandment had always been taught to me as the most important one. And there, in the middle of the ceremony, as a bunch of people threw themselves face down before the statue of mary and shouted out the prayer “My Queen, my mother…” I got goose bumps all over my body, and my hair stood on end, and I realized that this was without a doubt worship of something other than God.
Over the next several years I had more wake up calls. These led me to leave the Catholic church and seek the truth elsewhere.
With the blinders off, I began to experience more of the divine that I had when I was still in the church. I had had spiritual experiences I did not speak to anyone about, when I was still Catholic, because they pointed toward a divine that went against Catholic teaching.
Through several crises in my life, and my families life, I saw that the divine did not operate the way the church had promised it did. It was there, but with no agenda.
I am also a scientist, and the more I studied and learned about the world, the more I saw the divine doing its divine thing, in ways that truly invoked worship and awe from me.
I didn’t have to muster up these feelings, they were drawn from me, like a reflex, by the wonder of the universe. Some of these experiences were definitely not your typical “peak” experiences. People have assumed that I see my divine because things in my life are all nicey nice, but that is not the case. Some of these experiences have been painful, and horrific, in human terms, yet they drew me to witness and respond to the awesomness of the divine.
So…I became a nonbeliever in “God” because I found out such did not exist, but something very different and very wonderful did.
I do not believe in the supernatural. I believe in what is, and it is the cause of everything that is and everything that happens, not in a conscious way (the divine does not think, plan and make things happen by will) things happen because that is the nature of the universe, for these things to happen.
I am not skeptical of it because everything I have ever experienced is in complete harmony with it. It has the wholeness and integrity lacking in any deity I have ever seen put forth.
I don’t think I know the truth of it all, I don’t think I ever will, but I also know that doesn’t matter.
This journey started when I was 7 or 8, and took about 30 years for me to get where I am now. Hopefully the journey is not over.
I think there are lots of books and articles that support, indirectly, what I believe. But I came to this on my own. I didn’t get the idea from someone else’s experience. I guess in some ways I approached the problem using the scientific method, and this is where I ended up. It is my best working theory to explain the phenomena that I observe.
cheddar
