I've heard some atheists say before that, if they had a spiritual experience, they would assume that they were hallucinating or that they had lost their minds. This strikes me as strange, since I spent so much of my life suppressing my own instincts and gut feelings, because I was afraid of going to hell and being a bad person/Christian. When people get free of that, wouldn't they want to finally trust themselves?
Other people say that it's not logical to go with your own experiences, over what other people tell you is logical or correct. Just like fundamentalist Christians tell you that you can't trust your own instincts about right and wrong, over what the bible apparently says.
I have seen some people denigrate the spiritual experience of a nice gay universalist Christian friend of mine, who said that he had a vision of Christ on the cross and that that's when he became truly born again after being a "wet Baptist" all his life. I came to his defense, even though I considered myself an atheist at the time, because what else is he supposed to go on, than his own experiences? He says that everyone will eventually have some kind of experience like that, and be as certain as him--and so far, I am not as certain as him and have not had any spiritual experiences. He may very well be wrong--but that doesn't mean that he's wrong to trust his own instincts and experiences.
Why would atheists not trust their own instincts? After all, I became an atheist to get away from this crap. I'm not saying it's wrong to think that a "spiritual experience" was not in fact spiritual, but automatically assuming, in spite of your own instincts, is.
I was so miserable, for so many years, because I thought I was bound to a "literal" interpretation of the bible, and that if I wanted to see women being pastors or gays getting married, that I would literally burn for it. I went against my own instincts about rightness and justice, and I hated it! I was betraying my own conscience, because of my fears.
I later found out that biblical scholars have a few theories for how God inspired the bible, and that some allowed for imperfect human or cultural influence. That was such a relief, when I read that, in a Christian school textbook of all places! I was free! I couldn't believe that I didn't have to hurt others because of whom they loved, or limit my own potential just because of my vagina. It was almost too good to be true, but I had been a prisoner to fundamentalism so long, that I jumped at the chance to be free from it. I could let God, or my God-given conscience, guide me directly, even about the bible. I can't stress enough how freeing it was to learn that I didn't have to hurt other people, or myself, for God.
What the atheists do, does not come with the terrifying threat of hell, but it is oppressive to me, nonetheless. Why rely on what other people tell you is most likely to be true? I never was much for anti-apologetics arguments, because I could just look at my own life, and know that I had not had the experience of feeling close to God, as I had been promised I would have, if I was born again (which is why I "got saved" so many times, until I sensed a pattern and got tired of the pattern).
I don't consider myself an atheist anymore, at least not very much of one. But atheists other nonbelievers have the potential for freedom, here, and throw it all away. They can be free to trust their own instincts, but some choose to trust what other people tell them is most logical or likely. Why would anyone do that to themselves?
I am so very relieved to get away from fundamentalism and evangelicalism. And sometimes I read articles by LGBT-affirming and universalist Christians, and I think that maybe I can have what I've always wanted. That is the sense of being close to God, and having a relationship with God that brings me joy, and not grief and anxiety about not being a good enough or "real" Christian.
But I don't try very hard to get close to God anymore, if there is someone there. I got free from trying to pray and read the bible even though I was absolutely sick of both activities--and other ways in which I shoved down my true feelings and gave in to the fear which was instilled in me by others all of my life. I don't try to believe or have faith at all, either, because that would not really be believing.
I got free from trying to placate others' versions of God, and I don't want to be a prisoner to other people's logic as well. If I ever do have an apparently spiritual experience, I think I will have a healthy skepticism--unless I believe that it actually is from God, or is likely to be.
I also tell people, sometimes, if they give me crap about not being a "real" Christian, that I don't need their permission to be a Christian, or have a relationship with God. If God has a problem with me, then that supposedly all-powerful being can think of a way to tell me (though if God is in fact unjust to women or LGBT people, for example, then that is a different matter entirely). Until then, I won't allow anyone to tell me anything about God. If I am made by God, then I would say that I am more than worthy of my own trust, because God doesn't make junk!
I just now gained the freedom to trust myself, relatively recently in my life. So I'm not giving that up for anything, whether for "God" or for "logic". I'm going to trust myself, no matter where that leads me. After all, I'm the only one that I know is truly on my side. Those other people are strangers, and are dubious at best. If I don't trust them to visit me at my house, after all, why would I trust them with something as important as God and God's nature?
No comments:
Post a Comment