I recently read “God is Not Great” by Christopher Hitchens. I have wondered for years why Catholics and people of all faiths hated him so much: apart from saying religion was a fallacy and the cause of major conflicts, what was he saying that got everyone tied up in knots?
I dithered for many years about purchasing his books, then a friend bought the aforementioned book for me a few weeks ago because during the course of our conversations we agreed that I may in fact be ready to see the alternate view. I have had my doubts about Catholicism for years and yet almost all of my adult life, I have been fully on board with the faith given me as a baby, attending Mass and not just on Sundays, saying prayers in the morning and evening, having my son baptised and so on. But there was always a pressure behind much of what I did, especially going to Mass and receiving the sacraments.
I read the book very quickly and wondered why Hitchens was (and is still) so reviled, when he made sense? Everything that had rubbed me up the wrong way, about faith in general not just Catholicism, was there. It was eloquently set down and pulled apart and I read much made my blood boil, some of which I had been completely unaware.
If you allow your scientific mind to assert itself, something I had held in check because of my beliefs, it is possible to accept the sound arguments that Hitchens makes against the existence of a deity/deities and for the main argument he makes of religion as a man-made form of control. Never mind the whole religions start wars business. My particular curiosity was to do with the idea of the existence of a being so powerful and who is in charge of a world that is more miserable than ever. From where comes our help and why has it not come? The world is not without beauty – I am not beaten down by all the wrongs I see and hear about. Indeed, there are many great and small acts of kindness and generosity that make a huge difference. The thing is we hear less about these instances and the focus is on the negative, obsessively so I would say. There is too much navel gazing and not enough of looking up and appreciating what is in front of you and ahead. Bloggers blog as it were, to make sense (or nonsense!) of the world around them and the world they immediately inhabit; it doesn’t really matter if nobody reads/comments upon the blogs – it is cathartic to commit thoughts or ideals on paper or online. We do so and move on to the next… It’s a space to be yourself and maybe for some, to say those things that you might struggle to articulate in company. But I digress…
My friend asked me if my “faith had been shaken?”. I said no. What I read had “simply galvanized what I was already feeling” about my beliefs.
The supreme arrogance that the Catholic faith is “the one true faith” is staggering and a slap in the face of all other belief systems – that bothered me and still does because it is confrontational and controversial. I am questioning miracles, the incorruptible bodies of saints, visions, ecstasies, levitations, exorcisms… Read the book if you are open to having your beliefs questioned. If you still believe after reading it there is no shame in that and I am not looking to destroy anyone’s faith. Religion can be a force for good and can turn people around where all else has failed. I’ve seen it and even experienced it myself. In fact, having faith made me stronger – but it also held me down. That is my personal experience and that of so many. But if like me, you question key areas of your faith (whatever that faith may be) you are probably ready to read this book with an open mind and see where it leads you.
So am I no longer a believer?
My son says I’m now agnostic (and he is quite horrified). I don’t like labels and the following definition does not in fact apply to me:
“An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings.”
It doesn’t apply to me because I don’t accept that it is “impossible to know anything about…the creation of the universe…”. We know a great deal about the creation of the universe – and it was not created in seven days by a supreme being… What I can say I believe is that there are forces at work beyond our imagining and the fact that people exist is a miracle when you consider how we evolved, hauling ourselves out of a swamp, on fins that eventually became limbs and so forth. We are still learning about anatomy, the science of the brain, chemical reactions within our bodies and the extent to which we can push our bodies and minds. We all know that there are things we do now that would have been thought impossible centuries ago, even 50 years ago. We have science to thank – and sheer determination. In the course of evolution, mammals have proved to be a force to be reckoned with.
Something is at work shaping our world and the universe. I feel it is grounded in science and not the divine, and it is no less incredible for that.
Furthermore, is it a stretch to think that maybe there are other complex lifeforms in the universe or that there may have been? I don’t think so when you consider how vast the universe is – and we cannot know everything, even with all we have at our disposal dedicated to trying to do just that.
Sometimes though, not knowing is a good thing – it allows space for hope (but not ignorance). My closest friend is an atheist and I have to say that just a few chapters in to “God is Not Great”, I understood what it is like to be him and it hit me with some force. The tremendous burden of feeling that it’s all on you, all on us, that he lives with. It doesn’t weigh heavily upon him every day but the reality for an atheist is that there is no help coming from above nor any reward when our time here is done. By the end of the book I felt quite at a loss and more than unhappy about how much of my life I had given over to faith and how much control it has had over me. I was stuck in a terrible situation for so long because of my beliefs and I felt such guilt and anguish at going against those beliefs.
What has it all been for, I asked myself?
I’m not ashamed to say that I wept a little. I was frustrated and it was not unlike grief. I am in the process of letting go and still catch myself praying for people who are suffering – the terrorist attacks the world over, people close to me struggling to cope with loss, a severe illness, abuse and so on. What I can do is keep trying to be the best version of myself that I can be and not allow the daily grind to beat me down and continue to not be afraid to live when lights start going out around us. I’ve seen hysterical posts on Facebook and the like, from people who are scared to go out or go about their business, over emotional posts claiming solidarity with one race or group or faith. Worse, I’ve seen ignorant posts about standing up for your own (class/country/faith) and sod everyone else.
Negative change comes from without and I mean that in both senses of the word. Positive change comes from within. We start with ourselves and project what is right and good in the hope that it will encourage others to behave decently and even to respect themselves. I am not an idealist with my head in the clouds and know full well that this doesn’t always work. Let’s face it: if the world was perfect – if people were perfect – we could indeed claim a deity was behind it…
No amount of radiant, loving or compassionate positivity projected towards an extremely negative person will make them change. A deeply ingrained belief or the power of a destructive incident/s is not something one moves on from easily – it takes years of questioning yourself, the circumstances and allowing yourself to be questioned – one has to become more open and less conditioned. Healing, moving on, is necessarily a long process – or what went before actually meant nothing. Faith meant/means something to me but not the man-made tenets of it, the control, the unwillingness to adapt to the world we now live in. By way of example, the inability of the Catholic Church to come to a unanimous agreement that it is not right to bar a remarried Catholic from receiving communion, knowing full well the gradual destruction to the soul that this entails if you so believe it. And if you do believe it, the thought is devastating and more often than not, people in these circumstances leave the Church altogether. St Paul’s writings on divorce, etc have a lot to answer for. If God speaks to all of the clergy, why are they so divided on this and other points of Canon Law? Also, why is it right to ex-communicate a pop star for hanging herself on a cross, when abusive clergy are “moved on” as opposed to being automatically ex-communicated for their sins, whether it’s a misappropriation of finances or much, much worse? I could go on and on and on…
I know this much: I am not an agnostic. Maybe I am somewhere between an atheist and an agnostic, if such a space can exist, and I don’t feel as wretched about it as I did a week ago – but then being a mammal, I am highly adaptable…
I don’t have the answers but what I can say is this:
I am a work in progress.
And I’m ok with that.
Drops of Sanity 