"you might say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." 'Imagine', John Lennon

Imagine

I've never really found a place to belong, spiritually. For years, I wandered through Christian-influenced groups; first Methodist Vacation Bible School, then parochial elementary school, then evening catechism classes, Confirmation classes, Youth Group, college Bible studies, Eucharistic ministers... Looking back on all those groups that I joined, I never really made any friends. I was always just a little bit different. I was the girl who vomited one of her first communion wafers. I was the girl who challenged the teacher in 4th grade who told me that my dog wasn't going to heaven with me. I spent so much time trying to fit in, and it never worked. I was never accepted. Religious people were just the same as everyone else... I wasn't good enough for them.

When I moved away from the religious track, I found a group that would accept me. The group wasn't centered around religion. Instead, we centered around fun and acceptance. There were my new gay friends and then there were my other college friends. Religion was superfluous to the rest of our lives. Instead of Jesus "taking the wheel", Jesus got thrown in the trunk... or run over on the way to the club. I quickly and easily left the religious life behind. I went from always trying to fit in to instantly fitting in.

Recently, I went from drifting in a sea of some form of slightly religious Agnosticism to proclaiming my full-blown Atheistic tendencies. I met a man who asked me to read authors and listen to podcasts. I joined Atheist groups and eschewed my religious friends. And that was fun for a while. I was part of a new group, a freethinking group, and it was invigorating.

But when I stopped talking to that Atheist guy, I realized something. I took a step back from the Atheists and I saw that they were really no better than the Christians or other religious people. I'm generalizing here, but modern Atheism seems to be a group focused on getting back at the religious people in the world. They debate, and spread hatred, and after a while, they seem just as bad as the Christians... they're just on the other side of the mirror.

So, once again, I don't fit in. Recently, someone in an online freethinking parenting group asked the question, "what do you do with religious gifts that your child has received? do you (a) give them back with a stern talking to, (b) let your child have them or (c) take them back to the store, return them, and then get your child something he or she really wants?" Many people wrote that they should give the gifts back, admonishing the people who had the audacity to give them to the child of an Atheist in the first place. But I disagreed. Put yourself in the mind of a 7 year old child. Grandma gives you a book with pretty pictures and exciting stories. Mom takes one look at the book and starts arguing with Grandma. Mom takes the book and gives it back, screaming 'Little Joey will NEVER read that book!!!". What do you think Little Joey's reaction is going to be? What if, 6 months later, he's at a friend's house and that friend has the same book? Joey's going to look at it. He's going to see what was so forbidden about it. It makes religious mystical and wonderful and naughty.

What if, instead, Mom lets little Joey have the book. Maybe she has a private discussion, later, with Grandma, about not giving religious gifts, but she does it when Joey isn't in the room. And Joey takes the book, and flips through it, and he reads some stories about people loving one another and caring for one another. And after one or two readings, he's bored, and he goes and plays with some other toy. That night, at bedtime, his Mom can discuss the stories that people tell in order to explain how the world works. They can talk about Native American creation stories, or mythology. She can show how that book is the same idea - stories that help us to see how to treat one another.

What is wrong with any of that? If you are confident in your abilities as a parent, there's no need to be scared of religion. You're not going to hide your child from it forever. I look back at my upbringing, and I think about how hard I tried to be a part of religion, and how it never really fit for me. So, as I raise SC, I'm going to teach him that people believe different things, and that each belief is right for them. I'm going to take him to church... and synagogue... and temple... and a mosque... I'm going to try to involve him in IACO events and maybe send him to Camp Quest and show him that religion is a way to tie people together. I'm going to teach him how to be a free thinker and decide for himself. Otherwise, he's getting Atheism forced down his throat in much the same way that other children are getting Christianity shoved down their throats.

As for me, I've once again kind of struck out when trying to find a community where I  really fit. I'm not religious - I never will be - but I certainly don't fit with militant, radical Atheists who want to maim people who are religious. I sense that I will find myself, once again, wandering, without a true spiritual (or lack thereof) community to call my own. I'm okay with that - there are others who just don't let religious matters become a factor in their life. I just have to find them and form my own community. I'm not the only one.