I Believe

When I add a new person to my Facebook friends list, one of the first things I do is look at their information page. This page contains things like that person’s political views, favorite movies, and very importantly, their religious beliefs. If I were to scroll through my friends right now, I would find several Christians of different denominations, a few atheists, and even a couple Wiccans. However, if someone were to look at my religious views, they wouldn’t find a particular religion. Instead, they would find the word “Questioning.” Furthermore, they would find that the four most influential people to me are a diverse bunch—Rosie the Riveter, Jesus, Ghandi, and Buddha. Before I go any further, I would like to make clear that though I consider myself to be “Questioning,” I am not an agnostic. I am Questioning because I believe that someday I will figure out who God is and what religion I ascribe to. It is a spiritual journey that I am on, and it took much to get to this point. However, I am far from finished, and still strive to move forward.
It is somewhat ironic that I am so unsure of what I believe in now, considering where I started out. I have attended Baptist churches my whole life. The one that caused a major turning-point in how I viewed the world was the last one I ever attended—an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church. I was very active in this church, and even attended their school from eighth to tenth grade. Their view of the world was very narrow and closed minded. A girl who wore pants was considered a whore, or at the very least “trying to usurp the man’s authority.” The idea of a man’s natural authority over women seemed to stem from their thought that women cannot be preachers, and so must be meek and submissive. I heartily disagreed and caught a lot of hostility for it. I left the church at age seventeen, and determined to never allow myself to blindly follow what others say, but instead to question with impunity before I believed.
Despite my reassurances to myself, there was still one belief that I hung on to even after leaving church. It was something that I had been consistently taught in every single church I had attended, and so was firmly ingrained in my mind. This was the belief that homosexual attraction is a disgusting sin, and that people with homosexual attractions absolutely hate God and are going to Hell. My whole life I had convinced myself that I was heterosexual, despite the way I was undeniably drawn to images of the female figure. For a time I was able to convince myself that I was merely admiring beauty, but once I hit eighteen that excuse didn’t work anymore. That when I realized that I’m bisexual, and I hated myself for it. I was convinced that God hated me, and I confided in a few friends, telling them about my “problem.” One well-meaning but misguided friend showed me a website that claimed to help Christian teens overcome their homosexual attraction, but as much as I tried the feelings for women just wouldn’t go away.
Once I realized that the feelings weren’t going away, it hit me that what I had been taught my whole life was wrong. I loved God, and yet I had homosexual attraction. The church was wrong. Perhaps the church was wrong about other things too. From that point on I decided to embrace my bisexuality, and now I am grateful that I have the capacity to love indiscriminately. After I got that settled, I began the spiritual journey that I am still on today. I asked questions that I always had in the back of my mind, but had never dared ask before. One such question is if a person is very devout in their own religion, such as Islam or Judaism, why would God send them to Hell for essentially reading the wrong holy book? Do I even believe in Hell? And, at the heart of the matter, do I believe in Christianity or do I believe in something else? I dabbled in Neo-Paganism for a short time, drawn to the inclusive nature of the religion. I derived satisfaction from performing rituals involving lighting candles and praying to the Goddess, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for.
Earlier this summer, I made the first step towards finding true spiritual satisfaction. I had the opportunity to travel to Tokyo, Japan, and while there I visited the Senso-ji temple in Asakusa, which is dedicated to Mahayana Buddhism. While walking the grounds and taking in the sights, I felt a sense of belonging like I’d never felt in any other religious site. I was home. Standing in front of a shrine to the Buddha, I wanted to cry. Writing this and recalling that moment again makes me want to cry, because I had never felt such a sense of belonging before. At the time I knew little about Buddhism, but I knew at that moment that I wanted to learn more. Once I got home I started my research, and the more I read about Buddhism the more I like it. However, I am wary of considering myself a Buddhist quite yet because I still feel like I need to learn more. Just the other day I read a book written by the Dalai Lama, and some of the concepts he brought up I am only beginning to understand.
In the meantime, I am of the opinion that my philosophy should dictate my religion, rather than my religion dictating my philosophy. Even without a religion, I have a creed. I believe that people are put on this earth to help one another. I believe this so strongly that it influenced my decision on what my major should be. I intend to be a Psychologist so that I can help those who are hurting, scared, and confused and try to make the world a better place. That’s why it almost seems like fate that I have such a strong affinity towards Mahayana Buddhism, whose goal is to help others, or at the very least to do no harm. I find that addendum appropriate, because not everyone is meant to be as passionate about helping people as I am. Everybody should be able to believe however they want to, but in so doing should never purposefully hurt someone.
Despite my drifting away from the Christian religion, I still believe there was a man named Jesus, and I believe that his teachings have great merit. At one point I questioned how much I liked Jesus, because I had had so many negative experiences with his followers. But then I came across this quote from Ghandi: “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Everything came into focus after reading that statement. Jesus was a good man, and he may even have been God in the flesh. Having not-so-holy followers will never take away from that. Just like with Christianity, it seems that most religions at their core are essentially benevolent. Jesus taught to love your enemies, Mohammed taught to give to the poor. The religion itself isn’t what creates intolerant bigots, it is people themselves. It is an important milestone that I can view religion as a positive thing, because in the earlier stages of my journey I was tempted to throw out religion completely. I still have a long way to go on this journey, but finally I am starting to find peace in religion.