thread: 2005-08-09 : The New Open House 2: Religion
On 2005-08-10, xenopulse wrote:
I got baptized as a baby and confirmed as a Lutheran Evangelical at age 14 after two years of weekly church youth group, but only because that's what most people in Northern Germany do. They are also generally very very lax about religion and have no understanding for fundamentalism whatsoever.
It's hard believing in the benevolent God when your culture is responsible for the Holocaust (which the church didn't do jack shit to prevent).
So at age 14, I thought I had a soul. I wanted to wear a cross, and my parents were all weirded out. Only cultists actually take religion seriously, they thought. That's pretty much the mainstream belief there.
I knew one girl in high school who was a strong Christian. She held bible study during breaks with the three other kids at school who were believers. Everybody thought they were really strange. Not in an evil way—that girl was the nicest, most peaceful being I've ever met. She also lived in a commune and was waiting for marriage to have sex. Again, 99% of the people around her were confused why anyone would do that.
As you can see, being from such a background did not exactly prepare me for the extent to which Christianity is a part of the US way of life. It still shocks me at times. If you are trying to become chancellor in Germany, and you tell people you let your decisions be influenced by your Faith, the bible, God, or whatever, your chances sink to less than nil.
Personally, I've started going to the UU church around here, and I like it. Lots of sensible people there sharing community and caring. I have a somewhat pseudo-Hegelian belief myself that's based on diversity as the expression of, well, whatever it is; God, Life, Meaning.
- Christian
