thread: 2005-08-09 : The New Open House 2: Religion
On 2005-08-10, joshua m. neff wrote:
Oh, let's see...
I was raised by a family who were, for the most part, ethnically Jewish (with some Irish and other bits thrown in) but were spiritually Secular Humanist Communists. When I was born, my father was finishing up his seminary, becoming a Unitarian-Universalist minister (which he got into through the Civil Rights movement). He did this for some 25 years before he got burned out on organized religion and quit. I grew up going to UU church every Sunday, but it never really spoke to me. Since I became an adult, both of my parents have abandoned the UU church. My mother started going to synagogue (although no one in my family has done that in who knows how long), and my younger sister had a Batmitzvah, but my mom has stopped going now, and even when she was, she admitted that she didn't believe in G*d, she was just going to be part of the Jewish community.
So, now you know where I come from. For me, personally, my spirituality tends to be close to Jason L Blair's: I'm not concerned with what happens when I die, I don't care about the spiritual, cosmological implications of my actions, or other's actions. I care only about how my actions affect other living human beings, and how their actions affect me and others. It's not that I don't really believe in "God," it's that I simply don't care whether or not God exists, or what It wants. It has no real bearing on my actions or how other's treat me. When I walk into a church or temple, I don't feel anything (except appreciation for the artwork and architecture). (The exception is when I'm exposed to Taoist and Zen stuff. I feel a slight tug, my breath tends to catch. I've been in Buddhist temple complexes and felt something. But it's not really my culture, and I'm suspicious of trying to appropriate another culture's spirituality except on a private, personal level.)
