03.29.09
New Site = www.Exploring-spiritual-development.com
Well, I have finally moved over to my new site, www.Exploring-spiritual-development.com. I do not plan to post anything further on this site, at least in the near future because I want to concentrate my efforts on finishing my book and I think the new site will better suit my needs than this blog for the purpose of building my writing platform.
Please visit the new site for what is hopefully a simpler explanation of these stages than appeared on this blog and possibly a format that makes the material more easily accessible.
Thanks!
Margaret Johnston
Jim Berry said,
April 21, 2009 at 2:10 am
Hi, Margaret,
I’m one of those people from Houston, TX you put up a few Marches ago. We went to downtown D.C. to protest the Iraq invasion and occupation. While we were at your house, you told us about your Belief Stages and Growth web site, and asked us if we would contribute our religious experiences to that site. Well, it’s a little late but here’s my input, below. Thanks again for putting us up, or should I say putting up with us.
I was never really sure that there was a god, even in my early childhood. My questions arose not from anything I was being taught in the Catholic church, but from the superstitions of my maternal grandmother; she was an Italian emigrant who carried all of her country’s ancient superstitions with her to America. They were the typical superstitions such as the broken mirror, walking under a ladder, the black cat, salt over the left shoulder, etc. What made me think and question what god was was the similarities I perceived between superstitions and god. In both cases there was cause and effect. Both relied on some mysterious force (the cause) to result in some human event (the effect). I couldn’t, in my mind, differentiate between the two causes. Every time, in my early youth, I heard a superstition invoked or saw a symbol of superstition, such as a mirror or a ladder, I immediately thought about religion and again tried to distinguish between the mysterious force of superstition and the mysterious force of religion, or god.
When I was around ten years old, my questions came to a head. My mother, two sisters and I came out of church one Sunday and while in front of the church, I looked up at my mother and asked her, “What’s the difference between superstition and religion?” I don’t remember what my mother’s reply was, but I do remember that she was uncomfortable with the question and gave a quick answer. I suspect that her answer was something along the line of, “Religion is real.” Of course, I wasn’t satisfied with her answer but lingered on being a good Catholic boy, going through the motions. I did like the singing at mass but my question lingered on, like an albatross around my neck. I still wasn’t sure, but I didn’t want to be a bad boy and wind up in hell either. In grade school I became an altar boy. In high school I went through a period where I tried very hard to believe that god was real, but I still wasn’t sure.
My ah-ha moment came in college when I made love for the first time. Even during that act of lovemaking I wasn’t sure if I would be stuck by a lightening bolt or not. But the next day when I was in the middle of campus talking with friends (I don’t remember who), I looked up into the sky and saw a clear, blue sky—no thunder, no lightening bolts. And I said to myself, “There is no god.” After that, I stopped going to church. I felt such relief. My question was gone. I could live without fear of a supernatural being constantly watching over my shoulder.
I didn’t do much with my atheism in college or during my following military career. I just kind of coasted, making decisions based on common sense and not because some supernatural being told me what to do. During my stint in the military I started reading a lot of history books, including the history of religions. During my civilian job, after leaving the military, I really read a lot of books on ancient cultures and on religions and became a quite-good history buff. Both types of books lent to my knowledge of religions; their beginnings, their common beliefs and their dependencies on each other, and the historical settings in which they were founded. All of this information supported my understanding that there is no god, just a wish by poor, uneducated people who hoped that they could rely on a supernatural being or beings to help them get through life.
I was finally ready to declare my atheism when Ronald Reagan was elected president; that really scared me. My late wife was also an atheist, which was comforting. I arranged for an atheist funeral for her with the help of a local atheist group. It was a beautiful ceremony.
Now, I’m a member of several atheist groups and am not afraid to speak my thoughts about atheism. I am at peace with myself.