The Unbeliever

Rick Hunter

Celestial
I have been studying religion and belief/unbelief all my life, it just fascinates the hell out of me (no pun intended!). My sister in law was raised in the church as my wife was. For most of her life she has been pretty devout (at least by appearances), and quite involved in the church and many charitable projects. However in the last few weeks she has officially come out as an unbeliever, something like what Martin Marty described in his book Varieties of Unbelief. The author wrote in the introduction that:

"This book attempts to describe two types and a number of forms of modern unbelief. Unbelief can be defined in as many ways as can its opposite, belief. In this book it represents ways in which people of the recent past have expressed themselves apart from belief in the God of Christian revelation."

Likewise, she wrote on her FB profile,

"I’ve never been one to treat someone badly based on what they do, or do not, believe. I hope most people can afford me that same courtesy. We shall see…
I am no longer considering myself a “Christian”. I’m not sure what I do believe, but I know what I don’t. After 38 years, it’s time to be honest with myself and those I care about.
I’ve been vocal about my beliefs up until now, so I felt compelled to be vocal about my non-beliefs. Although not up for debate, I’m happy to have deep, meaningful conversations with anyone who wants to.
This is not a new thing. For the past few weeks, I’ve put much thought and time into who I am and what I believe. I’ve talked with those who know me best and care about me most. I’ve considered everything, and this is my path.
Most importantly, (husband) and I are on the same page and we look forward to continuing to grow together. I’ve never felt so mentally and emotionally healthy."

There are tons of nominal believers in my family but this is the only time I can remember encountering an unbeliever. I advised her to examine the Baha'i faith, as it is universalist and I think that it would go well with her humanitarian tenets which I think have always been more important to her than the stories and expectations of Christianity anyway. She told me that she is quite happy not to be a part of any faith right now, and I respect her decision. As you might suspect, her family is not very happy with this. My wife doesn't agree with it, but isn't going to argue about it or anything.

I believe in freewill, every person must choose for themselves what to believe or not believe. I also believe that we should advocate for the faith whenever it is constructive to do so, but never at the expense of alienating or disrespecting anyone. Being a student of religion and belief/unbelief, I am planning to just listen to her talk about how she arrived at a position of unbelief if she will discuss it with me. I am a Christian, however my version of the faith differs from many in that I am willing to consider other texts and practices as long as they don't contradict my understanding of the Gospel. For example, I am coming to embrace reincarnation more and more. My religion isn't the same as it was when I was a kid or even ten years ago. And I'm sure it will have evolved even more by the time the curtain closes on this act!
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
I was raised in a Roman catholic household by my grandparents and apart from their actual spiritual beliefs there was a lot of tradition and community involved. Likely in any organization there are some more biased toward that than belief. When you think about the era they lived in the world was smaller in many ways and may be easier to see. For whatever reason it never took with me and from an early age just wouldn't accept it. Much to gram's frustration. I will say though that if I could attend a Christmas midnight mass in the old church I would out of nostalgia and childhood memory. I remember the smell of the incense. Took a peek one sunny day and it literally has not changed one bit since then. We would be welcomed and my wife and I have talked about it but on a practical level the chances of being awake at midnight any day of the years are virtually zero for us ........

My brother makes claims of being pious but his actions do not reflect it. I have little patience for hypocrisy. At least the unbeliever has sincere thoughts on the topic you can respect and isn't just going through the motions.
 

Rick Hunter

Celestial
To me, religion is an extraordinarily personal thing, maybe the personal thing of all. It isn't just beliefs (or non-beliefs) about the supernatural, who created the world, the afterlife, etc. To me, a proper understanding religion is how an individual views their cosmos in its entirety. This must necessarily be at least somewhat different from person to person, even among those who claim the same sect within a religion. At the same time, they are all connected to each other and share alot of overlap, since so much of human experience is universal. As such, labels and categories such as Hindu, Christian, Zoroastrian, Sunni, Methodist, are useful for designating large groups of people who share the same or nearly the same core beliefs, but they can never fully capture the infinite variations on a theme within each group.

My sister in law self-identifies as an unbeliever, but I suspect she is still carrying some baggage left from years of Christianity. Especially the humanitarian and charitable concerns which she quite actively practiced within the church. In any event, she still has a book about Padre Pio on her living room coffee table.
 

Rick Hunter

Celestial
As mentioned before, I have been reading the non-canonical gospels for quite some time now. Alot of what is in there doesn't so much contradict orthodox Christianity so much as it offers a different take on the same thing. The Gospel of Thomas, my favorite, offers a view of Jesus the mysterious philosopher. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene offers up the story of someone who may have been the thirteenth disciple, or even Jesus' girlfriend. Which, for various reasons the church fathers needed to brand as heresy.

It has always seemed quite odd that Jesus probably had at least a decade or more of ministry but they decided that only four little books plus a small part of another were the true story of God in the flesh. I think it's more likely that Jesus was the Jesus of the canonical gospels and so much more. Unfortunately, the early church did such a thorough job of erasing the other records of Jesus that we don't have much to draw on.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
When Christ states the "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you" he is indicating the importance of not just knowing but understanding where we are psychologically, internally, one's being cannot change if one does not become more conscious of it...However, being a believer of any particular faith is arbitrary since spiritual understanding is a psychological kind of work, not religious, nor does it involve any doctrine, what is required is more consciousness...Consciousness balances and heals, balanced men have many sides and is fluid and flexible, belief makes man stiff and one sided, blocks understanding...

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