Causing Humanism

"Stop philosophizing about what a good man is and be one."

Well, that survey wasn't at all what I expected. I think the word 'beating' comes to mind. :) They are probably going to chuck my data anyway, as it's likely that I am an outlier in terms of how long it took me to complete the survey. Yep, I had to stop and calculate the actual probabilities associated with each scenario, which is probably not what the authors intended.

As usual though, it reminded me of a story...

When I was somewhere around the age of 15 years old, I was still regularly attending the church of my upbringing. (I really didn't have much of a choice.) As I had been confirmed already, I no longer had to attend Sunday School, and I was recognized by the church as an 'adult', meaning I could take up certain responsibilities. I became involved in video-taping the services for airing on a local cable station. This placed me right outside the sanctuary, on a platform with a live mic and a video camera. Once the service began, the doors were closed, though the ushers remained outside, near the platform I was using for videotaping.

One Sunday, a person with Downs Syndrome appeared at those doors after the service had already started. This person was unescorted, and not someone I had ever seen before at our church. The ushers refused to admit this person, though people often entered or left the sanctuary during the service if the need arose. Once this particular person had left the building, the ushers began to talk amongst themselves about how this person might have become disruptive during the service. They weren't reasoning from any past experience with this person, but rather from a set of preconceived stereotypes.

This episode troubled me because it cast doubt on so many of the beliefs with which I had grown up. I could identify a wrongness in their action, and it didn't mesh with their status as authorities in the church. I had previously assumed, as I had been taught, that not only would I have to work really hard to be good person in this world (in order to overcome my sinful nature), but that continued exposure to the church and its teaching would put and keep me on the path to being that better person. And yet here were two people who had been on that path for 50+ years, and this single incident highlighted a great division between the ideals of this religion (love and compassion for all) and the actions of those who had spent a lifetime in this faith.

What it highlighted for me was that blindly internalizing a particular doctrine was not a guarantee that I would understand these higher ideals, or become the type of person I needed to be in order to be 'saved'. It would take several more experiences with incongruities between the teachings of this religion and the realities of the world though, before I would 'break' more formally with organized religion.

The survey I mentioned above had sections called 'Causing Atheism' and 'Causing Religious Beliefs' that asked about changes in attitude toward god and religion. In any significant change in attitude, there is usually a catalyst event. I guess you could say that this event was the catalyst that opened me up to the possibility that the Church did not contain the best of all knowledge. Which is not to say that there is nothing of value to be found there, but rather that cross-checking one's sources is a preferable way to operate. ;)