Small Town Boy's Spiritual Perspective

A Hard Core Humanist Here Now!
 

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I must say that I have been on quite a journey exploring my spirituality and trying to define what exactly being "spiritual" means, not only in a general sense but how it applies to me.

Let me provide you with some background on my spiritual upbringing. I was born and raised a Roman Catholic. I was a practicing Catholic for many, many years. I was the last one in my family to continue with it by attending Mass regularly and trying to live up to all the dogma, etc. etc.

But somewhere along the line a few years ago I began to question whether I really believed in all the "stuff" that came along with Catholicism and how I really fit into the scheme of the religion, especially being gay. I sought out some help from a local priest who attempted to shed some light on what it meant to be a Catholic and gay. He basically said that while the "mother church" did not see homosexuality as unsinful, one had to look down below to the local priests and parishes that were more open to change and accommodating of a person's sexuality. But after some grappling with that I basically decided that I could not continue that way; being a part of a church that perceived me as a sinner and wanted me to abstain from having a meaningful same sex relationship which obviously entailed sex. So after much thought and a lot of anguish I basically left the church and have no real desire to return.

Then I asked myself, "well, where does this now leave me?" So I decided that I would be a "spiritual" person and not be tied to any established religon. I basically decided to hold on to my Christian values that I was brought up with as a child and most of my early adult life. I told myself that I would continue to believe in God, Jesus, the saints, etc. but I would do it in my way.

After living this way for a while I began to look at that in a much deeper way. I began to have serious conversations with myself about what this perspective on spirituality meant to me. I began to slowly realize that I do not believe in Jesus, the saints, etc. I asked myself how could this be? I began to question the very core of my spiritual belief system which actually scared me very much, as I then began to think "well what am I?" This brought on a period of much confusion and to be quite honest, a lot of anguish. Much more anguish than I felt when I decided to leave the Roman Catholic Faith.

After thinking this through, not by myself however, but that is another story, I decided that I really had serious doubts about the Jesus thing. I basically have come to the conclusion that I really have grave doubts about a virgin birth, the big star in the sky, etc. etc. I am at a point in my life where I have become an Agnostic, but I still believe there is some sort of guiding force, a God, if you will, that is controlling the universe but I do not really believe that God was reborn in the form of a man called Jesus. I believe there may have been a prophet named Jesus who made such an impact on society at the time that many "stories" were woven to explain his ability to have such an impact on folks. While the teachings of Jesus are invaluable and are certainly values to live by, I must question the established view that he is the savior of the world and that my spiritual salvation is dependent upon my accepting him, as the Bible tells us. The Bible, in my view, is nothing more than an agglomeration of stories and tales written by men trying to explain their existence in a time when science and knowledge of the universe and its creation were lacking.

In this day and age where science and technology have proven that the Earth and the stars are much older than one has been taught in the Bible how can one seriously think that this grand universe we live in was created in 7 days by an unseen power, who then planted two humans in a garden who then procreated the population of the earth? I just don't buy it anymore. While I believe in a higher power I simply do not believe all the religious explanations of creation. They just do not jive with what we know today.

While I realize that what I am saying is heresy and that some "religious" folk reading this are damning me and saying I am certainly going to hell, I say to them that they are entitled to their opinion. I say to them save yourselves but keep out of my face! I am sure people that know me are reading this and saying, "WOW, what happened to him?"

I now consider myself to be a humanist.  I believe that a person's spirituality comes from within themselves and is not determined by some bogus dogmatic book or some silly religious leader trying to subjugate the masses to their way of thinking.  Christianity is a theory as far as I am concerned; one that has been disproven time and time again and is controlled by a bunch of me who have no clue about what it means to respect other folks, their opinions and their choices on how they live their lives.