Mystery Meat

Here now, more of my post therapy ramblings about religion & the nature of faith:

I begin this entry with a quote from the Matrix:

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

In the movie, Neo has just found out that everything he believed about the world is a lie.  He is given a choice, go back to life as you know it or shatter that illusion and see the world for what it really is.  But it is a one way trip.  Once the choice is made, there is no going back.

This is a powerful metaphor for the nature of faith.  When you are raised in a faith group, probably any faith, you see the entire world through your religion’s paradigm.  In the case of my Pentecostal upbringing, every question had an answer.  The answers seem ridiculous to someone outside of the group.  But taken as a whole, it is a fairly cohesive explanation of the nature of life.  Fantastic to be sure, but there is a strange certain logic to it all.

The problem is each of the tenants of faith is like a Jenga piece.  You can safely take away one or two pieces but eventually, the entire structure collapses.  Once that happens, like it or not, you have taken the red pill.  There is no way to return to being a blue pill person (how is that for mixing metaphors?).

I can’t necessarily pinpoint the exact moment that my tower collapsed and or I took the red pill, but I think it was roughly at the funeral of a friend who committed suicide.

I have been doubting and dismissing tenants of faith for years.  But my faith as a whole always stayed intact.  But a couple of years ago, it all fell apart and I have been miserable ever since.

The real insight that I gained this week is that I have been pushing against two extremes.  I want to either go back to believing ALL of the faith of my childhood or I want to become an atheist.  But I cannot delude myself into the former and I am not wired to believe the latter.  I just don’t believe Christian theology but atheism leaves a gaping hole in my psyche.

My therapist said something that was rather comforting, an interesting twist on words.  I have been disillusioned.  But before that, I only had illusion.  I am never going to have absolutes again.  That phase of life is gone.

But there is no certainty in atheism.  It is just another flavor of absolutism.  Doubt me?  Read some of Richard Dawkins’ books.  He is equally dogmatic as your average evangelical Christian.

But having removed the illusion, I am now free to explore the universe.  I can’t say that I am looking for answers.  I am not sure answers exist.  But I can embrace the mystery and choose a path that works for me.