I Tire Of This Tomfoolery

[xifeng]

JOB update: Sapping will to live, as usual. Hopefully this will just be temporary. I have an interview in Bloomington tomorrow, and while I'm trying not to pin all my hopes on it (the more so since it would create some not-altogether-desirable stress), it's nice to be potentially wanted.

MOOD update: Not getting any better, sad to say. Probably won't be better for some time to come. H, augustuscaesar, and m0mmy are, between the three of them, helping to salvage what little remains of my sanity. ♥ Also, the holidays are just around the corner, and blah blah blah angst blah blah blah backstory blah blah blah tedious drama the upshot of which is that I hate Christmas, which you probably already knew, so between all that I probably won't be worth much until January. I'll try not to snap at anyone but I may be bitchy. There may be entire entries dedicated to waaaaaaaangst. (Like this one, for instance).

RELIGION update: Flipped through a book of m0mmy's called Faith Rediscovered by Lawrence S. Cunningham, was rather uncomfortably shown myself, have been fiddling around with the faith of my mothers in my head. The short list:


+ Have severe and intense qualms about monotheism
+ Find Christian theology of the body thoroughly repugnant (my hymen belonged to ME, you assholes, not some man I perhaps haven't even met, and since it WAS my property surely any reasonable person would concede I DID have the right to dispose of it as, when, and how I wished)
+ Dislike rules on principle
+ Think "why?" is perfectly acceptable response to being told to do something or not do something
+ Am bad at things that Christianity wants me to not be bad at (am good at vengeance, secretly believe people probably deserve to die; am not good at love or forgiveness, have not found either trait particularly useful).
+ Miss the Church horribly; will always, always consider it a bedrock of identity, but more so in a cultural than theological sense; do not at present believe it possible to go home again. Cannot countenance idea of belonging to any other denomination because have been thoroughly ruined for anything else.
+ Am not only angry but LIVID with God, or at least Christian concept thereof, and am not altogether sure if it is possible to get past this.
+ Said to m0mmy that find it much easier to believe in concept of impersonal God who does not hear or answer prayer or really even give a shit about what happens to us. Certainly objective reality supports this.
+ Suspect that atheism is probably my natural state, but probably still need religion (at present anyway) for emotional-validation purposes.
+ Still don't have answers, even unsatisfying ones.


In conclusion, WANKYWANKYWANKWANK.

Going to bed now. I have too much to do before Thanksgiving and not enough time to do it in.

Comments

[duokinneas.livejournal.com]

Organized religion has always troubled my small mind. This is why I offend many Christians even after I've thrown out my screaming, rabid atheist ways (those've been gone since I was about thirteen and had to acknowledge that I was so defensive about it because I believe in God).

I don't validate myself through religion, but I do find it really comforting to believe that God is watching; like you, I don't believe that He is interfering in our lives and sticking his fingers through the pie crust every five seconds, whenever we need a personal miracle or something like that, but I do believe that He sees and hears us.

So when you call this "wank," I see it as logical conclusions and your own damn business; if somebody ever gives you shit, I know you'll lay the smackdown. And I understand. It's weird for me to say that, because there's never been a church that could work for me, but I understand even your fallback on the Church.

**hugs** Don't let the Thanksgiving Man get you down. Or the Man in the sense of the Lord, since that was the main topic anyway. ^^6

[shake-the-stars.livejournal.com]

I had screaming, rabid atheist ways in high school; if I return to atheism, it will probably be a sort of cozy settling-down-into-it kind of thing. I've lost the need to convert people to my causes and such as I've grown older.

I don't know that I'd say I totally don't believe that God interferes; I just find it easier to believe logically, based on the evidence, that there isn't a personal God. I don't know yet if I'm capable, emotionally speaking, of making that jump, because emotionally it is comforting to believe that God (or the gods) hear/s and answer/s prayers. Also I can't say that I particularly like or find comforting the idea that God Is Always Watching You.

It's hard for me to explain the pull that Catholicism exerts to someone who has never been Catholic, or anything similar. If my family hadn't been practicing Catholics, and my only exposure to church had been of the Christmas-and-East0r variety, I might have felt differently. But my experience is that the grandeur of the Church and the richness of the Faith and the history behind it render everything else pale and lacking. There are things about other denominations that I like, and I understand why they might appeal to other people, but I can't find what I'm looking for there. (I'm not altogether sure that I could find it in the Church, either.)

Thanksgiving never gets me down! *hugs you back and gives you a piece of pie*