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June 25, 2008

Next to Godliness

This post is probably a really bad idea. I have gone back and forth on publishing it and I decided to go for it. I have never been one to do the prudent thing. And this is a subject that has been on my mind a great deal since forever, but particularly since moving to Texas.

I was raised by parents who were not religious. My mother had been raised in a very strict Southern Baptist home in Kentucky (she wasn't even allowed to go to the local bowling alley as a kid because they served beer) and my dad's family was methodist or something, but I never saw any member of his family go to church. My parents raised me to believe that I could pick whatever religion I wanted and if I indeed wanted any. Sometimes I wished they had picked for me. I think what I desired more than sense of spirituality was a sense of belonging to something bigger than myself. Of being part of a community. And so my search began. I tried almost everything. I went to synagogue so often I could speak some Hebrew. I went to a Catholic high school and attended Mass more times that I could count. After falling in love with Chaim Potok's books I asked if I could convert to Judaism. Mom thought it would be best to wait until I was eighteen. I was twelve at the time.

I was also raised to believe that there were four things you never discussed in company and those were money, sex, politics and religion. This was easy in California. I knew almost no one as an adult who went to any kind of organized religious service. People I knew never talked about God. I had friends who were Jewish, Catholic, Christian. But they never actually talked about it. So I come to Texas and everything changes. Suddenly God is everywhere and talked about ceaselessly. People even blog about their religious preferences. You could see a tumbleweed coming down the road on Sunday mornings because everyone is in church. They even have local police helping control traffic at the local church on Sundays. For two ex-Californians, this is madness.

I am an atheist. There. I said it. After many years of contemplating the existence of God I have abstained. Do I have a bone to pick with organized religion? Yes. Do I have one to pick with people who are religious? Of course not. My belief is that whatever makes you live life more deeply, care more strongly, love much better, is good (as long as it does not hurt anyone else). Do I think that my family and I are going to burn in hell? No. I judge people by who they are and what they do. I don't care if you are a Muslim, a Jew, or a Catholic. As long as you don't try to convert me and as long as you also respect my right to believe as I wish.

So the mention of Jesus or the Lord as if he lived next door and had just come by for a beer is a big adjustment for me. In time it will seem less foreign. But I worry about the boys. With an atheist mother and a non-practicing Jewish father, will they be able to find their way amongst all this God talk? Will they truly be able to come to terms with it all without us to lead them? Maybe I will have to force Josh's hand and make him follow through with the promise he made before we had Sam's bris (of course this was a promise made under extreme duress while I cried like a baby ten minutes before 'Max the Mohel' arrived and told him I did not want to mutilate my son). I told him we would only go ahead and do it if he sent them to Hebrew school and they had their bar mitzvah. Otherwise, it would be torture for me with no payoff. This way, even if they choose not to believe in God, they will at least speak another language. And they will get some really good bling.

Posted by Bonnie Berry at June 25, 2008 2:31 PM

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