Spiritual and religions, but none of the religions seem to fit

[Karolina]

Here's my umpteenth attempt at finding what I'm looking for. I think it's a sense of community with like-minded people. Maybe there's something I've missed. Open to ideas.

I believe in one personal God, Who is mystery and corresponds to the first lines of the Dao De Jing: "The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao." Except replace "Dao" with "God".

I believe in some sort of afterlife on account of us being made of energy and energy being neither created nor destroyed.

I believe how we treat others matters. The golden rule. I believe there's a lot of nuance here and individual situations need personal discernment, not pre-cut one-size-fits-all doctrines or dogmas.

I don't believe any single religion is capable of having the "fullness" of supernatural truth, so my search has never been about that. I see sparks of the Divine and what I'd call "truth" in every religion I've ever considered. Which is why it's impossible for me to fully embrace one over all the others, yet without doing so, I cannot say I belong.

In the past, I've identified as a Deist (albeit that's not quite right, since my notion of God is that He is interested in us and can interact with us somehow.).
I've also identified as a philosophical Taoist, except I think of the Tao as God.

I currently participate in the religion of my upbringing - Catholicism. I try to view the various expressions of this faith through the lense of symbolism, which makes it a lot more believable for me. But it also means that I have to keep my true beliefs to myself for fear of being called a heretic, apostate, blasphemer, or worse.

I can't really wrap my head around the basic premise of Christianity. I've tried, boy have I tried. The Trinity as a Christian koan, the mystery of God.... but really, in spite of the Christian dogma to the contrary, it really does feel like there's a duplicity of gods in the "godhead". When I pray, I essentially focus on what Christians would call "the Father and the Spirit" (which for some reason I have no problem seeing as one and the same "God"), but when it comes to the incarnation bit and the role of Jesus, it starts to fall apart. The more I read the Bible and listen to sermons, the more I doubt what I'm reading in the Christian scriptures as valid. I used to believe what was written was certainly what Jesus said and did, and so my decision to follow him was based on this assumption. But since then, I've come to understand that I'm not dealing with the actual teachings of Jesus but rather what was written about him many years later.

I once watched a video by an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who described Christian converts to Judaism using the terminology of "breaking up with Jesus". I remember at that time being completely unable to imagine a world where I could do that. It felt like turning my back on God, because I have grown up being told that the two are essentially one and the same. But I no longer see it that way.

When I do read and ponder what Jesus is purported to have said and done, I notice he really isn't talking to me, a gentile living 2,000 years later, across the ocean. He is teaching within the context of his time and place, to fellow Jews. At first, I was a little hurt (!) that he wasn't really worried too much about me. (When you've been taught how much Jesus loves you to pieces, and then you realize he was preaching to other Jews, it does a number on your self-esteem.)

My first attempt at looking into Judaism was premature, as I was not at all ready to let go of my indoctrinated assumptions or my ego. I bemoaned the fact that Judaism neither cares to convert me, nor offers me any alternative. Of course, it is not the responsibility of Judaism to care for non-Jews, and I get that. But my Christian surroundings taught me to sort of expect religions to want to lure me in.

The idea of the Noahide identity both compels and exacerbates me. On the one hand, it seems like a relatively easy way out. On the other hand, if Jews make up no more than 2% of the population of my country, guess how likely it is for me to find a community of Noahides?

I'm actually not at all a social person. I was recently diagnosed with autism, so I struggle a lot with socializing. I keep returning to Catholicism because it's a way for me to be social in a very proscribed manner, where I know what to expect and there's no one trying to start small talk with me. But it feels wrong. I feel like a hypocrite.

Yes, I've been to UU churches, and my impression there is that anything goes. I want to go to church to worship God. I know the term "worship" can be tricky, but when I know that everyone can believe whatever they want, then I don't understand what links us together, how we are supposed to be a community.

Whenever I see a person whose religious affiliation is readily visibly by way of their clothing (be it Orthodox Jews, Muslim women with hijab, Amish, etc.), I linger for a moment with a sense of longing. I know that the price of belonging is to set aside some level of one's individuality, and I seem to be incapable of doing so, and therefore here I am.

I'm hoping that maybe God is working on me to be ready to let go in order to belong. So I keep circling back.

 

[Ella S.]

Have you read the Bhagavad Gita or the Upanishads?

 

[Karolina]

Have you read the Bhagavad Gita or the Upanishads?

Bits and pieces. I know some say Brahman is the ultimate one god within Hinduism, but I run into the same problem as I do with the Christian Trinity, having Vishnu, Krishna, Shiva.... it's all just too many deities to filter through to remember there is only the One.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

Great post! Let me share my thoughts.

In the past I attended a UU church. Besides the sense of social justice there doesn't seem to be a lot holding the glue of the modern Unitarian together. When I took the famous Select Smart religious quiz, I typically would get two results really high up on the list, then everything else would be significantly lower than those two results. One of those results was UU, but the other was Liberal Quaker.

Quakers are an interesting group of people. They often focus on what they call the 'light' of every person, and most Quakers believe in some sort of God, except for the Nontheistic Quakers, but that sect of Quakerism is so small that there's really only a few thousand that call themselves that. Quakers have various sects, including Evangelical Quaker, Conservative Quaker, and the more broad Liberal Quaker. Liberal Quakers believe in God but aren't as strict when it comes to believing in Jesus and they attend what is called 'unprogrammed worship', meaning that people pray together until someone is led to speak out from what they call the inner spirit of truth.

Honestly, I don't know if liberal Quakerism is something you've already tried or something you have once considered, but when I read your post it seemed to me that would be the group you'd get along with the most. The difference between UUism and Liberal Quakers is very insignificant, and many times I score 100% or near 100% depending on my mood with either religion on the Select Smart religious quiz. You can take the quiz here. It's not a 'this is right this is wrong' quiz, it's a personality quiz that pairs you up with 27 different religions based on 20 different questions.

The first question I have typically answered in the past with, "impersonal God" without the need for a personal God, but as I have answered both with an "impersonal God" AND "personal God" (panendeism and syntheism together) I get Liberal Quaker beating out UUism by a percent or two since. I don't know what your results are going to be like, but we seem in some ways to be kindred spirits of sorts, based on your reply to this thread I post.

Good luck trying to find the religion that calls to you. Maybe you don't like unprogrammed worship. I honestly don't. And I have found my true theology and beliefs with Earthseed rather than any normalized, organized religions - whether they have dogmas or not. Still, it's nice to know that I can attend a UU service or unprogrammed worship with Liberal Quakers and feel somewhat at home with either. Remember, if you are too far away to attend service, there is always Quest for Truth and Church of the Larger Fellowship with the UUs and many other religions have their own Zoom meetings that people can participate in if they are called to do so.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Here's my umpteenth attempt at finding what I'm looking for. I think it's a sense of community with like-minded people. Maybe there's something I've missed. Open to ideas.

I believe in one personal God, Who is mystery and corresponds to the first lines of the Dao De Jing: "The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao." Except replace "Dao" with "God".

I believe in some sort of afterlife on account of us being made of energy and energy being neither created nor destroyed.

I believe how we treat others matters. The golden rule. I believe there's a lot of nuance here and individual situations need personal discernment, not pre-cut one-size-fits-all doctrines or dogmas.

I don't believe any single religion is capable of having the "fullness" of supernatural truth, so my search has never been about that. I see sparks of the Divine and what I'd call "truth" in every religion I've ever considered. Which is why it's impossible for me to fully embrace one over all the others, yet without doing so, I cannot say I belong.

In the past, I've identified as a Deist (albeit that's not quite right, since my notion of God is that He is interested in us and can interact with us somehow.).
I've also identified as a philosophical Taoist, except I think of the Tao as God.

I currently participate in the religion of my upbringing - Catholicism. I try to view the various expressions of this faith through the lense of symbolism, which makes it a lot more believable for me. But it also means that I have to keep my true beliefs to myself for fear of being called a heretic, apostate, blasphemer, or worse.

I can't really wrap my head around the basic premise of Christianity. I've tried, boy have I tried. The Trinity as a Christian koan, the mystery of God.... but really, in spite of the Christian dogma to the contrary, it really does feel like there's a duplicity of gods in the "godhead". When I pray, I essentially focus on what Christians would call "the Father and the Spirit" (which for some reason I have no problem seeing as one and the same "God"), but when it comes to the incarnation bit and the role of Jesus, it starts to fall apart. The more I read the Bible and listen to sermons, the more I doubt what I'm reading in the Christian scriptures as valid. I used to believe what was written was certainly what Jesus said and did, and so my decision to follow him was based on this assumption. But since then, I've come to understand that I'm not dealing with the actual teachings of Jesus but rather what was written about him many years later.

I once watched a video by an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who described Christian converts to Judaism using the terminology of "breaking up with Jesus". I remember at that time being completely unable to imagine a world where I could do that. It felt like turning my back on God, because I have grown up being told that the two are essentially one and the same. But I no longer see it that way.

When I do read and ponder what Jesus is purported to have said and done, I notice he really isn't talking to me, a gentile living 2,000 years later, across the ocean. He is teaching within the context of his time and place, to fellow Jews. At first, I was a little hurt (!) that he wasn't really worried too much about me. (When you've been taught how much Jesus loves you to pieces, and then you realize he was preaching to other Jews, it does a number on your self-esteem.)

My first attempt at looking into Judaism was premature, as I was not at all ready to let go of my indoctrinated assumptions or my ego. I bemoaned the fact that Judaism neither cares to convert me, nor offers me any alternative. Of course, it is not the responsibility of Judaism to care for non-Jews, and I get that. But my Christian surroundings taught me to sort of expect religions to want to lure me in.

The idea of the Noahide identity both compels and exacerbates me. On the one hand, it seems like a relatively easy way out. On the other hand, if Jews make up no more than 2% of the population of my country, guess how likely it is for me to find a community of Noahides?

I'm actually not at all a social person. I was recently diagnosed with autism, so I struggle a lot with socializing. I keep returning to Catholicism because it's a way for me to be social in a very proscribed manner, where I know what to expect and there's no one trying to start small talk with me. But it feels wrong. I feel like a hypocrite.

Yes, I've been to UU churches, and my impression there is that anything goes. I want to go to church to worship God. I know the term "worship" can be tricky, but when I know that everyone can believe whatever they want, then I don't understand what links us together, how we are supposed to be a community.

Whenever I see a person whose religious affiliation is readily visibly by way of their clothing (be it Orthodox Jews, Muslim women with hijab, Amish, etc.), I linger for a moment with a sense of longing. I know that the price of belonging is to set aside some level of one's individuality, and I seem to be incapable of doing so, and therefore here I am.

I'm hoping that maybe God is working on me to be ready to let go in order to belong. So I keep circling back.

Gosh, you sound like me. You mentioned you believe in a personal god, but neither Taoism nor Deism have a personal god.

 

[HonestJoe]

Here's my umpteenth attempt at finding what I'm looking for. I think it's a sense of community with like-minded people. Maybe there's something I've missed. Open to ideas.

Why are you limiting this to religion? You could find a community of like-minded people in all sorts of ways, via hobbies, social groups or just general groups of friends.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Here's my umpteenth attempt at finding what I'm looking for. I think it's a sense of community with like-minded people. Maybe there's something I've missed. Open to ideas.

I believe in one personal God, Who is mystery and corresponds to the first lines of the Dao De Jing: "The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao." Except replace "Dao" with "God".

I believe in some sort of afterlife on account of us being made of energy and energy being neither created nor destroyed.

I believe how we treat others matters. The golden rule. I believe there's a lot of nuance here and individual situations need personal discernment, not pre-cut one-size-fits-all doctrines or dogmas.

I don't believe any single religion is capable of having the "fullness" of supernatural truth, so my search has never been about that. I see sparks of the Divine and what I'd call "truth" in every religion I've ever considered. Which is why it's impossible for me to fully embrace one over all the others, yet without doing so, I cannot say I belong.

In the past, I've identified as a Deist (albeit that's not quite right, since my notion of God is that He is interested in us and can interact with us somehow.).
I've also identified as a philosophical Taoist, except I think of the Tao as God.

I currently participate in the religion of my upbringing - Catholicism. I try to view the various expressions of this faith through the lense of symbolism, which makes it a lot more believable for me. But it also means that I have to keep my true beliefs to myself for fear of being called a heretic, apostate, blasphemer, or worse.

I can't really wrap my head around the basic premise of Christianity. I've tried, boy have I tried. The Trinity as a Christian koan, the mystery of God.... but really, in spite of the Christian dogma to the contrary, it really does feel like there's a duplicity of gods in the "godhead". When I pray, I essentially focus on what Christians would call "the Father and the Spirit" (which for some reason I have no problem seeing as one and the same "God"), but when it comes to the incarnation bit and the role of Jesus, it starts to fall apart. The more I read the Bible and listen to sermons, the more I doubt what I'm reading in the Christian scriptures as valid. I used to believe what was written was certainly what Jesus said and did, and so my decision to follow him was based on this assumption. But since then, I've come to understand that I'm not dealing with the actual teachings of Jesus but rather what was written about him many years later.

I once watched a video by an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who described Christian converts to Judaism using the terminology of "breaking up with Jesus". I remember at that time being completely unable to imagine a world where I could do that. It felt like turning my back on God, because I have grown up being told that the two are essentially one and the same. But I no longer see it that way.

When I do read and ponder what Jesus is purported to have said and done, I notice he really isn't talking to me, a gentile living 2,000 years later, across the ocean. He is teaching within the context of his time and place, to fellow Jews. At first, I was a little hurt (!) that he wasn't really worried too much about me. (When you've been taught how much Jesus loves you to pieces, and then you realize he was preaching to other Jews, it does a number on your self-esteem.)

My first attempt at looking into Judaism was premature, as I was not at all ready to let go of my indoctrinated assumptions or my ego. I bemoaned the fact that Judaism neither cares to convert me, nor offers me any alternative. Of course, it is not the responsibility of Judaism to care for non-Jews, and I get that. But my Christian surroundings taught me to sort of expect religions to want to lure me in.

The idea of the Noahide identity both compels and exacerbates me. On the one hand, it seems like a relatively easy way out. On the other hand, if Jews make up no more than 2% of the population of my country, guess how likely it is for me to find a community of Noahides?

I'm actually not at all a social person. I was recently diagnosed with autism, so I struggle a lot with socializing. I keep returning to Catholicism because it's a way for me to be social in a very proscribed manner, where I know what to expect and there's no one trying to start small talk with me. But it feels wrong. I feel like a hypocrite.

Yes, I've been to UU churches, and my impression there is that anything goes. I want to go to church to worship God. I know the term "worship" can be tricky, but when I know that everyone can believe whatever they want, then I don't understand what links us together, how we are supposed to be a community.

Whenever I see a person whose religious affiliation is readily visibly by way of their clothing (be it Orthodox Jews, Muslim women with hijab, Amish, etc.), I linger for a moment with a sense of longing. I know that the price of belonging is to set aside some level of one's individuality, and I seem to be incapable of doing so, and therefore here I am.

I'm hoping that maybe God is working on me to be ready to let go in order to belong. So I keep circling back.

Have you ever tried to talk to a priest about your doubts or a trusted Catholic friend, godparent, minister? It doesn't have to be the priest of the parish you attend. Catholics aren't as judgemental about differing views as you may think we are. There is certainly a boundary, but heresy is a very specific thing and you're not that for sure. It sounds like simple confusion and questioning, which is normal.

 

[Jainarayan]

Bits and pieces. I know some say Brahman is the ultimate one god within Hinduism, but I run into the same problem as I do with the Christian Trinity, having Vishnu, Krishna, Shiva.... it's all just too many deities to filter through to remember there is only the One.

You don't need to "recognize" all the deities in Hinduism. You don't need to pray to all of them. Because as you seem to know already, pray to one and you pray to all. They exist as individuals because everyone has a different idea or image of God. There is a saying that God shows himself to the believer as the believer wishes to see God. Some people see God in different forms at different times for different reasons. I see God primarily as Vishnu/Krishna 90% of the time. But there are times when I think of God in his Shiva form, or in the form of Devi/Goddess. I just spent a couple of hours practicing and playing guitar. For all that time I saw only Saraswati, and talked only to her. That's the form God(dess) took for me at that time. But that's just me. I worked with a guy whose wife prayed only to Shiva, to no one else. It's as if the other deities didn't exist. She found Shiva, or he found her. Hinduism is actually a lot simpler than people think it is, or make it out to be.

 

[Karolina]

Great post! Let me share my thoughts.

In the past I attended a UU church. Besides the sense of social justice there doesn't seem to be a lot holding the glue of the modern Unitarian together. When I took the famous Select Smart religious quiz, I typically would get two results really high up on the list, then everything else would be significantly lower than those two results. One of those results was UU, but the other was Liberal Quaker.

Quakers are an interesting group of people. They often focus on what they call the 'light' of every person, and most Quakers believe in some sort of God, except for the Nontheistic Quakers, but that sect of Quakerism is so small that there's really only a few thousand that call themselves that. Quakers have various sects, including Evangelical Quaker, Conservative Quaker, and the more broad Liberal Quaker. Liberal Quakers believe in God but aren't as strict when it comes to believing in Jesus and they attend what is called 'unprogrammed worship', meaning that people pray together until someone is led to speak out from what they call the inner spirit of truth.

Honestly, I don't know if liberal Quakerism is something you've already tried or something you have once considered, but when I read your post it seemed to me that would be the group you'd get along with the most. The difference between UUism and Liberal Quakers is very insignificant, and many times I score 100% or near 100% depending on my mood with either religion on the Select Smart religious quiz. You can take the quiz here. It's not a 'this is right this is wrong' quiz, it's a personality quiz that pairs you up with 27 different religions based on 20 different questions.

The first question I have typically answered in the past with, "impersonal God" without the need for a personal God, but as I have answered both with an "impersonal God" AND "personal God" (panendeism and syntheism together) I get Liberal Quaker beating out UUism by a percent or two since. I don't know what your results are going to be like, but we seem in some ways to be kindred spirits of sorts, based on your reply to this thread I post.

Good luck trying to find the religion that calls to you. Maybe you don't like unprogrammed worship. I honestly don't. And I have found my true theology and beliefs with Earthseed rather than any normalized, organized religions - whether they have dogmas or not. Still, it's nice to know that I can attend a UU service or unprogrammed worship with Liberal Quakers and feel somewhat at home with either. Remember, if you are too far away to attend service, there is always Quest for Truth and Church of the Larger Fellowship with the UUs and many other religions have their own Zoom meetings that people can participate in if they are called to do so.

Indeed, I used to attend unprogrammed worship for several months. The only Quakers in my region seem to be liberal, unprogrammed. I once attended around Easter time (it was a year when I went to I think 5 different services from 5 different traditions), and there was someone there who shared a dream she had, and it really kind of bothered me because it was so out of left field. I think I'm one of those people who doesn't want to belong to any group that would actually have me! doh! And online services aren't for me. I had enough of them during the COVID shut downs. The last time I took one of those religion quizzes, I kid you not, I did get liberal Quake as my top score, but it was only a 6% match! I've never scored that low before. I feel like I'm spiraling and grasping at straws. Thanks for letting me share.

 

[Karolina]

Gosh, you sound like me. You mentioned you believe in a personal god, but neither Taoism nor Deism have a personal god.

Right, that's why I'm still searching

 

[Karolina]

Why are you limiting this to religion? You could find a community of like-minded people in all sorts of ways, via hobbies, social groups or just general groups of friends.

Well, because I love religions and I can't imagine not having religion in my life, but at the same time, I feel like a hypocrite at my current place of worship. Plus, I don't do socializing very well, so I don't see myself taking the time to spend more time with people than I already do, and church is a weekly built-in socialization time for me. Though I will say that I have considered what you're saying and I'm also looking elsewhere (outside of religion - I'm a homeschooler so I'm looking in that demographic) to see if that might scratch the itch, so to speak.

 

[Karolina]

Have you ever tried to talk to a priest about your doubts or a trusted Catholic friend, godparent, minister? It doesn't have to be the priest of the parish you attend. Catholics aren't as judgemental about differing views as you may think we are. There is certainly a boundary, but heresy is a very specific thing and you're not that for sure. It sounds like simple confusion and questioning, which is normal.

Right. Years ago, I was able to share these sorts of thoughts with a religious sister who ran my alma mater's spiritual retreats. She and the priests who would offer spiritual direction were always so very helpful. None of that is available to me anymore. I've tried to set up spiritual direction with local priests but it seems something always stands in the way of making it happen. There is a great retreat center locally where I like to go several times a year. I'm thinking I'll try spiritual direction through one of their sisters. Thanks.

 

[Karolina]

You don't need to "recognize" all the deities in Hinduism. You don't need to pray to all of them. Because as you seem to know already, pray to one and you pray to all. They exist as individuals because everyone has a different idea or image of God. There is a saying that God shows himself to the believer as the believer wishes to see God. Some people see God in different forms at different times for different reasons. I see God primarily as Vishnu/Krishna 90% of the time. But there are times when I think of God in his Shiva form, or in the form of Devi/Goddess. I just spent a couple of hours practicing and playing guitar. For all that time I saw only Saraswati, and talked only to her. That's the form God(dess) took for me at that time. But that's just me. I worked with a guy whose wife prayed only to Shiva, to no one else. It's as if the other deities didn't exist. She found Shiva, or he found her. Hinduism is actually a lot simpler than people think it is, or make it out to be.

This is interesting, but doesn't it still mean that one is at least "aware" of the other deities but chooses to ignore them?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Right. Years ago, I was able to share these sorts of thoughts with a religious sister who ran my alma mater's spiritual retreats. She and the priests who would offer spiritual direction were always so very helpful. None of that is available to me anymore. I've tried to set up spiritual direction with local priests but it seems something always stands in the way of making it happen. There is a great retreat center locally where I like to go several times a year. I'm thinking I'll try spiritual direction through one of their sisters. Thanks.

Best wishes and God bless you. I definitely know what it's like to have questions and a lack of community to help with that.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Here's my umpteenth attempt at finding what I'm looking for. I think it's a sense of community with like-minded people. Maybe there's something I've missed. Open to ideas.

I believe in one personal God, Who is mystery and corresponds to the first lines of the Dao De Jing: "The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao." Except replace "Dao" with "God".

I believe in some sort of afterlife on account of us being made of energy and energy being neither created nor destroyed.

I believe how we treat others matters. The golden rule. I believe there's a lot of nuance here and individual situations need personal discernment, not pre-cut one-size-fits-all doctrines or dogmas.

I don't believe any single religion is capable of having the "fullness" of supernatural truth, so my search has never been about that. I see sparks of the Divine and what I'd call "truth" in every religion I've ever considered. Which is why it's impossible for me to fully embrace one over all the others, yet without doing so, I cannot say I belong.

In the past, I've identified as a Deist (albeit that's not quite right, since my notion of God is that He is interested in us and can interact with us somehow.).
I've also identified as a philosophical Taoist, except I think of the Tao as God.

I currently participate in the religion of my upbringing - Catholicism. I try to view the various expressions of this faith through the lense of symbolism, which makes it a lot more believable for me. But it also means that I have to keep my true beliefs to myself for fear of being called a heretic, apostate, blasphemer, or worse.

I can't really wrap my head around the basic premise of Christianity. I've tried, boy have I tried. The Trinity as a Christian koan, the mystery of God.... but really, in spite of the Christian dogma to the contrary, it really does feel like there's a duplicity of gods in the "godhead". When I pray, I essentially focus on what Christians would call "the Father and the Spirit" (which for some reason I have no problem seeing as one and the same "God"), but when it comes to the incarnation bit and the role of Jesus, it starts to fall apart. The more I read the Bible and listen to sermons, the more I doubt what I'm reading in the Christian scriptures as valid. I used to believe what was written was certainly what Jesus said and did, and so my decision to follow him was based on this assumption. But since then, I've come to understand that I'm not dealing with the actual teachings of Jesus but rather what was written about him many years later.

I once watched a video by an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who described Christian converts to Judaism using the terminology of "breaking up with Jesus". I remember at that time being completely unable to imagine a world where I could do that. It felt like turning my back on God, because I have grown up being told that the two are essentially one and the same. But I no longer see it that way.

When I do read and ponder what Jesus is purported to have said and done, I notice he really isn't talking to me, a gentile living 2,000 years later, across the ocean. He is teaching within the context of his time and place, to fellow Jews. At first, I was a little hurt (!) that he wasn't really worried too much about me. (When you've been taught how much Jesus loves you to pieces, and then you realize he was preaching to other Jews, it does a number on your self-esteem.)

My first attempt at looking into Judaism was premature, as I was not at all ready to let go of my indoctrinated assumptions or my ego. I bemoaned the fact that Judaism neither cares to convert me, nor offers me any alternative. Of course, it is not the responsibility of Judaism to care for non-Jews, and I get that. But my Christian surroundings taught me to sort of expect religions to want to lure me in.

The idea of the Noahide identity both compels and exacerbates me. On the one hand, it seems like a relatively easy way out. On the other hand, if Jews make up no more than 2% of the population of my country, guess how likely it is for me to find a community of Noahides?

I'm actually not at all a social person. I was recently diagnosed with autism, so I struggle a lot with socializing. I keep returning to Catholicism because it's a way for me to be social in a very proscribed manner, where I know what to expect and there's no one trying to start small talk with me. But it feels wrong. I feel like a hypocrite.

Yes, I've been to UU churches, and my impression there is that anything goes. I want to go to church to worship God. I know the term "worship" can be tricky, but when I know that everyone can believe whatever they want, then I don't understand what links us together, how we are supposed to be a community.

Whenever I see a person whose religious affiliation is readily visibly by way of their clothing (be it Orthodox Jews, Muslim women with hijab, Amish, etc.), I linger for a moment with a sense of longing. I know that the price of belonging is to set aside some level of one's individuality, and I seem to be incapable of doing so, and therefore here I am.

I'm hoping that maybe God is working on me to be ready to let go in order to belong. So I keep circling back.

I'm not the right person to help you with this, but I just wanted to say I found your post really interesting and honest.

Good luck!!

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

Indeed, I used to attend unprogrammed worship for several months. The only Quakers in my region seem to be liberal, unprogrammed. I once attended around Easter time (it was a year when I went to I think 5 different services from 5 different traditions), and there was someone there who shared a dream she had, and it really kind of bothered me because it was so out of left field. I think I'm one of those people who doesn't want to belong to any group that would actually have me! doh! And online services aren't for me. I had enough of them during the COVID shut downs. The last time I took one of those religion quizzes, I kid you not, I did get liberal Quake as my top score, but it was only a 6% match! I've never scored that low before. I feel like I'm spiraling and grasping at straws. Thanks for letting me share.

You know, I was so bummed out about not finding the religion that held my beliefs that I didn’t realize at one point what I was really doing wrong. I was looking from the point of view of outside looking in when I should have been looking from the inside looking out. I looked for transhumanist religions, found Terasem from that, and then found Earthseed from that. I learned how to define my theology from this, often throwing in the word syntheism to describe my beliefs. At one point I was a bystander, someone who couldn’t identify his religion because I didn’t isolate the most important variables of that religion. Earthseed is not a typical organized religion where I can go to church to worship and pray — but honestly I don’t even want to do that anymore. I found something that just clicked and worked for me. I am now on the inside looking out as a member of the Earthseed community and even though there aren’t much of us, I know we’ll transform and change the world someday.

Take time to write on a piece of paper the most important concepts of your religious beliefs. The less words you use, the better. Then search for the religions that exemplify those words. I only had two words I used to find Terasem, which led me to discover Earthseed. “Transhumanist religion”. A lot of people know what Earthseed and who Octavia E Butler is but they don’t know that her Parable books inspired people to form a real religion that the fictional character Lauren Olamina created with her dystopian science fiction novel. The concept is simple: God is change. I translate this to - God is what nature is becoming. And by shaping this change, we shape ourselves and our destiny. It is the destiny of all humankind to create as much life as possible throughout the entire Universe and beyond, and I believe my religion can help us understand that fate more in detail, even if there were only two books published before Butler’s death.

Write to us one sentence, without using the words and, or or because, that you want your religion to be, then go ahead and do your diligent research and find that faith. This really shouldn’t be that difficult. Once I found that there are a group of transhumanist religions, I’ve delved deep into it and now I’m RF’s leading advocate for Earthseed and syntheism. I had no formal training and I haven’t even read the entire Parable books or studied The Book of the Living. My belief in Earthseed didn’t come from that. It came from intuition. If you follow your intuition enough, you’ll know exactly where you stand on these issues, and one day, just like me, you’ll be on the inside looking out. I wish you good luck, but I cannot give you anymore advice than what I just gave you, so it’s up to you to use it how you desire to use it. Just remember, though, that whatever religion is intuitively built into you is your religion, no matter what rituals you’ve performed with other groups. Yes, technically I am a member of the UU church of Milwaukee, but my intuition tells me that I’m really a member of Earthseed, because it is something I’ve held onto since I was 14 years old, before I even found out what it was. Use your intuition and start looking from the inside out and I’m sure you’ll find the religion that is right for you.

 

[Jainarayan]

This is interesting, but doesn't it still mean that one is at least "aware" of the other deities but chooses to ignore them?

Yes, you can be aware of them. I don't know if ignore is the right word, though I don't have a better word right now. So yes, you can be aware of them but ignore them. Are you aware of deities from other pantheons? I believe the other deities that exist for other believers ... the Norse, Hellenic, Roman, Daoist, Celtic, etc. The only other deity from another pantheon I have an affinity for is Thor. So I guess you could say I ignore Athena, Ares, Hera, Rán, Ægir, Njorðr, Freyja. You may be drawn to a particular deity, whether Hindu, Norse, Celtic, or a deity may call you.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Dear @Karolina

The purest sort of faith and trust is that which follows from an inquisitive (often skeptic) and attentive nature. To question what is taught in regards to faith, is to open oneself to the chance of establishing a personal relationship to God.

Have you reached out to your Msgr?
They should be able to connect you with others with similar doubts, questions and ideas - and no, no responsable advisor would view any of these things are as heresy.

Wishing you many insightful meetings with likeminded, during your further quest.


Humbly,
Hermit

 

[Karolina]

Yes, you can be aware of them. I don't know if ignore is the right word, though I don't have a better word right now. So yes, you can be aware of them but ignore them. Are you aware of deities from other pantheons? I believe the other deities that exist for other believers ... the Norse, Hellenic, Roman, Daoist, Celtic, etc. The only other deity from another pantheon I have an affinity for is Thor. So I guess you could say I ignore Athena, Ares, Hera, Rán, Ægir, Njorðr, Freyja. You may be drawn to a particular deity, whether Hindu, Norse, Celtic, or a deity may call you.

The thing for me is that I don't believe there is more than a single Deity, so the idea of picking my favorite doesn't sit right with me.

 

[Jainarayan]

The thing for me is that I don't believe there is more than a single Deity, so the idea of picking my favorite doesn't sit right with me.

It sounds like a form of monotheism is more in line.