When I was 14 my home church ran the Alpha Course. I was a little young for it really, but I begged to go along. Why? The poster… it said it was an opportunity to explore the meaning of life. A life with MEANING! So exciting.

I still remember a lot of the lessons really well. The video’s with Nicky Gumble that we watched. I bought all his books. I read them over and over. He spoke at length about the hole that people have in their hearts, and how we can try to fill that gap with all kinds of things… sex, alcohol, money. In the end though, he would tell us, the hole is God-shaped. Without Jesus in our hearts, we would always feel empty.
He quoted CS Lewis, and I read all of Lewis’s essays. I said the Jesus prayer over and over, at the end of every session, whenever there was an opportunity to pray the prayer, I would… Like a magic spell I hoped that if I said it often enough I would suddenly understand the meaning of life.

I believed that I lacked faith. If I really had faith that I was saved, why did I still feel empty, and like my life was meaningless? I didn’t see a future for myself. I was struggling with depression, and body dysphoria, and was so so lonely. I didn’t have many friends my age, and couldn’t reveal myself to the adults at Church. If I had of, I would have simply been rejected 7 years ago, instead of now. I wasn’t strong enough to take it back then.
I had hands laid upon me so many times. I cried, and I begged, and I prayed, and I studied the bible. I went along to a girls bible study group, I got more and more involved in the dark side of Christianity.
When I was 18 I was at a cell group meeting, and ended up in tears. My companions believed that I had finally been seized by the spirit, but no… I just felt incredibly cut off from everyone else in the room.

My life had no meaning. Living for death didn’t seem terribly meaningful to me. Living to convert other people to Christianity, so that they too could live for death, didn’t seem meaningful at all. I was sure there must be more to life. I was lacking something.
When I left home, I went looking for it. Whatever this essential ingredient in life is, that keeps people alive… and more importantly *wanting* to be alive.

These days I have meaning in my life. I am quite attached to my life now. I would like it to continue. I’m not terribly concerned about death. If it happens to me sooner than I would like, it would be inconvenient, but nothing more. Sadder for the people around me, than me. As Dumbledore said: To the organised mind, death is nothing more than the next great adventure.
There’s plenty of adventures in this life to keep me going for a while yet though.

Is there actually a need for something more meaningful than adventure? The search for greater understanding of ourselves, and others, and the improvement of everyone’s situation?

I have recently come to the conclusion that I am in fact, morally superior to the Christians that would criticize my ‘hedonistic’ lifestyle. (Yes, I have been accused of hedonism.) After all, what is more moral? To lead your life based on what is written in a book of dubious origins that is thousands of years old, and claim that even if you have sinned, its ok, cos God’s forgive you, even if you haven’t made amends with those earthly beings you have wronged? Or alternatively, leading your life based on whether or not you are harming others, and then making amends where you do harm someone, regardless of your status with ‘god’?

I just know that my strongly anti-theist housemate is gonna give me shit about this post, so I’m giving him some link love.

Here’s some of my favourite posts by him:
– The ever controversial ‘What works in deconverting Christians‘. If you want to comment, at least read the last paragraph. Even better, read the whole post. Its not what it sounds like.

– An examination of what agnosticism really is, in ‘Why Atheist not Agnostic‘

I expect to read your rebuttal soon, Kieran.

I might be considered atheist. I know that the atheists I converse with generally consider me to be atheist. I don’t consider myself strictly atheist though. I consider myself to be *complex*.
Sure, I don’t believe in GOD. I don’t believe that deities actually exist.

I do however believe that faith is important, and so are rituals.
I have a book that I quite love, called ‘Real Magic Under a Southern Sky’, which is about the sociology of ritual in a religious context, using Wicca and other pagan religions as an example. I thoroughly recommend it.

The thing with humans is that we are extremely suggestible, and we see patterns where there are none. These traits lead to a feeling of cosmic design, and eventually development of religions, or ascribing to a pre-existing religion.

I am pagan. Belladonna guessed right, but she has the distinct advantage of knowing me when I was first exploring paganism. I believe various things, but I believe them aware that they are not true, and it makes me feel better to believe.
Its a kind of self-aware self-deception, which no doubt Bruce and Kieran will tell me is no better than plain old religious self deception.

I was raised in a very Christian home, part of the church for 12 years. Religious ritual is pretty heavily ingrained. I was a terrible Christian. Awful at it. Good at faking, but too trans and queer, to deal with the brand of Christianity I was raised with.
I am left with a void left in my life, where there should be religious rituals and spirituality, but I can’t tolerate having Christianity, because I think that traditional Christianity, and pentecostal Christianity wrong, and harmful and damaging.
I could theoretically pick up Anglicanism, which in Australia is quite progressive. Some of my dearest friends are progressive Anglicans. I have no real beef with progressive Christians.

I see a lot of atheists cling to something else in their lives as a *cause*. Some atheists are as rude and intolerable as some religious people. Some atheists replace ‘god’ with ’science’ or some other interest. Mac Zealots that don’t see reason about something which is *just a computer* is an example I am quite familiar with. Atheism, in my mind, has the disadvantage of not acknowledging that religious belief and spirituality can play a valuable role in human lives.

Human beings need ritual, they need to make sense of the world, and sometimes ‘its random chaos’ isn’t a good enough answer. We are prone to seeing patterns, even in true randomness. For example, a lot of Mac Zealots got freaked out by the iPod Shuffle, because they saw patterns in the randomness. Apple went on to make the iPod’s Shuffle function *less random* so that people would stop thinking their iPods were analyzing their thoughts and playing music accordingly.

My ‘religion’ centers around three beliefs, each of which has a specific purpose.

1. First, do no harm, then do whatever you will.
Its a pretty classic pagan tenet. It is my moral compass, and the same one that most people use. Its about respect, its about not hurting other people, but remembering that if I’m not hurting other people I can do whatever I want. Its also a reminder that not harming myself is as important as not harming others, because it doesn’t specify who or what I am not to harm.

2. Karma’s a bitch, and it will get you!
Pagan’s call this the ‘Three-fold law of Karmic Return’, but that sounds too mystical for my liking. My life is full of irony. Someone does something shitty to me, and hey presto! Some kind of appropriately shitty thing happens to them on a larger scale. Its all just coincidence, but its a reminder not to seek revenge, cos seriously, I don’t need to, life will get that revenge for me.

3. Every challenge is another life Lesson, and good will come out of the bad.
In my life I have noticed that every time something horrible happens (and that is pretty frequently), something good comes out of it. Something vitally important, or wonderful for some other reason.
I get depressed, because bad shit happens a lot in my life. Not just minor drama, but EPIC FULL SCALE DRAMAZ. I have had people in their 60s say to me ‘Ryan, life isn’t supposed to be THIS hard, it has to get easier for you soon. It just *can’t* continue this way forever.’
I’ve had several years of non-stop drama, stress, and major plot-developments, and every time things calm down for a while, I have about a week of peace before another disaster happens.
People aren’t made for that level of stress. Its dangerous. It makes you crazy. You have to do something to make yourself feel better about it, and for me, that is believing that its a lesson, and if I learn the lesson well enough, it will never happen again, and something wonderful will come out of it.

I tell people that I don’t actually believe that there is a cosmic force controlling these random events, but for the sake of my mental health and peace of mind, I believe in Karma, and life-lessons. I hate it when they start explaining to me then why its unhealthy for me to believe that, why its untrue, why its wrong.
I’ve just explained that I am aware I am deceiving myself, to help me feel like there is hope. Its only when religion and spirituality is completely unaware and superstitious that it causes harm. So, sometimes I wonder why people are so intent on poo-pooing my beliefs, even though it keeps me sane.

I don’t talk about my beliefs much, because they are something that I do for a bunch of pragmatic reasons, and I don’t believe in ‘conversion’, so there’s no reason for me to talk about it, unless I think that someone else may benefit from one of the rituals I perform.
One of my rituals was taught to me by my psychologist, and its unclear as to why it works, but it does work for most of her patients. Its essentially a way of constructing a ‘magical barrier’ around yourself to prevent sexual harassment. I used to do it all the time. I stopped months ago, and there’s been another surge in sexual harassment. It probably works cos it changes your subconscious body-language from ‘victim’ to ‘protected’.
Another thing that I do is reading tarot cards. Not to predict the future, but help me think creatively about problems. I use them in a similar way that psychologists use blot pictures, or word association. My book on Tarot was written by a psychiatrist, rather than some new age mystic.
I also keep a rudimentary dream diary (usually I only record the most interesting dreams), which helps me see patterns in my dreaming, and identify concerns I need to address before they manifest in nightmares, or neurotic behaviour when I am awake.

I rarely celebrate religious festivals. I was going to celebrate Pagan Eostre this year, just for fun, but cancelled it in a fit of cowardice. Something which was really stupid, and makes me feel bad now. After all, I am entitled to my beliefs, even if they are spiritual, or religious. I don’t back down about my identity, or my politics, why should I back down about my ‘religion’?

First a poll:

Do you think I am;

– Christian
– Atheist
– Buddhist
– Agnostic Theist
– Pagan
– Pastafarian
– I don’t know (As in, you don’t think I know!)
– Something I didn’t list cos I am a TRICKSY BASTARD!

I’m writing a long post on religion, ritual and faith but you have until its posted to weigh in with your guess as to what I label myself as these days.
I’m a little curious about how people see me.

AND, tell me what you identify as, if you are comfortable.

When I was at the end of High School I wanted to go to Hillsong Leadership College in Sydney. Thankfully I couldn’t find anyone to testify that I hadn’t done anything immoral in the 2 years prior to making my application.
Yes. I’m serious. That was a requirement for application. Nowadays its only 12 months. (Check under ‘Christian Details’). Such low standards.

Hillsong tend to appear in the Australian news every couple of years. I remember doing an assignment on them for Marketing in 2005. They’d just appeared in BRW, and were in my Marketing textbook.

Most recently its been Mercy Ministries, their branch of women’s charities that is under the spotlight. I saw this article in a newspaper on the bus on Monday. (This is how I consume most of my print media… looking over people’s shoulder on the bus.) Another article was forwarded to me today, one that focusses more on Hillsong’s ‘Ex-gay’ ministries.

I feel a bit sad. I know a lot of people that are members of Hillsong. On the one hand, I am sympathetic to members of Hillsong… the rank and file, that is. Once they get into the church leadership they KNOW they are doing evil. They have to. If not, their ignorance is no excuse for the level of harm they do.

The last time I attended a Hillsong meeting I treated it as a rock concert with a stupid speech in the middle. It was easier than trying to fight it, given my gracious host had made a special effort to attend a ‘youth service’ instead of a regular service. I think that they were hoping to save my poor backslidden soul.
After the service I argued heatedly with my host over the use of brainwashing techniques throughout the service. (This service was by Brian Houston, the leader of the church). She said that most children and young people need that kind of ‘guidance’ and that I had always been ‘different’, so maybe it didn’t work for me, but I shouldn’t want to deny other young people the help they so desperately need to make the ‘right’ decisions.
I wondered how her children (who ranged from 16 – 25 at the time) felt about that little speech.
At the same time as I was angry about her attitude to the lack of questioning and freedom allowed, I also pitied her. She was a woman in her fifties, and she was about the same size as I was at the time (a slightly chubby 19 year old). While I was there, she was subjected to fat-shaming that I have never seen the likes of before or since. It was completely insane. Just cos she wasn’t as svelt as Darlene Zschech or Bobbie Housten.
Fucking deplorable.

I still have friends that are enmeshed in the culture of Hillsong. I don’t know what they are thinking. One of them tells me all the time that they are persecuted by the media, and that its all bull shit, Hillsong is actually squeaky clean. Part of me wants to show up to a Hillsong Church, sign up for Mercy Ministries (I’d tell them I had an abortion), and see what is really going on in there. For myself.

To be frank though… I already know. I also know why my friends deny it… cos they don’t *want* to believe its true.