Open-Minded Agnosticism

It occurs to me that while I have decided to write down my journey towards faith in this blog, the blog itself is supposed to be about a single mother and how she faces life's ups and downs. In an effort not to forget about that original intention, although I am continuing with the spiritual posts today, I will try in the future to keep up with the rest of my mission: to write about parenting. For today, I will however keep to the spiritual posts. I hope you will forgive me, seeing as it is Sunday. :o)

In my early twenties, I was an agnostic with an ever-opening mind. My previous doubts about religion had been based on my inability to accept that people could believe in God based on the Bible, which they took literally.

I have always loved reading and had pretty high marks in English literature. I liked to look for clues that foreshadowed a story's dénouement and I liked to look for deeper meanings. I found that once I learned to do this properly in English class, even my enjoyment of movies was increased, as I paid more attention to dialogue, setting and circumstances to see if I could guess the end.

After that famous discussion about the story of the loaves and the fishes, I came to realize that it was not necessary to read and believe in the Bible literally. I came to see the value of looking for the underlying message. While I did not yet claim to be a Christian, I was very curious about religion. At the same time, there were things about religion that turned me off.

Although I did not claim the title of Christian for a long time, I knew since the age of about 15 that my family was religious. My maternal grandmother was a devout Catholic her whole life and my paternal grandmother was also religious, although I must say I never knew it by being around her. When I got married at age 19, my cousin asked why we weren't having a church wedding. My answer at the time was that we weren't religious enough. But when I think back, we weren't religious at all. I considered myself a Christian not by belief, but by heritage, seeing as I came from a Christian family. I think I probably said that we weren't Christian enough because the cousin who asked me the question was very religious and I guess I succumbed to a bit of something like peer pressure. Truth be told, though, I didn't believe in God when I got married. I hadn't taken those life-changing courses in university yet. My husband was even less religious than I, despite his Isten, Haza, Csalàd! (God, Country, Family!) motto. I came to understand that he only said that because he was a big (true) Hungarian and that is a Hungarian motto. But I came to see that he knew very little of the Bible. I mean, when we saw the Disney film The Prince of Egypt, he had no idea that it was based on the Bible. Yet, that is very basic Bible knowledge, it seems to me...

Anyway, like I said, I was open to the idea of religion, but had yet to really come into contact with it. My grandmother did try to teach me a few things, but I saw her so seldom because I lived in North America and she in Europe, that her influence wasn't very permanent. Mostly, I think I played the role of The Good Girl for her, but none of her teachings really stuck, apart from my seeing that religion really did give her peace of mind.

I remember one day when I went swimming in a lake with my great-aunt and she told me a Bible story as we were swimming along. I remember being really annoyed because her whole point was that homosexuality was a sin - something I did not and do not agree with - and I felt like she was trying to stuff her beliefs down my throat. Don't get me wrong. She is a very nice old lady, but very strict when it comes to her beliefs. I do love her very much. 

Another thing that made me hesitant about religion is what I heard when I went to church, (because after my daughter was born I started taking her to church when she was about a year old.) I was curious and mostly I didn't want Daughter to miss out on what I had missed as a child, so I took her to church, if only to better her chances at understanding English Literature when she went to high school. I thought it would be to her advantage to know the basics. I was also hoping to land a teaching job in a religious school, and so going to church couldn't hurt. If you are thinking right now that those have to be the WORST reasons for a person to go to church, I won't argue. :o)  Anyway, although I was open-minded and curious, I didn't really like the sermons. It sounded to me like the priest was preaching that the Bible should be taken literally. I didn't see him trying to get at the message of the Word. I have since been to other masses that I have really enjoyed so I guess this had to do with that one particular priest at that one particular church. In the end, I stopped going to church, but I did buy picture Bibles so Daughter could still get her initial education.

When Daughter started daycare and I started working, I met someone at work with whom I had some very interesting conversations about religion over some very spicy cups of tea. This person was of the Bahai faith and he made me think about a lot of things that I hadn't thought about before. But that will be a story for a different chapter. That's enough for today, I think, except of course for some Supermom Words of Wisdom that I will leave you with:

One conviction I have arrived at somewhere along the way is that all religions are valid, and that includes atheism, or lack of religion. If you look at any religion, you will see the same underlying guiding principle: love. Religions are a kind of code for how to live one's life, and it always comes down to love. Love thy fellow man. Love thyself. Love God, if you believe in him. Love the good you can find in everyone even if you don't believe.

As for parenting, I will leave you with an example:

I have mentioned previously the value of teaching children about the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes to teach them about generosity and sharing, but if you do not believe in God or if you have an aversion to using Bible stories as parenting tools, you can achieve the very same goal by telling your children the  Stone Soup story.


The basic point is this: decide on your values. Find the tools you need in order to transmit your values to your children. I believe everyone is born good. In fact, I believe that everyone is born noble. Nevertheless, children aren't born knowing everything about life. They learn many things from what they see and observe. It is up to us parents to make sure they see and observe our values so that they have a good foundation on which to build the values that they will eventually adopt and live by. They are little. They can't do it alone. That is what parents are for. :o)