What I Believe

Years ago (back in the days of Experience Project) several of my friends posted their personal "statements of belief." I have never forgotten how powerful it was to read those. I never wrote one for myself, I wasn't ready.

Ten years later, I feel like I have finally found a new statement of personal faith. It is short. It reflects my very long journey. I suspect most of my friends will depart with me on at least one of the three points. And that's okay. This is for me in my journey. Each of these statements carries deep personal meaning. So in the spirit of what my friends were posting a decade ago, I offer it to you now.

[b]1. There are many identities encompassed in the Divine, and the Divine resonates most deeply with me when I approach Her as Goddess.
2. I do not have any good reasons for believing the Divine actually exists.
3. Yet when I act as if She does, She consistently blows my expectations.
[/b]
[sep]

That's all, three simple points. Without any one of them, my faith breaks down. Approaching God as male stirs up feelings of resentment over patriarchy. A genderless God makes sense, but I just don't connect like I do with Goddess.

I used to believe I had good reasons for believing that a god exists, but after having those assumptions tested, I can no longer hold that view without feeling intellectually dishonest. In some real sense, I can accurately call myself an agnostic or even an atheist.

But that doesn't sum up my faith. There is still too much mystery. Perhaps it's just how our brains are wired. Something happens when we pray. Maybe it just makes us more primed to notice coincidences when they happen. Maybe it simply motivates us to actually be the change we wish to see in the world. Or maybe there is actually something more that happens when we pray. Perhaps the Author of our life stories sometimes responds by altering our narratives to be more in line with our requests? I don't know how prayer works. All I know is that my life is richer when I do it.

So there it is. Let's not debate in the comments. I don't have time for that, and these points are very personal to me.

But I'm curious for you, what is YOUR personal statement of faith?

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in10RjFox · M

You are right. Divine or God is formless. The problem with the world is everything has been defined and established before we were born giving us no space to think freely. I sometimes think we were never required or just required as slaves to believe and not know.

The image that God is an old man with grey hair and long beard and all white itself is an illusion that is forced on us right from our childhood. And we have no way to correct all these and each generation is programmed with the same belief system.

ShadowSister · 46-50, F

@in10RjFox To be honest, I never thought of God as an old man with a beard. I have always thought of God as formless. Just with a masculine-sounding voice. When I imagine God's voice as feminine instead, I feel like it still carries the same weight and authority... but it just lands differently with me now.

in10RjFox · M

@ShadowSister that's another ambiguity. The entire observation of masculine feminine was wrong and we have been mistold and misguided. Masculine is actually the Spirit or Life and feminine is the body in which the life lives and operates it. All creatures are spiritual beings because once the spirit departs the body falls, which is the same for both.

So God is masculine as a spirit irrespective of the body. So we are in heaven as spiritual beings, and are in hell (earth) as bodies.

You can imagine how humanity has been misguided with a gender so much so, they are struggling to maintain order in gender and marriages.

ShadowSister · 46-50, F

@in10RjFox What evidence do you have to associate spirit with masculinity and body with femininity? These are by no means intuitive associations. And at least on the surface they seem downright misogynistic.

in10RjFox · M

@ShadowSister 😀😀 I thought you are someone who can think and reason. But evidence has been right there all along. Because without spirit or life, body is just a vegetable, which you obviously know. It is the spirit that gives life to the body. So obviously the spirit is masculine. It was wrongly associated with Males, which is the conspiracy part and females were made as feminine. Reason why Males were made as husband (claiming the spirit), and females were made as wife (assigned the body). Thus, the feminine element of Males, and the Spirit or Life element of females were never considered. And the reason why females were made subservient to males, subduing their masculinity. In fact there is enough evidence in history and all scriptures, how females were considered a cattle and slaves.

And I have no clue what is misogynistic or misandrist about this, when I am saying the entire gender promulgation itself is wrong and as humans we have been fooled and misguided. Nowhere did nature say that it has created opposite sexes.

So now you have to tell me what evidence do you have to say that masculinity is exclusive to males and femininity is exclusive to females.

ShadowSister · 46-50, F

@in10RjFox I would be curious how you define masculine and feminine. Here is how I define them. Similar to language, they are social constructs that we use to communicate our reproductive role. Some is biologically predispositioned, like large muscles being masculine. Some is arbitrarily assigned by individual cultures, such as pink being feminine. And some recognizes tendencies that are often true but not always, such as interest in sports being masculine. Because gender is socially constructed, it is entirely possible for men to be feminine and women to be masculine. Most people are some mix of each.

[quote]It is the spirit that gives life to the body. So obviously the spirit is masculine.[/quote]

The implied proposition in your syllogism is that that which gives life is masculine.

I suspect you have a different definition of what masculine and feminine mean. And that's okay, the same words can mean different things in different contexts. So long as we take the time to define the terms, we can learn to understand one another. And I assume that's what is going on here. Because based on my definitions of masculine and feminine, I find myself completely confused by why you would associate that which gives life with the masculine.

in10RjFox · M

@ShadowSister
[quote]So long as we take the time to define the terms, we can learn to understand one another. [/quote]
This is a good disposition and tone of yours, for it is easy to explain and clear your doubts, as the definition you have has a lot of ambiguity, which you yourself will accept when we analyze. I am no exception to this definition, as this is what we have been preached and made to accept and not to question. Also there is a reason why all this is taught to us in school, before we attain the intellectual maturity to analyze and reason. There is something called a root bug or root error which is the root cause. I am naturally an analyst and I just don't accept anything without analyzing. I don't like beliefs and I analyze and get to know.

Your use of the word "Syllogism" means that you have studied logic as a subject, which is good as most haven't been exposed to this subject.

[quote] I find myself completely confused by why you would associate that which gives life with the masculine[/quote]
I have to step out now, and I shall come back and explain more in detail. But in the meantime, think of Masculine as Software & Feminine as Hardware, and how intangible masculine is & tangible hardware is. I will be back soon.