Doubt and Moving Beyond it

I have been struggling with depression & anxiety off & on throughout this difficult period in my life. And along with those issues often comes spiritual doubts. Hence the sparseness of this blog. During the summer my grove put their rituals on hiatus (more on that later) and I didn’t attend services at Unity.

Last Saturday, I attended a Humanist event in the morning, and a Druid ritual in the evening.  I learned a lot from the talk the Humanists had on Global Hunger and I found the attendees to be interesting to talk to. There is a lot I can agree with them on- and I consider myself a humanist (lowercase)- but I still believe in the possibility of the Divine and “super”natural things.

I don’t think the world would necessarily be a better place without religion. Atheists argue that religion creates more bad than good- wars, oppression of women, gay people, poor people, suppression of science and freethinking. But like any human creation, we can use it for good or for evil much like science its supposed opposing cultural force. We still would probably be doing many of the good and bad things that religion can inspire, or using it to justify our actions- even if religions never developed in human culture. It’s another example of the “butterfly effect” we don’t know what would happen.

I agree there’s really no proof that God(s) exist- but there’s no proof that he/she/they don’t exist. I also believe atheists, humanists, skeptics etc. can be irrational and dogmatic as well. Some of the more militant atheists do give others crap for calling themselves humanists or agnostics- implying that they’re not true, well unbelievers.

I’m not exactly sure what I believe- but really is anyone? I think very few people are 100% sure about matters of faith. What I can say though, is that spiritual practice feels right. So I choose to be religious. And in spite of all the goofiness and disorganization of Pagans, they are still my community. Much like my own eccentric family.

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