Replacing Church and Living Unsatisfied

So, You Don't Believe in God.  Now What?

My wife and I abandoned our faith somewhere around 2005, and ever since, our way of dealing with the universe has evolved on a near daily basis.  Even years later, in 2013, we are still trying to figure out this living thing.  Why is this so difficult?  One might think that this is a pretty obvious question, that because adherence to religion is so central to the lives of so many people, that removing that aspect will of course have a huge effect on those that choose to leave.  

The reality isn't that easy, however.  If one believes in God, then decides that they no longer do, there is much more to deal with than just the loss of a deity.  Don't get me wrong, learning to live without God is not trivial.  For many, it's a long grieving process that takes years to deal with, just on its own.  However, coming to grips with that single aspect is not the end.  The reality is, religion is kind of a one-stop shop for a variety of human needs and comforts, and leaving religion means either leaving those needs unsatisfied, or finding other ways to satisfy them.  The more involved you are in your religion, and the more intrusive religion is in your life, the harder it is replace it.  

After coming to grips with disbelief, it came natural to us to start examining aspects of our lives that religion had previously determined for us.  Morality, relationships, charity, sexuality, all became topics of re-discovery (and still are).  Some might assume that without religion, these things become a free-for-all, however, generally that is a fear of some religious people that really isn't a tenable reality for most of the godless.  What is more likely is the realization that the journey into disbelief is a more complicated path than that of remaining faithful; no longer do the big questions of life come with pre-packaged answers, instead, we must wade out into the confusing, complex, terrifying universe to try and wrest some meaning from the abyss. 

Even after dealing with the grief of losing the ideal of a caring deity, and dealing with answering life's great questions on your own, there are still more holes left to fill for the freshly deconverted.  Many lose families and friends, sometimes through deliberate ostracisation, but also for less malicious reasons; many social connections are just lost through the lack of common purpose.  Many lose the sense of belonging.  Others miss the feelings that are brought on by the spiritual connections that no longer exist.  Some miss the culture that their religion curated.

It cannot be understated how important these secondary social roles have played into the success of religion.  It was a mistake that we made when we left it; it was surprisingly difficult to be on our own because of it.  We had our issues, but I can't imagine how some people who are in real deep muster the courage to leave (some of the Phelps children who have left Westboro Baptist come to mind). 

A New Church

It is important to not underestimate the importance of the secondary roles that church may have had in our lives.  Initially, the other effects of leaving religion has a greater effect on the newly liberated, however, after time, these comforts that religion once provided become an issue to deal with in their own right.  So how do we cope?  Just like we now have the choice to decide for ourselves the role of morality and ethics in our lives, we also have the freedom to explore these needs and how we want to satiate them.  Some have even gone so far as to advocate for an "Atheist Church", sometimes referred to as Atheism 2.0, to fulfill those needs by providing a church-like environment but without the condemnation.  The existence of Atheism 2.0 highlights what many ex-theists are loathe to admit, that church does actually provide some value to believers, outside of just deity worship.  However, while it tries to fill that void, I prefer to take a different direction.  

Instead of replacing one kind of one-size-fits-all church with another, I have found a new kind of church.  This church shares a lot of things with the church I used to attend; it has celebrants, sacraments, tithes and rituals.  It has community, and fosters a deep emotional connection with my surroundings.  Services for this church are held semi-regularly; those who attend often wear special clothing that shows their involvement within this special community.  Tithe is offered upon entry to enable the celebrants to focus on their craft.  Sacramental wine flows freely throughout the service, and incense is thick, fostering feelings of connectivity and togetherness.  This is the church of Doom Metal, and my fellow concert-goers are my congregation.  It sounds silly at first, but it should not be immediately dismissed.  Every month brings a different celebrant in a different venue, but the result is the same; a spiritual refueling that leaves me satisfied until the next service.  I can go to any show in any city and feel as if among friends.  Every show is a spiritual experience.  Once the slow, heavy, reverbrations fill the room, they resonate with an internal emotional timepiece of every person in attendance; no longer a group of individuals, we move as a single collective consciousness, and a mosh pit becomes no different than a school of fish or a flock of birds, moving and acting as a single organism.  This is an experience my old church could never provide for me, and it is special to me.  

There is a fundamental and important difference between my old church and the new one.  While I get a deep and meaningful satisfaction for the communal experience that a good show offers, it has a strictly limited mandate.  While Al Cisneros of Om commands the attention of hundreds every night, his influence is limited.  Al Cisneros cannot tell me how to love, who to love, or how to live.  The only thing he can do is be a musical conduit and satisfy that single social desire.  The moment the celebrant of this service exceeds that limited mandate, is the moment they fail to satisfy the one desire I need them to fulfill.  At the end of the service, the big questions in life are still left unanswered, because it is not the role of this place to answer them.  This is a church without religion, and I am still on my own to find answers.  As it was said in Fight Club, "Nothing was solved when the fight was over, but nothing mattered".   

Al Cisneros, Feb 10, 2013

The beauty of this arrangement is that while Doom Metal is fulfilling and satisfying experience to me, there is no central teaching, no gospel, no homily that dictates that we must all belong to this church to be happy.  There is no need to evangelize, no need to recruit new members, no need to condemn others, no pressure to even bring my wife or children.  There is no need for this church to enter into politics, philosophy, or morality.  No one cares who we are or what we think at this church. We go because we want to go, and when we no longer have the need, we stop.  Because Doom Metal is satisfying for me, it does not imply that it is satisfying for anyone else, or that some other avenue of satisfaction can't be equally satisfying for others.  For some that I know, nature is their church.  For others, art, literature, or athletics has become theirs.  The only important fact here is that we recognize all of our needs, and find the healthiest way to understand them.  This is a terrifying beauty of leaving religion, I can now decide on my own how to be satisfied, with both great risks and great rewards.    

Terrifying Beauty

There is no better description about this mindset than terrifying beauty.  The whole world is new again, free to be experienced with new eyes.  It is filled with wonder and danger, knowing that many new experiences await, but also knowing that some risks have permanent consequences.  Many people have interesting stories to tell, and I have a new vigor to go find them and hear them, to be a missionary that listens instead of talks, to be an evangelist that seeks to be converted instead of to convert, to be a pilgrim to everywhere.  Simultaneously the greatest risk and the greatest reward is to be fundamentally changed by each experience.  My old church provided easy access to satisfaction; but it denied me the benefits of being unsatisfied.  My new church isn't really Doom Metal, it is really the world, of which music plays a part.  It is a mistake to lean heavily on only one facet of life, it is better instead to recognize the role each facet plays.  While music no doubt satisfies important needs that were previously handled by my old church, it is just as important that it does not satisfy all of them; this lack of complete satisfaction leaves me the desire to go out, experience other new things, and enjoy all of the terrifyingly beautiful aspects of this world.  

Choose Your Own Adventure

There is something about flying on an airplane that makes me feel like a little kid, which doesn't make a lot of sense, since I never flew when I was one.  In fact, the first plane ride I remember didn't happen until I was 15, when I got to pilot a Cessna as part of the Ace Academy program, a summer camp for aspiring pilots. A bit strange that I aspired to be a pilot, yet never rode on a plane, and my first ride involved me being in the pilot's seat.

The dream of being a pilot, like so many of our childhood dreams, never materialized, and the amount of plane trips I have taken is far too few for my taste, being only around half a dozen in my entire life.

So maybe this explains why air travel is so exciting for me, that the process of sitting in a metal tube hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour has not become mundane yet. I prefer to think that is not the case, but rather that I prefer to see the excitement and adventure in mundane things. That not only can I look at a propeller of an aircraft and revel at the engineering required to make that function so well that air travel can even be considered boring, but also sit in an Olive Garden with my family and revel at the miracle of baked bread, slowly tearing apart a breadstick, watching the tiny air pockets separate into torn pieces, amazed that we as humans can invent leavened bread, much less airplanes.

It is amazing to me how quickly we as humans become acclimated to new things.  As I fumbled around the airport check-in, trying to cram my backpack into an impossibly tiny space, I feel the eyes of others upon me, and imagine them annoyed as I really have no clue what I am doing, while the process looks completely routine to everyone else.  Everyone looks bored and hassled, except for the flight attendants, whose job is to not look bored. I wonder how it it's possible to even be bored on an airplane, whether you have flown six times or six hundred times, toward vacation, toward work, or toward home.  I will try to not pass too harsh of judgement, it is only 6AM, after all. 

It's easy to be embarrassed by my lack of common sense in these routine matters, but it is also easy to be embarrassed about being so excited about something everyone else considers to be a nuisance.  But then, I remember that my life is as much of an adventure as I want it to be.  It's better than any Chose Your Own Adventure book, because this adventure is real. And so I sit in an airplane, in wonder of the complexity of the airplane, in enjoyment if the g-forces pushing me into my seat, in amazement at how quickly the city becomes a smattering of tiny lights, and in hope for new choices to choose from in the adventure book that is my life. I will happily fumble around trying to figure out how to ride a bus, how to stay at a hostel, how to make friends of strangers, and I will enjoy it because, god dammit, I choose to make this life an adventure.

So flying makes me feel like a little kid, not because I enjoyed flying as a little kid, but because I am still a little kid. A little kid that wants to know how things work, even if they are mundane and boring. A little kid who wants to learn and understand everything.  A little kid who wants to go on an adventure.  Who wants to come along?