Plato’s Cave reminds me of my own cave. I am trapped in my own mind, and trying to make sense of what is real and make-believe is sometimes difficult to sort out. My mind is constantly coming under attack by the external world. I am constantly bombarded by rules, policies, morals, ethics, customs, traditions, and so forth that tell me how I should behave, what I should believe in, and more importantly, distract me from discovering the truth. What truth you may ask? Well, I have no answer because I have yet to discover it, but what I do know is that if I don’t feel right about it, then maybe it's wrong.
In my first blog, I wrote about detaching from the Catholic Church because of different beliefs. I explained that I must stay true to myself and not be part of something that I do not believe in. The decision to leave the Catholic Church was not an easy one. I had been contemplating whether or not to leave the church for sometime, but I was always afraid to do so because I felt scared to face what is outside of what I have always known. I was afraid to leave (what Plato would call my "Cave"), and then find out that I had made a mistake. Why I felt like this I do not know. All I knew at the time of my decision was that I had had enough.
Religion, in a sense, had turned into a tradition in my life, something to do on Sunday with my family and not question it. I had been brought up to believe that if I did not attend Mass on Sunday, God would be upset with me. In addition, I was raised to believe that if I did something bad, whether morally, ethically, culturally, etc… and I did not confess it to a priest, who through the power vested in him by god can absolve me from my sins, when I die, I will go to hell. Through out my childhood and teenage years, I believed everything I was raised to believe and not question it.
I don’t fully understand what precisely triggered my decision to leave the Catholic Church, but when I begin to dig into my memory disk, I think of events that occurred sporadically that contributed to my decision to detach from the Catholic Church. One event that led to my decision to leave the church happened when I was 14 years old. I had been an altar girl for a year when a new priest was assigned to replace the old one. This new priest had a different view of what an altar helper should look like. To make the story short, I was not allowed to be an altar girl anymore because I was not a boy. The explanation I received was that God had only apostles, who were all men, and not women; therefore, only boys were allowed to be altar helpers.
Another event that occurred that contributed to my decision to leave the Catholic Church was during a Eucharist celebration, a new song was introduced for the congregation to sing along to that I did not like one bit. The song talked about women and how impure they are when they are on their periods. The song continued by emphasizing that anything a woman touched while on her period was impure. I was furious and felt so hurt and disappointed by this song. But what upset me the most was not the song and its oppressive lyrics, but how young girls sang along without even questioning it, as if the lyrics of the song spoke only of truth.
After Eucharist was over, I went home and vented to my parents about this song, especially to my mother. I told them that I had had enough and I no longer wanted to be part of it. I told them that I had been raised by them to believe that women are strong, powerful, beautiful and equal to men, though sometimes treated unfairly by others who feel superior. But that in the end, we are all sons and daughters of God and he loves us equally without exceptions. My parents told me that the decision to attend Mass was up to me, and up to me only; consequently, I decided to detach, and I have not attended since I left.
I understand why you compare your escape from religion to Plato’s allegory. I believe in God and was raised as a Lutheran. For at least three years I attended church three days a week. I went to traditional worship on Sundays, confirmation class on Wednesdays, and youth group on Fridays. I was given the choice whether or not to attend but being raised to go to church there was never a question about it. Although I still attend when time allows I know how it is. It is really hard to detach yourself from something that is so regular, so routine. Even if you start to have bad feelings about something it’s not always easy to leave after you have been used to it for so long. Not only with church, but with many other things in life like relationships, jobs, etc. I know I had a similar experience with my first job. I loved every second of it for about eight months and then I realized that they were taking advantage of me. I was way over worked for being how young I was. I would come to work early and leave late when I had high school the next morning. Although I loved the people I worked with I could not handle working there anymore. After I had made my decision to leave, it took me another six months to finally find another job and get the guts to put in my two weeks notice. Even though I knew I didn’t want to be there anymore it was so hard for me to leave something that was so “comfortable” to me. Even with religion it is the same situation. I question my faith which is really easy to do in the world we live in. I still believe that there is a God but respect people’s decision to leave the church. Unfortunately there are tons of rules (that I believe are unnecessary) that govern the church and sometimes I think they push people away.
ReplyDeleteAs a first note, I have a lot of respect for your parents and how they supported you in making your own independent judgment on your beliefs. I wonder- they have been able to resolve their religious beliefs with the humanist perspectives you related, when on the surface it would seem that these two conflict with each other. Especially because they are so supportive and at peace with themselves, you might find it an interesting critical thinking exercise to deliberate over how they have come to develop that mentality.
ReplyDeleteWhether we end up deciding to pursue or reject any religious creed (atheism included), their example strikes me as a fundamental step towards
determining and defining one's belief system. Even if we leave deities out of the question, any ethical practice demands that we make decisions about how to handle and address differences between our own beliefs and those of others-- whether those people be the church, family, friends, or practically anyone we interact with on more than a superficial level.
It's one thing to become "objective" and respect other people's differences, but another thing altogether to achieve peace or clarity about the nature of those differences the way your parents have---- especially when these consist of fundamental human arguments such as your conflict with the church's stance on gender. As a semi-related note here-- was the altar girl stance the church's as a whole, or that particular priests?
I ask because, as you think about this critical thinking topic, consider differences of *interpretation* (and the nature of interpretation) even within the religion or school of thought. Whereas a creed is a creed, i.e. a consistent stance on a fundamental belief such as the virgin birth etc, many religions, at least if we practice them conscientiously, give us considerable liberty or sovereignty (some might say responsibility) in how we define and uphold our faith, beliefs, and distinctions between other possible interpretations. Even in the Catholic church, for example, which is one of the more orthodox branches of Christianity, the doctrine of "Grace" is something that the individual must come to terms with, accept, and cultivate as an individual spiritual decision and process, on their own. How might this relate to my question about your parents?
If you like this topic, there are a couple of very good movies that will offer you allegorical views of it. The main character in "American History X" has to deal with a conflict of this precise nature-- rejecting a creed he discovered he couldn't believe in, but still needing to define his personal beliefs in relation to that world he grew up in and the people in it. This also characterizes the personal decisions that many of the students in "Dead Poet's Society" had to make. Or, the kung fu epic "Hero" takes a different approach, allegorizing what happens when the characters are unable to overcome their differences, and the larger socio-political ramifications of this state. Feel free to come see me if you'd like to discuss these or any other movies further. Good reflections in this blog.