Is it possible for a perfectly sane (almost) and rational 22 year old woman to lead a secularist life and to be happy, fulfilled and liberated? The answer is... well, truthfully I am still truly searching for the answer.
I am speaking as someone exposed to a moderate amount of religious indoctrination as a child. When I say moderate, I refer to having a peripheral Christian mother, frequent Sunday school visits and prayers before bed. By no means did this extend to lashes at dawn and unrequited scripture recitals, but none the less, enough exposure to have a fear of hell and a comforting belief in a heavenly afterlife.
Despite this, I have chosen, regardless of indoctrination, geographical location, creed or colour to lead a non-religious orientated life. Those are the key words. I choose! In a world awash with paradoxical choices, religious fundamentalism verging on a catastrophic scale, only growing in violence and frequency. Surely human populous and suffering only predicted to certainly rise. To be blunt, I have a diminishing faith in the richness of humanity. To any religious readers, faith here is being used out with the terms of divinity.
Growing up surrounded by bias media coverage, I am a constantly repulsed observer of my freedoms being slowly revoked by corporate run governments, poverty on an unimaginable scale and The Only Way is Fucking Essex. Taking all this into account, I can see the appeal religion has. It has taken me quite some time to come to terms with the realisation that I - and I alone - am unable to change any of the above. Me! The Little Guy! I can see how in that state of despair that I can often find myself feeling upon the realities of life, that it is a much easier and more comfortable to ask an omnipresent, all loving (really?!) celestial being in the sky to help me out. That regardless of how bad I personally perceive things to be, not to despair, He has a divine plan. It'll all work out in the end. Sorry guys! This rational of "bury your head in the sand", these are not humanities problems, but that of a higher power are not enough to satisfy my thirst for a clear epistemology of life. I find it insulting and cowardly on a base level, that the responsibility and care for humanity, our environment and all within it is not our own. The state of things is not our doing, or it is, but our wrongs are all forgiven regardless, so fuck it! Kill in the name of My God! Plunder the earth to an inch of existence and just because we can't see poverty in first world countries means it's not our problem in the third.
Our religious zeitgeist is changing, and only recently have I started to feel that I am not alone. There are other horsemen out there willing to be heard. There is an abundance of secular societies and atheist communities popping up all over our social media outlets, allowing us all to have a voice. Faith, the divine kind, is inherently bad, and to believe in such ludicrously without evidence is worse. We see and feel the effects of religion everywhere and everyday. Planes slamming into buildings, people being decapitated in the streets, there is no escape. Fundamentalist top trumps! I cannot walk around a town anymore without seeing a faith school, or religious kids club. Believing Allah, Yahweh, or fucking purple pixies on elephants. Whatever your religious tendency, it changes nothing my friend - or nothing for the better anyway.
The empowerment I feel is that my moral compass is not dictated by any sort of divine creator or even slightly influenced by some sort of predetermined plan. I have full responsibility for every action I take. I am an intelligent free-thinking young woman. To change things in my life, I can only rely on me, and that is where the beauty lies. As a collective we have the capabilities to rise-up, and we are. The power of one can yield the minds of the many. Our time my fellow atheists is coming, and this is where I gain my hope, empowerment and happiness. We are in the days of a scientific Golden Age. Science is out-weighing our need to hark back to a religious tradition.
I am empowered by the rising voices, and mine is one of them. There is nothing more liberating for me than to be alive when these changes are happening - and they are.
To answer my initial question, can a young woman be fulfilled, happy and liberated in a secularist lifestyle? Well I am certainly on the way to be fulfilled in all three!
I am speaking as someone exposed to a moderate amount of religious indoctrination as a child. When I say moderate, I refer to having a peripheral Christian mother, frequent Sunday school visits and prayers before bed. By no means did this extend to lashes at dawn and unrequited scripture recitals, but none the less, enough exposure to have a fear of hell and a comforting belief in a heavenly afterlife.
Despite this, I have chosen, regardless of indoctrination, geographical location, creed or colour to lead a non-religious orientated life. Those are the key words. I choose! In a world awash with paradoxical choices, religious fundamentalism verging on a catastrophic scale, only growing in violence and frequency. Surely human populous and suffering only predicted to certainly rise. To be blunt, I have a diminishing faith in the richness of humanity. To any religious readers, faith here is being used out with the terms of divinity.
Growing up surrounded by bias media coverage, I am a constantly repulsed observer of my freedoms being slowly revoked by corporate run governments, poverty on an unimaginable scale and The Only Way is Fucking Essex. Taking all this into account, I can see the appeal religion has. It has taken me quite some time to come to terms with the realisation that I - and I alone - am unable to change any of the above. Me! The Little Guy! I can see how in that state of despair that I can often find myself feeling upon the realities of life, that it is a much easier and more comfortable to ask an omnipresent, all loving (really?!) celestial being in the sky to help me out. That regardless of how bad I personally perceive things to be, not to despair, He has a divine plan. It'll all work out in the end. Sorry guys! This rational of "bury your head in the sand", these are not humanities problems, but that of a higher power are not enough to satisfy my thirst for a clear epistemology of life. I find it insulting and cowardly on a base level, that the responsibility and care for humanity, our environment and all within it is not our own. The state of things is not our doing, or it is, but our wrongs are all forgiven regardless, so fuck it! Kill in the name of My God! Plunder the earth to an inch of existence and just because we can't see poverty in first world countries means it's not our problem in the third.
Our religious zeitgeist is changing, and only recently have I started to feel that I am not alone. There are other horsemen out there willing to be heard. There is an abundance of secular societies and atheist communities popping up all over our social media outlets, allowing us all to have a voice. Faith, the divine kind, is inherently bad, and to believe in such ludicrously without evidence is worse. We see and feel the effects of religion everywhere and everyday. Planes slamming into buildings, people being decapitated in the streets, there is no escape. Fundamentalist top trumps! I cannot walk around a town anymore without seeing a faith school, or religious kids club. Believing Allah, Yahweh, or fucking purple pixies on elephants. Whatever your religious tendency, it changes nothing my friend - or nothing for the better anyway.
The empowerment I feel is that my moral compass is not dictated by any sort of divine creator or even slightly influenced by some sort of predetermined plan. I have full responsibility for every action I take. I am an intelligent free-thinking young woman. To change things in my life, I can only rely on me, and that is where the beauty lies. As a collective we have the capabilities to rise-up, and we are. The power of one can yield the minds of the many. Our time my fellow atheists is coming, and this is where I gain my hope, empowerment and happiness. We are in the days of a scientific Golden Age. Science is out-weighing our need to hark back to a religious tradition.
I am empowered by the rising voices, and mine is one of them. There is nothing more liberating for me than to be alive when these changes are happening - and they are.
To answer my initial question, can a young woman be fulfilled, happy and liberated in a secularist lifestyle? Well I am certainly on the way to be fulfilled in all three!
