I know a woman who is a singer / songwriter — more or less. She’s written some Christmas-themed songs, and she is currently on tour singing some of these and also some of her favorites. I visited one of her events and she sang a song that I feel was (at least somewhat) intended for me. I enjoy this imagined intimacy, so I didn’t even ask her about it. I will not name her to spare us both the disappointment of reality crashing in on our dreams.
Instead I will write this post — and again: it’s (at least in part) for her.
I have never lost my religion, but my beliefs have indeed changed quite a bit over the years. In my humble opinion, all calendar-based religions are essentially a matter of worshipping the Sun. I think Sun-worship makes a lot of sense, since this results in acting appropriately throughout the seasons.
Beyond that, it doesn’t really matter much what I believe — insofar as it probably doesn’t have much impact on reality.
The way I see it, there are basically two approaches to belief systems. Believers can either be tolerant or intolerant. With intolerant believers, failure to believe what they believe results in believing the different person is certainly lost.
One way this plays out in many modern Christian cultures is when they ask things like “what are you doing for Christmas?” My response to such questions is usually bewilderment at the fact that those people seem to be in a sort of mesmerized state of existence. Depending on my mood, I might reply with something like “nothing” or maybe “sleeping a lot”. The mesmerized people often react with something like shock and / or pity that I am not living in line with their own herd behavior.
As I mentioned above, I don’t believe such herd behavior is wrong. Neither is it exclusively right, and so I see no reason to share in the herd mentality that everyone else might be lost.
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