Religion: My Thoughts on Spiritual Belief Systems #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to a possibly even later day 18 post in the #AtoZChallenge. I was visiting my sister-in-law with my husband earlier, so didn’t have time to post this one earlier today. Today’s letter is a hard one too, in that I didn’t have a topic set for it prior to today. This post may be controversial, as I am going to share my thoughts on religious belief systems.

I was raised atheist. My mother grew up in a small, sectarian Christian church, so she despises Christianity in particular. My father did tell me about religions when I was young. However, when I went to a Christian school for the blind, because it was the best school for the blind, the teachers refused to respect the fact that we’re non-religious. This got both of my parents to hate religion even more.

I started developing an interest in spirituality at around age 15. At first, it was just New Age’ish stuff and I didn’t look into it deeply.

At around age 18, I started being interested in Christianity. I didn’t go to church, as I didn’t feel ready to do that. However, I did start to read Christian devotionals and Bible verses and stuff.

When I was around 26, I started going to church regularly, only to stop going again by age 30. I still feel Christianity has a lot to offer in the way of spiritual guidance, but like I’ve said before, I don’t like the politics associated with it.

My husband got confirmed into the Protestant Church of the Netherlands in 2010. I attended the service and felt really off, because one of the hymns played made me feel like those who don’t believe, will burn in hell. This thought has always sat uneasy with me. It did with my husband too, which is why he rejected Christianity ultimately.

I currently use both Christianity and general spirituality as inspiration. In other words, I subscribe to what in the Netherlands is called “something-ism”. This means that people believe in a higher power but don’t subscribe to any particular religious belief system.

The Friday Four

Posted on by Astrid

I am struggling a lot. I got some really bad news, but I cannot share it publicly at this point. This has caused me a lot of stress, but it did get me to revive my offline journal, which I keep in an app called Dyrii on my iPhone. I have the app on my Mac too, but haven’t yet fully figured it out on there.

That being said, my not being able to share what’s on my mind publicly, did keep me from writing on this blog at all. To get myself back into the writing habit, I am participating in A Guy Called Bloke’s Friday Four. I get the impression that this is the last installment in the series for now, so I’m rather late to the party. I like the questions though.

1] If you are in a bad mood, do you prefer to be left alone or have someone to cheer you up?
I prefer to be with someone to talk to and for them to cheer me up, but I often act like I prefer to be left alone. I tend to withdraw when depressed.

2] What’s the one thing that people always misunderstand about you?
The (lack of) significance of my being of above-average verbal intelligence. I got a bad reminder of this last week (the stressor I cannot share about here). For those who don’t know, I have an above-average verbal IQ, but struggle in almost every other area of cognitive, social and emotional development, adaptive behavior, etc.

3] What do you think about when you’re by yourself?
Usually the current stressor du jour, which often involves the future.

4] What are three things you value most about a person?
Kindness, compassion, respect.

Bonus Series 1 Question
If heaven is real and you died tomorrow, would you get in?
Yes, because I believe there’s no special requirement to get into Heaven (like accepting some kind of savior) and I’m not an altogether evil person.