On January 20th we will be hosting a forum at the
Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Park Forest! Currently the
working title is The Meaning(s) of Life !? Our first forum was
earlier this year and the topic was Positive Atheism. There was 26 people
in attendance and we were told by several UU members that it was one of
the largest forms they have had in years!
The inspiration
for the upcoming January forum was an experience with my
internship with Gamaliel. Gamaliel is a interfaith community organizing
network. Most of what I do is talk to people about their life
and experiences in their church. Several of the people who after
finding out that I hold the atheist stance have challenged me. Why are you organizing in churches
if you are an atheist? The
question, as simple it seems, is not simple. The question assumes too much. The
question shifts the burden of doubt unfairly. But, then again the
question might be coming from a perspective of inexperience with
different perspectives about the world. Say for example if you were brought up
in a certain church and never saw the inside of church the block over. A
non-religious perspective is simply outside the experience of a
majority of religious community. Mutual experiences is vital to
building bonds in order to change the world for the better.
The power to do
anything about the world we live in is found in organized people. People will
not go into associations with one another if they cannot understand or relate
to the life experiences of other groups. Secularists,
Freethinkers, atheists, and so on must be able to tell their story. Stories
require a system or systems of thought that develop and find meaning in the
world. From my experiences in the secular community(s) there is a
vast diversity in those meaning structures. In a sense the secular
community looks like a occupy wall street and their diversity of demands. I don't
believe that either community needs
a unifying meaning structure. From experiences most of
the people I have met over the years have built their life's meaning(s) with a
minimal amount of defiance of one or another dominate ideology
(i.e. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and so on). One the one had
this is a negative gesture that seeks to deconstruct. But on the other hand it's
a kind of reconstruction based upon reclaiming ones life's meanings for one's
self. Nietzsche called this positive nihilism, creating in order to
overcome. What exactly are people trying to overcome? Religious
authority.
Personally, my
struggle has been complex uprooting of complex interwoven thoughts that were
damaging to how I wanted to experiences my life and find meaning in
it. When I was growing up Hell was a very real concept, and since I
was constantly butting heads with authority figures a near constant
reality. I remember several instances where I put in a chair in Sunday school
with my nose to the wall. In any other setting with any other child this may
have been a near harmless lesson, but with a child like me with a vivid and
curious imagination combining replenishment with thoughts of hell is
literally torture. Think about an Episode of 24 when Jack Bauer is about
to torture someone and pulls out a blow torch but his
the victims skin with an ice cube. Part of what torture is
the threat of pain. Escaping from the thoughts of guilt and self punishment
associated with challenging various status quo's was a personal
struggle that took some time to overcome. The process of overcoming is where I
discarded harmful schema's surrounding guilt, and sought my own way
of thinking of the actions I take in the world.
One of the other
struggles I have sought desperately over come is how my upbringing taught me to
view gender, specifically the relationships that men and
women develop. I have dug in to subject scouring used books stores.
Reading feminism. Leading Marxist critiques of marriage. Reading
gender studies about same sex relationships. Reading anarchist anti-gender
hierarchy theory. I've learned a lot about the history of courtship and myself
thought this philosophical journey. Some information has been more helpful then other, but the personal conflict over developing my own sense of self and place in the world has been one of the driving forces behind my search for a romantic identity.
The conclusion I have been coming to is that the struggle for meaning isn't a specifically secularist phenomena, but the struggle that godless undertake is undertaken in the world is without communities and independent of a tradition of meaning making. While our numbers are growing and there are more and more secular groups everyday being created our journey is by an large an individual journey. Sometimes there might be supportive friends, and sometimes it's a secret we are keeping from friends and family in order to avoid unknown repercussions. Or we are betraying our sense of integrity to be polite...
The conclusion I have been coming to is that the struggle for meaning isn't a specifically secularist phenomena, but the struggle that godless undertake is undertaken in the world is without communities and independent of a tradition of meaning making. While our numbers are growing and there are more and more secular groups everyday being created our journey is by an large an individual journey. Sometimes there might be supportive friends, and sometimes it's a secret we are keeping from friends and family in order to avoid unknown repercussions. Or we are betraying our sense of integrity to be polite...
We plan on covering
these topics and more in on January 20th 2012 at the Unitarian Universalist
Community Church of Park Forest!
We hope to see you there!
RSVP on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/events/347645838655831/
William
Organizer
South Suburban Freethought Community
