How to replace God
I need something to believe in
Last week, my daughter’s school held their Harvest Festival service. She started a brand new school this year, and this one, unlike her previous one, is a Church of England school. So I sat in church for the first time in years. It was a really lovely occasion, watching the children singing, displaying their artwork and reading poetry. And I thought…
I miss this.
I was raised by an Italian Catholic mother (and the Englishman who converted so he could marry her), so every Sunday of my childhood we would troop off to church. I remember, vividly, my brother and I sitting on the cold stone floor, eating the gingerbread men my mum would give us to keep us quiet. I enjoyed the theatre of Catholic services - the soft glow of the candles, the pungent aroma of incense, the colourful (and rather dramatic) statues and paintings, and, when I was a little bit older, queuing up for the sharp, earthy taste of communion wine.
But I don’t go to church anymore. I don’t believe in God anymore. I lost my faith when I was in my 20s, and it’s a loss I grieve. Because there was so much more than a belief in a creator involved.
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Community and communion
What I enjoyed most about the time we spent in that little church was the sense of community. Everyone gathered together for a shared purpose. Different generations, people who didn’t necessarily know each other, all sitting together, smiling, saying hello. You just don’t get that sort of experience often anymore.
We’d all donated food for the local food back as part of the “harvest” collection - tinned goods and toiletries these days, a far cry from the vegetables that used to be piled on the altar when I was a child, but much easier to distribute to those who need them - and the headmaster spoke about working to ensure that no child in our community goes to bed hungry. It felt powerful to be pulling together in service of a common goal, to help one another. I know there are parents at that school who visit the foodbank in question - this isn’t a case of supporting some obscure “less fortunate” people, this is sharing with our neighbours. Sharing with and caring for your neighbour being very much at the heart of Jesus of Nazareth’s teaching, and yet somehow not the part that most so-called Christians focus on.
I do, by the way, have a great deal of respect for Jesus’s teachings. I think he was a wonderful man who advocated for love and kindness, for a better way of being in the world. I just don’t believe he was a deity. (He actually explicitly said that he hadn’t come to start a new religion, but that’s a whole other conversation.) I think there have been many great people who have offered a message of connection and peace - Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Martin Luther King Jr., Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama)… the list goes on and on. (I’m very well aware it’s a very male heavy list, and we all know why women’s teachings often don’t get the visibility they deserve, but, again, I’ll save that for another time…) I have huge respect for all these people and the wisdom they have given us. But, for me, they are mere mortals like the rest of us. If you believe differently, you are completely entitled to your opinion, and I respect your faith. I don’t have to share it.
But when you take away the question of divinity, what is so powerful about these teachers is how they bring people together and mobilise them to take positive action. How they build a community of people willing to support and care for one another out of a collection of disparate strangers. Without religion, we’ve lost some of that community connection. We don’t gather together regularly. We don’t talk to our neighbours, we certainly don’t share what we have with them. We’ve drifted away and been left standing alone.
There’s been plenty that’s not been so great about communities organised around religion. The treatment of women, to start with. A lot of the beliefs around why women shouldn’t be allowed pain relief in childbirth stem from the idea of the “curse of Eve” that is more engrained in us than we realise. Then we’ve got the treatment of the LGBTQIA+ community. A huge amount of racism, and war, and brutality has been enacted in the name of religion. Little to none of it is supported by the teachings of the central figures themselves, but when people get into groups based around belief systems, they get surprisingly aggressive about them. So there’s no doubt the communities we had weren’t perfect, but I miss being part of one nonetheless.
The great unknown
The other thing I miss is the reassurance that faith offers. The idea that there is a guiding hand behind it all, that you can ask for things or support and someone is listening, that someone has a plan for you.
It was that idea, though, that I couldn’t get on board with. That’s what finally pushed me to accept that I didn’t believe in a god. I simply can’t square the idea of a divine entity pulling the strings with the absolute shit-show that is the world we live in. Why would god create some people whose lives are filled with pain and misery - children born with horrific illnesses that mean they live a few short years in agony and then die; children who are abused and tortured by their parents; people who are bullied, harassed and attacked simply because of who they are - and create other people who have lives of luxury and decadence. So that the sufferers can learn something? What a bastard.
Stephen Fry’s comments on this are well worth a watch. His message to any such creator would be, “How dare you?” I have to say I agree:
The god of the Old Testament, in particular, is not a fun dude. He torments Job by killing his entire family and beseiging him with woes just to test his faith. He asks Abraham to kill his son and then, at the last moment when the child is traumatised beyond imagining, pops up to go “lolz, just kidding!” And maybe those are just stories made up by humans to try to explain something of the a being that they couldn’t even begin to comprehend, but, even if you let go of all of that, I just can’t square the idea of an intelligent being behind the universe with the scientific understanding of said universe. That’s not to say I’m right - I don’t know any more than anyone else. But for me, it just doesn’t make sense and I can’t pin a whole belief system on something that doesn’t feel logically consistent. Again, this is my feelings - you are very welcome to different ones.
But it feels scary to be left without that external guidance. Without anyone to appeal to or any sense that there might be some order or meaning to it all. Modern spiritual influencers have tried to replace this idea of the deus behind the machine with the idea that the universe is in control. So we can still appeal to the universe for the things we want (manifestation) and we still insist that everything happens for a reason.
It doesn’t, though, does it?
I’ve written about manifestation before - it makes perfect scientific sense, without any sentient universe controlling it. It’s just focusing on what you want and taking action towards it - of course that’s going to make you more likely to get it. As for everything happening for a reason… Sure, some crap things you learn from and you grow from, but some are just crap. Some things pop into your life unexpectedly and help you, some don’t. If you’re looking for meaning in it all, you’ll probably find it, but a lot of the random shit that’s happened to me has just been totally random.
I might be wrong about everything. Don’t get mad at me in the comments about how it definitely does all happen for a reason. You don’t know any better than I do. Faith is just that - faith. Not knowing. We believe or we don’t. We all just have to make our own best guesses for ourselves, we can’t push those guesses on anyone else (another issue I have with organised religion!). If your faith can’t stand up to my doubt, then maybe you need to examine your own beliefs. But let’s not argue. If faith in something out there gives you comfort, I’m happy for you. I wish I felt that comfort.
What comes next?
There is a shift happening. For the first time, the England and Wales census in 2021 showed that more people in this country are not Christian than are. Christianity remains the dominant religion, with 46% of the population, but 54% identify otherwise. 37% follow no religion. Even those who do consider themselves to be Christians are far less likely to be regular church goers than in previous generations. When my mother was a child, it was taken for granted that everyone headed to church on a Sunday. Now, it’s more commonly assumed that people don’t.
The pros and cons of that can be debated until the cows come home, but what I’m more interested in is what we do with the fact of the matter. Do we let go of that sense of community, that opportunity to gather? Do we give up on collective community action? Or can we find something secular to replace it?
And what is there for those of us who feel alone and confused without that cosmic hand to guide us? In some ways there is a greater sense of control in knowing you alone are responsible for your own destiny, but, when the world is such a large and complex place, that can be more than a little overwhelming.
Nature has become my church. I drag my children out for a walk in the woods or on the beach every Sunday to celebrate and marvel at the beauty of the planet we live on. I believe in connecting with the Earth, in tuning into the rhythms and cycles of nature. They might not be conscious and probably have no regard whatsoever for us - scurrying around like ants on the planet’s surface - but we owe them our existence and we depend on them for our survival. Nature is the only god I can understand.
But it’s still a solitary activity, those nature walks - or, at least, it’s confined to my family unit. Maybe we should invite other families along, but I suppose I’m embarrassed to say it aloud - “Would you like to come and join us in a communal act of nature worship?” Erm, what? Perhaps I should woman up and try it.
And, ultimately, I have to make my peace with the fact that listening to the rhythms of the Earth and tuning into those of my own body are the only guides I have. That, while I cling on to the surface of this little globe, whizzing around in the infinite darkness of space, there’s nothing for it but to hold tight and enjoy the ride. It’s scary to think that there’s nothing after this, that there’s no purpose or meaning to it all… but it also takes the pressure off. If this is all there is, if there’s no purpose to be measured against, then we can just enjoy it and experience the fullness of it for what it is.
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I bet more people would be up for those nature walks than you think <3
I absolutely hear you. Sexually abused by men in my parent's evangelical church when I was a child I ran away from religion when I was told I was full of evil for leading men on, but am spiritually starved. I had an interesting conversation with a Methodist minister just after my mum died, who said not only had I been sexually and emotionally abused, but I was spiritually abused.
Like you, I also seek solace in nature....it's been very hard to say I don't believe in God considering my upbringing.