Welcome
For as long as I can remember I’ve known I didn’t believe in a god. That never stopped me from being amazed at what seemed beyond my comprehension or expressing faith in things I could not prove, what William James would call the mystical. I was and remain intrigued by religious thought and philosophy, but was never inclined to join a religious community, something that seemed antithetical to my atheism. Still, when asked, I would claim that while I don’t believe in god, “I am spiritual.” Most theists would inquire no further since my initial assertion of atheism made my subsequent claim trivial and irrelevant. For other atheists or agnostics, the “spiritual” tag was a shorthand for being taken with mystery and awe. They either understood this or didn’t care.
My faith was bound by an interiority that engaged with the outside world but was at the same time profoundly about me in that world. I came to understand this and develop a richer spiritual life when, a few years ago, I joined a religious congregation for the first time. I had been in many houses of worship over my life, but time and again I felt like an outsider; everyone else seemed to belong, but I did not. My first visit to the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans changed that. I sensed almost immediately that everyone there was a kind of outsider, coming as they were from different faith traditions. And with time, I realized that at some point or another nearly everyone was ill at ease with any given weekly service.
I was taken with things I'd never imagined, like the horizontal comradeship of the congregation. But more than anything, it was the beginning of thinking about my faith outside myself, about what it would mean to recognize, as Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh would say, "There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected."
I remain an atheist, but I've embraced my identity as a religious atheist. I'm still finding my footing and my writings here are a part of that process. Welcome to the journey.
My faith was bound by an interiority that engaged with the outside world but was at the same time profoundly about me in that world. I came to understand this and develop a richer spiritual life when, a few years ago, I joined a religious congregation for the first time. I had been in many houses of worship over my life, but time and again I felt like an outsider; everyone else seemed to belong, but I did not. My first visit to the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans changed that. I sensed almost immediately that everyone there was a kind of outsider, coming as they were from different faith traditions. And with time, I realized that at some point or another nearly everyone was ill at ease with any given weekly service.
I was taken with things I'd never imagined, like the horizontal comradeship of the congregation. But more than anything, it was the beginning of thinking about my faith outside myself, about what it would mean to recognize, as Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh would say, "There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected."
I remain an atheist, but I've embraced my identity as a religious atheist. I'm still finding my footing and my writings here are a part of that process. Welcome to the journey.
— Justin Wolfe, June 17, 2018
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