blog challenge: day 4
bit of a touchy subject to some...but my views on religion:
well my parents aren't really that religious, i mean when i was a kid i used to catch my mom waving incense around and all that but i haven't seen her do it in a while and now my parents only do it on my grandfather's memorial. and we've never really talked about it-i don't ask them and they don't ask me.
that said, i did grow up in the bible belt so a lot of my friends growing up were some denomination of christianity. my best friend growing up was mormon and my boyfriend is episcopalian. and despite all their efforts to convert me i am still firmly agnostic. i used to be atheist but then i realized that denying the possibility of any sort of higher power is like saying that i know everything and all possibilities. so i decided to be agnostic instead. i think there is a possibility of some sort of higher power but i don't adhere to any single religion.
however, if i had kids i would probably make them go to church. they wouldn't necessarily have to believe or anything, but i think churches are a really good social network that can be very necessary growing up. i didn't go to church when i was a kid so when i started going to school i didn't know anyone whereas a lot of my classmates knew each other from church activities. plus it's a good way to stay involved in the community.
it used to crack me up in high school and college when people would assume that i didn't have any morals or ethics just because i was/am atheist/agnostic. i mean seriously-does a person really need the fear of hell to be a good person? can't someone be a good person because they know it's the right thing to do?
of course i always wondered where i learned what the 'right' thing was...i also wonder where i got my nice manners. i know my parents never taught me (i remember learning to read and write but i def don't remember being taught manners) and i'm usually more polite than they are. and i spent most of my childhood alone so i wonder where i picked it up from. is it some sort of innate behavior or did i subconsciously pick it up in school as a young child? who knows.
i don't have a problem with other people who are religious as long as they're not trying too hard to push their religion onto me. i always thought religion was a personal thing (between you and god) and sort of...comfort food for your brain? it's there, mentally, to give you comfort and get you through difficult situations but that's it.
although i do believe in ghosts and spirits but i have mixed feelings about reincarnation. i always love watching shows like 'the haunting' on discovery. well i was pretty skeptical of ghosts before this one incident: my best friend as a kid used to see ghosts all the time, personally i've never seen a ghost but i've 'felt' them. one time we were visiting her sister in chicago and we were sleeping on the couch. in the middle of the night we wake up because we hear noises coming from the kitchen-it was set up so that the living room and kitchen was one giant room. of course i couldn't see anything, and not just because i'm blind without glasses on, but my friend told me that she could see a woman standing in the kitchen messing with the things on the counter. then my friend says that the woman is walking over...and you know what my friend does? she rolls over and goes back to sleep!! i couldn't believe she just went back to sleep and left me with some ghost i couldn't even see!! anyway, it was freezing so i pulled the blanket up over my face and i swear i could feel fingers rubbing my cheek through the blanket. it was reeeeally freaky. and we asked her sister about it in the morning and she said that some mornings when she wakes up the things on the counter are in a different order than how she left them. anyway i've believed in ghosts after that incident.
another freak incident: that friend once dated a guy that could also see ghosts. she said one time they were sitting on the couch watching a movie when a ghost walked past them in the room and she goes 'did you see that?" and he goes "yep". freaky right? which then makes me wonder why some people can see them and some can't. is it genetic? or is it that they're more 'open' on some psychological level? i don't know but it makes me wonder if should be glad or sad that i can't see them.
what about you-do you believe in ghosts? have you had any freaky run-ins with spirits? i love hearing ghost stories to please share!!
A truly interesting read. :-)
ReplyDeletewell, i have one.....it happened about 10 years ago when i was living with my grandfather doing an internship for college in tupelo,ms. my papa had just switched houses with my uncle (long story). i always had a slightly uneasy feeling in that house especially when i was alone. one night i woke up because my bed was shaking, not excorsist style, just shaking a little but enough to wake me up. the next morning i told my Papa and he said 'oh, it was probably just the air conditioner cutting on and off in the night. i said ok, even though the air conditioning unit was nowhere near the wall that my bed was on. this happened a few nights, and then finally one night it happened and when i opened my eyes, there was a young boy standing next to my bed. he was in shades of gray, just a misty figure but he was dressed like he was from an earlier time period. it scared the living daylights out of me. after that my papa tried to explain it away, but later on i started to feel better and not like someone was watching me all the time. the shaking hadn't happened in a while and i asked my papa if he felt like the house was different. he said 'yes, i took care of it'. he said he asked his friend how to get rid of a ghost and she told him to face all directions of the house and tell the ghost to leave that he's not welcome anymore. (now, this is funny to me, because my papa is so logical and was an engineer, just to give you and idea). but sweet because he was trying to take care of me, even though he said he didn't believe in that kind of thing. later i told my aunt and she said that when they had lived there the kitchen cabinets were always open and closed and pots and pan would be out on the floor. things in the house were moved around all the time and her son (he was a toddler) would always talk to someone in his room. she said it freaked her out, because it was like he was really talking to someone, not just babbling.
ReplyDeleteanyways - sorry for the book, but that's my story!
that's so sweet your grandfather was looking out for you even though he didn't believe in ghosts!!
Deletei guess i'm used to all the glorified tv/movie versions where you try to get rid of the ghost and it just comes back with the vengeance but i'm glad it only took your grandfather one simple ritual to remove the spirit.
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