Where do I fit in?

Question

Hello, I'm hoping this belongs here (if it doesn't, please point me in the right direction, if there is one!). For those of you who take the time to read this, thank you. I have been without religion for a long time, and am not sure how to fit it back into my life. As a child, I grew up in a Christian household, going between Baptist and Presbyterian churches (mainly). I never really meshed with everything that Christianity is about, and as I got older I lost more and more of my faith, until I reached college, at which point it dissipated completely. I have always felt spiritual, in a sense, by which I mean that I feel like there is \*something\* out there that connects us all and binds everything together, though I have a hard time believing it to be some sort of God or Goddess. I feel a strong closeness to nature, and I enjoy some of the tenets of wicca as they relate to the worship of nature, but I am not certain if I truly belong in a religion such as that, as wicca tends to incorporate the idea of a God and/or Goddess. I believe in peace, pacifism, kindness, calmness, meditation, reflecting on a closeness with nature, the spirits of the animals we coexist with and the elements all around us. I feel that, if anything, we all were created from the universe, and return to it at the end of our lives, a kind of circle that never begins and never ends, if you will. I've tried looking into various religions to see what might be out there that fits me, but its been hard to find anything that really calls to me..it is, of course, complicated by all of the misleading information that is so easily obtainable thanks to the internet and the proliferation of material on it, and also by the skewing and glamorization of various religions in Hollywood/the media. So, to those of you out there who read this, based on your personal experiences and what I have written here, is there something out there that you think I would fit into? That would be worth my time to look into and read up on more? Thank you for your time and for helping to shed a little light onto the path of this lost soul.

Answer 1

First of all, I just want to say that I find your honesty admirable. Unless I'm mistaken, it sounds like you are seeking like-minded souls, perhaps a particular organized Faith system that you can join. As for like-minded souls, they are most certainly out there. The matter of finding a 'Church', that is, a particular organized religion whose teachings / beliefs correspond to your own, is a little more tricky.

Mind you, I don't wish to discourage you. It just seems to me that 'Organized Religion', by its very nature, is problematic. It seems that, no matter what, one is required to conform to the correct teachings of the religion in question at the expense of thinking for one's self. I'm sorry that I don't have a more satisfactory answer for you. All I can say is that your values appear to me to be worthwhile, to say the least. If you live your life by them, then I would say that, in your own way, you are making the world a better place.