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butterflyThis week's episode made me think about my aunt.
She's been dead for... it'll be eleven years this Christmas, I think. At the time when I lost her, there wasn't much room for me to have much thought into the idea of seeing her after death, because she was atheist. There's even less now that I'm atheist as well.
I missed her so much (I still miss her). At the time of her death, I was Christian. I was also, at that time, struggling with my sexuality and with my identity in the world and with a lot of depression. I did derive some comfort from a belief in God at that time, though probably a lot more from the people around me.
I've gone through a lot in the eleven years since she died - and one of those things was not losing my faith, but deliberately setting it aside when I realized that, no matter how I tried, I could not justify it rationally. I don't know at what point in my journey that I actually stopped believing. It wasn't all at once, though, but gradual. First a realization that I couldn't believe in a Christian God - at which point, I did adopt a more nebulous 'made of love' god, which also became something that I couldn't justify believing in.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of last night's Glee was Mercedes telling Kurt (in front of her whole church after outing him as an atheist) that he didn't have to believe in God but he did have to believe in some version of a god ("something greater/sacred").
And, as someone else said (I don't recall where) - it was very painful that the person going through the biggest trauma in the episode (Kurt) was also the person who was expected to be the most understanding and empathetic. He 'needed' to understand and allow other people to push their religion onto him, but none of them were required to empathize and attempt to understand his lack of religion/faith.
I definitely appreciate that they didn't have Kurt finding faith as a result of his father's heart attack.
It's one of those sad/ironic things that the one person who could have most helped comfort Kurt over his dad being in the hospital would have been his dad. The guy who, as the episode showed, accepted Kurt for who he is and accepted the decisions that he made.
She's been dead for... it'll be eleven years this Christmas, I think. At the time when I lost her, there wasn't much room for me to have much thought into the idea of seeing her after death, because she was atheist. There's even less now that I'm atheist as well.
I missed her so much (I still miss her). At the time of her death, I was Christian. I was also, at that time, struggling with my sexuality and with my identity in the world and with a lot of depression. I did derive some comfort from a belief in God at that time, though probably a lot more from the people around me.
I've gone through a lot in the eleven years since she died - and one of those things was not losing my faith, but deliberately setting it aside when I realized that, no matter how I tried, I could not justify it rationally. I don't know at what point in my journey that I actually stopped believing. It wasn't all at once, though, but gradual. First a realization that I couldn't believe in a Christian God - at which point, I did adopt a more nebulous 'made of love' god, which also became something that I couldn't justify believing in.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of last night's Glee was Mercedes telling Kurt (in front of her whole church after outing him as an atheist) that he didn't have to believe in God but he did have to believe in some version of a god ("something greater/sacred").
And, as someone else said (I don't recall where) - it was very painful that the person going through the biggest trauma in the episode (Kurt) was also the person who was expected to be the most understanding and empathetic. He 'needed' to understand and allow other people to push their religion onto him, but none of them were required to empathize and attempt to understand his lack of religion/faith.
I definitely appreciate that they didn't have Kurt finding faith as a result of his father's heart attack.
It's one of those sad/ironic things that the one person who could have most helped comfort Kurt over his dad being in the hospital would have been his dad. The guy who, as the episode showed, accepted Kurt for who he is and accepted the decisions that he made.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-07 02:26 am (UTC)THIS. Yes. I think this is what's eating at me more than anything with this episode. Thank you for mentioning it.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-07 03:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-07 07:21 pm (UTC)De-lurking to say that I absolutely agree with you. It's especially frustrating since the episode was apparently supposed to be about Kurt learning to be more tolerant towards religious beliefs of others, but evidently none of the other characters want to accept his opinions.
Also, I was somewhat surprised to see that apparently, one can't be an atheist without having some kind of trauma/bad experience etc. beforehand.