Agnostic Theist

Agnostic Theism: [link]

I think you better sit down, because this is going to be a looooooong story.

Most of my immediate family is Catholic. Some of them are Baptists, and I think one of my grandmothers is Mormon (I think...She said she went to a Mormon church recently). But I was baptized and raised Catholic, and was taught to be tolerate of all beliefs and treat others equally, even if we don't agree with them. I was taught to go to Church every weekend if possible and pray to God and he'll respond to you somehow.

At a young age, I was told that he would speak to me. But I never really heard him. He's never responded to me. I've never seen him or anything with related to miracles and such. So in my junior year of high-school, that's when I started to question my faith after I learned about the other religions, including Wicca.

I picked Wicca for my project in my religion class because I was curious in how they believed in Mother Nature as a deity and magic. I've always held a belief in magic since I was little and I've been environmentally conscious too, so learning about a religion that based its beliefs in both nature and magic practically tempted me to join it. I started to panic; I wanted to convert, but I was afraid of what my parents would say about it. So I asked around for advice on what to do and many of my friends who knew what Wicca was like said that it may not be the right one for me and that I should just follow my own belief-system.

So I did. I'm still forming it, using bits and pieces of beliefs from all over to form my own belief-system that makes the most sense to me.

I'll try to summarize my beliefs from here on out:
I don't think "God" is what most people think "he" is. Really, how can you believe in something that's supposedly up in the sky above us who you can't physically see, hear, touch, taste, or smell?

In my own opinion, I feel better with connecting to a deity, or whatever mystical force that watches over us, that's viewed as female. That way, I can relate with it more. Furthermore, I think of this deity as "Mother Nature," who is actually planet Earth in physical form and communicates to us via the plants and animals.

That's the only reason I can come up with as to why I feel so much better in nature, like all the plants and animals are happy and seem to be greeting me because they're so bright in appearance. It's like as if the environment has a mind of its own and is alive and breathing, and its aware of my presence. Even the animals I come across don't seem to mind me.

While out riding in the desert once, we came across a sand lizard. Most of the time, the lizards all scurried off when we drew close. But this one, it didn't. Either it was scared stiff or it didn't mind us, but it never ran off. My brother and I sat in the sand the entire break, petting its back. It was the first time I had pet a wild creature, out in its habitat, and it never tried to bite us. We even picked it up and put it in my brother's toy truck and drove it around.

My dad once tossed some apples and corn to a mother deer and her calf who had wandered near our campsite. They got really close, but the mother deer didn't eat any of the apples or corn and instead, carefully eyed us. Even a wild bison walked by my mom without any hostility. We've come across a big rattlesnake in the wild, and when we turned around to watch it for a bit, just within feet of us, all it did was slither back into the grass, without even a single rattle from its tail. And the wild deer on campus don't seem to mind us; I once ran into a pack of them near the dorms and I was within 5 feet of them...and they never ran off. I don't know if it's because they can tell when we're not a threat or its because they know that I won't bother them. But almost every single wild animal I've come across doesn't mind me.

That's why I'm now an agnostic theist. I still believe in a deity, but I think it's more like Mother Nature, in the way that the planet is the one that's physically living and breathing and that's how she/it communicates with us.
...Or at least to me.

This is also why I don't believe in Hell or Heaven anymore. I actually think that our spiritual selves go to our own little special paradise when we die, that's filled with everything that makes us happy and that we enjoy so much. For me, I hope mine has all my characters come to life and I get to go to all the fantasy worlds I've read about....and that I can combine mine with my boyfriend's.

The other reason why I'm an agnostic theist; I got tired of many Christian followers waving around their beliefs in people's faces, bringing up their religious beliefs into EVERYTHING, even when the conversation or piece had nothing to do with religion at all, or telling people they're going to go to Hell for not accepting God or just for being LGBT. (One of my friends in college who's gay gets a lot of comments like that on his Facebook....That's also the reason why he left the Church.)

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