loosing faith

I published this originally in webooks, but I think it's more a blog entry than a short story...


I grew up as a communist. Well, actually I had a nice childhood in East Germany. We collected and sold recyclables to give money to poor African Nations and demonstrated for peace and Nuclear Disarmament. We were sure we were doing the right thing. We grew up imagining becoming writers, engineers or astronauts. My friend and me, we didn't like everything we saw in society, but we knew the ideals were right and reality could only get better.
My world view has changed somewhat since then. I still think the communist idea was noble: Every person contributes as much as he can to the community and the community provides to the person whatever he/she needs/wants. I just don't think anymore that this idea is compatible with humans. It seems better fitting for ants or highly developed selfless aliens. I think humans have developed so fast in part because of their wanting to live better than their neighbor and to own as many things as possible. Also, humans always need or develop some kind of leadership over others, and with that power comes corruption.
Anyway, I grew up knowing that there was no god. Almost nobody I knew believed in god, only my grandmother, but she never talked to me about it. She was the kindest person I knew. She had a very hard childhood. She was finally adopted by a kind and religious lady, so she grew religious herself. The rest of my family is pretty much agnostic, with some new age spirituality becoming popular now.
Being religious seemed kind of silly, even though a lot of the young people in church were quite smart and/or artistic. I think now that being in church was then for the young people like a kind of opposition and Hippie movement. The church youth would refuse to get drafted or carry weapons and wear hand dyed flowing dresses and sit together at candle light and sing soft songs with guitars. It still confuses me a bit when the super religious here (US) are happy about the death penalty and Iraq war. I'm now more of a pacifist than I was then.
Anyway, the wall came tumbling down and opened my eyes. (I had just started my first year of college.) It was less the newfound freedom or Western ideas than the behavior of the people around me. In a short time, people which I had learned to look up to for their idealism and positive outlook on our society, changed 180 degrees. They suddenly were only interested in material things or confessed that they always had thought very differently than they said, and that this new society was the very best society possible. Germans coined the term "Wendehals" (turning neck) for the successful ones among the changers. I learned out of this experience never to get uncritically involved in anything and not to trust organizations or ideologies which present themselves as the one and only right way.
At the end of college, I heard of the opportunity to go to the US to study 1 year. This sounded very exciting, so I applied, was lucky and went. I met this smart and handsome Indian, and 3 years later, we married. My husband is Hindu, so he is supposed not to eat beef. I wanted to be a good wife of a Hindu, so I stopped eating beef. However my husband was just discovering all the excitement of Western cuisine and didn't mind a good steak. I thought I should help him onto the right path and asked: "Aren't you supposed to not eat beef?" He got somewhat angry. He was saying that he was already feeling somewhat guilty, but why did I have to try to make him feel guilty even more? It was like a moment of revelation for me. All these imposed rules by religions felt suddenly so pointless. What does what you eat, when you eat, how you dress has to do with how moral you are and whether you are a good person?
Aren't there more important things? How you treat others, for example and what you contribute to society. Why does it matter whether you are married or not and what gender your partner has. Society looks at it now, but it should only matter to you and your partner. Why does it matter what cast, class or gender you are? As for your education, happiness, profession, choosing a partner, it should not matter.
Since then, I have been contemplating from time to time to become a vegetarian. Just from the thought that no animal should be killed on my behalf and that plant food is ultimately healthier. But the taste of a good steak has always pulled me back! Now, if somebody could tell me the trick of making a child eat veggies...
As for the God question, living in the bible belt painfully reminds me each day of how many people feel morally superior just because of the religion they belong to. I can emphasize with their reasoning and yet feel like a universe away. It makes me feel sick how they judge outsiders. But somehow they remind me of my childhood's unquestioned idealism.