I see myself as an atheist and a materialist, certainly a skeptic, but I see the universe as an extremely complex and intricate process (not a machine, which implies a purpose) and a great mystery. But I still see myself as a very spiritual person. I know there is something going on I do not understand, but the substitution of some divine intelligence as an explanation for it answers no questions and explains nothing. After all, if He is the Answer, then what is the Question? The religious hypothesis does not resolve any of our doubts, it only postpones them.

Still, I cannot escape the nagging suspicion that there is something totally unexpected, and wonderful, going on that I just can’t see. I suspect that the greatest wonder and mystery is consciousness itself, and that it holds the key to what we all seek. I am convinced consciousness and mind are a property of the Universe,like entropy. For me, the best way to find this connection has been through science, I suspect it holds the key, although I haven’t a clue as to just what it is. It is the greatest failure of my life that I never had the talent or skill or determination to use that science to explore and explain that mystery.

I’ve presented this quote here before, but here it is again. It is the best expression I’ve seen yet of how I feel. It is how I define my spirituality.

“Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp. What is the message signaled by the hordes of diatoms, flashing their microscopic lights in the night sea? What truth is expressed by the legions of barnacles, whitening the rocks with their habitations, each small creature within finding the necessities of its existence in the sweep of the surf? And what is the meaning of so tiny a being as the transparent wisp of protoplasm that is a sea lace, existing for some reason inscrutable to us — a reason that demands its presence by the trillion amid the rocks and weeds of the shore? The meaning haunts and ever eludes us, and in its very pursuit we approach the ultimate mystery of Life itself.”

from The Edge of the Sea
- Rachel Carson (1955)

Faith and doubt are normally considered opposites. The reality is that faith and doubt are a spectrum in which faith and doubt can exist simultaneously. The simple solution is to either hold fast to doubt or hold fast to faith and not let anybody convince you otherwise. I find a lot in common with both the True Believer and the True Doubter. I am neither. My level of doubt or level of faith fluctuates with time. For me, its the wrestle between the two absolutes where spirituality exists.

Were I not born into the faith, I’m not sure it would have the hold on me that it does. I know plenty of people who have left the faith and seem just as happy without it. I can’t deny I’ve felt intellectually drawn that way myself at times, but I also can’t deny some very personal spiritual experiences that keep me looking for answers within the faith.

What really blows me away is how incredibly detailed, how granular and precise religious doctrines are, how every tiny quirk and behavior of the Deity and how we are expected to relate to it, is rigorously spelled out and specified. It is curious how unforgiving religion can be, even those religions built around the concept of forgiveness.

Sometimes, when faced with the fervor and conviction of the True Believer, even a cynical skeptic like myself is intimidated, almost coerced into thinking maybe there must be something out there that people could believe so totally in it, and commit themselves so completely to it.

It is only when the variety and differences between faiths are considered, how they contradict each other and force their followers into absurd and inconsistent positions, (not to mention the brutality they are ready to inflict on those who do not accept their views) that one realizes how really, totally, completely arbitrary and artificial this world-view really is.

This need to believe must clearly be hard-wired into the human brain, and no doubt it probably serves some important evolutionary purpose. It must, because we have paid a terrible price for it.

My wife and I have just finished binge-watching the 12 hour PBS video production of “Brideshead Revisted”. The novel explores the terrible devastation this sort of unyielding faith can inflict in those who accept it and the societies built around it. It is (among many other things) how an intelligent and thoughtful agnostic, the hero Charles Ryder, comes to eventually accept religion himself, in spite of the havoc it unleashes on himself, and those he loves. And keep in mind, the author, Evelyn Waugh, himself converted to Catholicism late in life and was a very devout man. His recognition of this toxicity and this inhumane, even cruel, aspect of religion is testament to the honesty of the writer.

As a failed writer, I stand in awe of Waugh’s genius, and marvel at how such a perceptive man could be so completely deceived, and yet still describe the experience so honestly and so accurately.

Conversely, those who are not baptized, regardless of their virtue or piety, may not be able to make the cut.

I must be missing something.

To answer another post of yours, the Mormons’ believe that dead people can be baptized into Mormonism, thus their interest in identifying them.