Lack of Ceremony has got me BORED

Want to know my shameful little secret?

I really miss ceremony, all those little motions and incantations to achieve some magical result...

Don't get me wrong, I KNOW it doesn't achieve anything tangible, but dammit! Sometimes a girl just feels like waving around crystals and burning insence and dancing around a freakin' bonfire! Sometimes when I'm furious I want to burn pictures of whoever has done so and imagine the universe collapsing in on them like some sort of eager to please giant dope trying to earn my approval by tormenting those who have tormented me.

I want to dance in the moonlight.

I don't miss gods, but I miss the pretty bits. Science is pretty, but you can't see as well through a telescope while twirling around.

So I think I may do it anyway. Not because I want to believe, but because I want to pretend. I liked playing games of make believe as a child, and I think it could be fun still.

Not Christianity though. The Abrahmic traditions are almost as boring as my Kineseology homework. Their morbid nonsense can suck it. I'll be winging it, bonfires and crystals are pretty, and who says I can't incant about the grandness of the cosmos. If everything is star stuff then why should I be hesitant to celebrate in a way that makes me happy?

You know the best part about being an atheist though?

No one can tell me that doing so is against my religion.

BOOYAH!

-Carol "Had too much Coffee this Evening" Foley

5 members like this

Comment by Virginia Templeton on March 10, 2012 at 9:25pm: Religion is not a reason to do things that make you feel good. Some people just know that some things look crazy and use religious ceremony as a means of making it seem normal. Well forget normal, being happy is way better than being normal.

Personally, even though I know that he will never see it or read it, I burn a letter on my brother's grave as a means of "talking" to him. The only effect it has is making me feel better.

Comment by Ward Cressin on March 10, 2012 at 11:31pm: Go for it. Heck, organize it.

Alain de Botton has a new book "Religion For Atheists" that relates to this - you can see a video about the idea here:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/26/opinion/de-botton-religion-atheists/i...

It is about 20 minutes long. (The text below the video does not relate the whole video.) He talks about taking things we currently only associate with religion (but don't have to be) and doing them for ourselves. Getting together to sign. Having a bonfire & dance. All sorts of things that people miss from their former religions that you shouldn't need to belong to a brainwashing factory to do.

Scientists have found that religious rituals are only a hairs-breadth different from OCD rituals. So it should be no surprise that people find the religious rituals comforting.

Comment by Craig Nomazlab on March 10, 2012 at 11:56pm: Go for it! Why not?

Comment by rhonda blankenship on March 11, 2012 at 11:41am: light some candles and incense, beat on a drum, eat some shrooms, have an experance ! then connect with the Earth ! ... or start crying eather one's ok by me

Comment by IEatDinosaurMeat on March 11, 2012 at 8:19pm: Ceremony drove me away from the church. It's all so pointless and trite. What you're talking about doesn't seem so much like ritual and more like a desire for fun. The cure for boredom is to go out and do things!

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