Sunday, November 15, 2009

A God-fearing Woman

Yesterday, I made a trip to our local library to do some homework. I'm working toward my Bachelor of Science degree in Paralegal Studies. While I was at the library, I came upon a book titled "The Atheist's Bible". Out of curiousity I picked it up. The book was a few hundred pages of quotes from famous historical figures, some living and some dead. They were great quotes, so I checked it out of the library and brought it home. My husband was entertaining some guests that day, and we ended up in one of those great late night conversations until 2 am born from sharing the title of the book that I checked out.

One of the quotes bothered me a bit in it's reference to "a god-fearing woman". I started thinking of that and soon realized that at one time in my life I thought it was a good thing to be "god-fearing". I don't think so now. Who wants to be afraid of god, if you are so inclined to be a believer? Not me. Any god that I would choose would be a god of unconditional love, or god would not have my allegiance. Any person following a god that must be feared must live in a terrible place. I cannot imagine waking up from day to day with the thought that if I'm not good enough then my god will judge me, that I could somehow be consigned to know that I had somehow "disappointed" god. I cannot subscribe to such a view. So for those of you out there who do not agree, please let me hear from you. But in the mean time, I, for one, do not want to be a 'god-fearing' woman. I can't imagine that fear would ever be part of a spiritual base that I could actively choose. I am not a Christian, and do not define myself as such, however, I'm still deciding on the existence of god. I'm not sure if "god" is a state of being, found in nature, or if he exists at all, but I can tell you that I do not fear him, not now, not ever. I simply choose to not label myself or my thought. I am a person free to think, and choose when evidence presents itself, when I find it convincing, and when I find truth. And truth is in rare supply these days. Choose to not live in fear! Choose to think! Choose to believe in the evidence of life!