This morning my family and I went through our Sunday routine. We got up, got dressed and went to church. Or, at least 2/3 of us went to church. While my wife and daughter went to the local Methodist church, I went to the coffee shop down the street. My wife gets comfort from going to church and if it makes her feel better about life. I’ve tried talking to her about why I am not so sure about Christianity, but she is reluctant to think too hard about it for fear that she will lose the benefits she gets from her religion. That’s fine, she’s not a rabid evalgelical and not hurting anyone so I’ve dropped the issue.

When my wife goes to church she takes my daughter too and I’m OK with that. Eventually, my wife and I have decided that we will let our daughter make her own decisions about religion, but for now we’re starting her off with Christianity. The reason for this is purely practical. Christianity is the most common religion in the U.S. and she will have the same cultural references as the majority of the nation.

As I sat thinking about how my family splits up on Sunday mornings, I recalled the metaphor I blogged about yesterday. One of the final questions addressed there is “How do I choose a religion that is best for me?” The simple answer is that it depends on what you want out of religion.

That answer got me to thinking about what I want out of a religion. First, I want to have a direct relationship with God, however you define him/her/them/it. Second, I want a sense of community. Third, I want it to improve my life or at least not make it any worse than it already is. (For the record, I have a comfortable living and life is generally good. I’d like to keep it that way.)

Despite the fact that I don’t buy into the Christian mythology, would it still make a decent fit for me? I don’t think that I’d get the direct relationship with God out of it. I think that to achieve that type of relationship one must engage in some form of mysticism. There aint’ a whole lot of Christian Mysticism in the Midwest. I would definitely be on my own there.

Christianity would give me a community. Churches can be a strong networking and political base. I could use the relationships there to improve my material life. But my observations lead me to believe that very few Christians really thing about what they’re doing and what they’re believing. They’re just following the herd. I don’t think that I would get much of a spiritual development community out of the deal.

As far as improving my life or not making my life worse, I think that I get half of that out of Christianity. I’m not sure that my life would improve, but it certainly wouldn’t get worse, at least from a social perspective.

After thinking this all through I still don’t think that I should just settle for Christianity. Heathenry has caught my eye a couple of times. Being of Germanic decent there is a lot of the practices that resonate for me. The downside is that they also seemed to have resonance for the Nazis and despite the two phenomena having different purposes, they are still linked. Thanks to the Nazis everyone gets all up in arms whenever folks of Germanic decent get too much pride about their heritage. Oktoberfest and bratwurst will only take you so far though.

Jeff Lilly over at Druid Journal has constructed one of the best religious analogies I have ever encountered. Basically he asserts that religion is like language. Language is used to communicate person to person and religion is designed to communicate person to Spirit. That’s it in a nutshell but you really need to read the whole article to fully appreciate the elegance of the analogy.

Jeff’s commentary has given me a lot to think about. The most significant issue at hand is what I want out of religion. As funny as it might sound, determining what I want has always been a challenge for me. One of my fundamental personality traits is that I perceive the infinite possibilities of life vividly. By choosing one path over the others I feel that I must give up many of those possibilities and I hate to lose that potential. The gotcha there is that by not choosing anything I can’t realized any of those possibilities anyway. Most times I do pretty well at managing my dilemma, but it is a constant challenge. More times than not I find myself sitting on the fence between any significant issue in life and I think my fence sitting is a function of failing to choose a path. I guess that I just have to accept that all choices have a cost and I have to pony up sometime or all my opportunities will escape me.

As I have searched for a religion that fits me I keep finding myself drawn more towards the older religions such as Wicca, Paganism, Druidism, Hethenry, or Shamanism. I’m looking for a direct interface with God and these traditions seem to have the most direct connection to God. More modern religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism seem to have more layers of abstraction between worshipers and God. Perhaps that is what pushes me away.

Lots to think about.