Interview: part II

No, I’m still working on answering questions, like I said in Part V.

2. If you, thought-experiment-wise, had to convert to another religion, what religion would it be?

I’m going to answer this twice, I think, because I have two different answers, and I think they’re both good. Yes, that’s cheating. Deduct points as you think appropriate.

See, part of the thought-experiment is choosing criteria, or even just choosing the mindset from which to answer the question. My initial response was moderately reality-based. That is, taking the question as if I had to convert to another religion, but not change much of the rest of my life, my answer was immediate and obvious. I’d be an Episcopalian. I have close friends and family who are Episcopalians, and it would be nice (all else equal) to be in communion with them. One great thing about churchin’ generally is the community, the steady and ready group of people gathered together for a common purpose (or at least a substantially overlapping one, which is all one can really ask for). I’m not just in shul with my Creator, but with my friends (and, for me, with all Jews of all times and places, but that’s another story). In fact, I occasionally suspect myself of going to synagogue (when I do) primarily for the chance to sing songs with other people; the songs are also prayers, true, but the prayers are also songs. And I like singing with people. And, of course, the singing is only part of it. There’s the discussion, the study, the ritual, and the moments of felt redemption. It’s a source of sadness that I don’t share all that experience with all of my closest friends. And, as well, it’s a source of sadness that I don’t share the (similar, probably, but not identical) experience that my closest friends are having. Particularly as there is, in some sense I don’t completely understand, a matter of communion for Episcopalians, a fellowship that I would actually like to be part of, if of course one could preposterously have that fellowship a la carte.

Also, the Anglicans have an attitude towards Scripture and the World and critical inquiry that is very similar to my own, in addition to a ritual and liturgy that I could imagine finding moving. On the other hand, there are certain hierarchical problems that I would find annoying and distracting. But mainly, the answer to the thought-experiment question could be answered that way if (as seems reasonable) I were to answer with a mind to the fact that I do sometimes ... not regret, nor properly speaking wish that I were Episcopalian. It’s more like that feeling that I sometimes get that it’s too bad I can’t be both female and male, each when it suits me, and get the experience of each. Given the choice, I’d far rather be male (there’s another thought-experiment answer, for free), but it seems a bit of a rip-off that I can’t have the other, too.

The problem with that whole answer, though, is that I’m not convinced that it answers the question, which was about religion. And, you see, although one nice thing about religion is the whole social community aspect, another is the belief system. And, frankly, the Jesus story doesn’t appeal to me. It’s not only that I don’t believe it, it’s that I don’t really see the appeal of believing it. That’s true of the Buddha story as well. Actually, the religion that I find thought-experiment appealing is Confucian-influenced ancestor-worship. Not that I know anything about it, honestly. I am aware that my fondness for it is mostly a sort of post-imperialist exoticism, and I acknowledge that. But that’s the water I’m swimming in. I like the idea of ancestor-worship, of believing that my ancestors were not only still around, in some sense, observing the world they left us, but that they were capable of influencing it, of intervening to assist me. And I like the Confucian idea of ritualizing life, and ritualizing hierarchical relationships. Also, isn’t there substantial numerology involved? I love the idea of lucky numbers and such, and if I were to have some belief I don’t have, I might like to believe in it.

I suspect that if I knew a lot more about Confucianism and ancestor-worship I would be completely turned off. And it’s hard to imagine converting to it whilst living my nice little New England life. But that’s part of the whole thought experiment, right? I mean, without building up a whole backstory of why I had to convert to another religion, which could get very ugly indeed, my option is to build up a pseudo-Vardibidian, an alternate who although like me in some respects (including, to the extent that I can grasp it, self-identity), is not-me, particularly to the point of believing things I currently do not. So, imagining (if you will) a Vardibidian who believes in Shiva and so on, and imagining a Vardibidian who believes in the precepts of the Buddha, and imagining a Vardibidian who believes in Islam, or the Dao, or the Passion, or shamanism, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and deciding which Vardibidian I might quite like to be. Not, actually, an easy task. But there’s something about the one who studies Master Kong and venerates his family dead that appeals to me.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.