I worship, too. Just differently.

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Religion is the type of topic that I would rather not get into with most people. It’s one of those things that’s impossible to talk about without stirring the pot. I mean…unless, of course, you agree with whom you’re speaking. Most of the time, for me anyway, I’m in complete disagreement with the person I’m talking to about religion. This leads to arguments, petty words, and both of us leaving feeling angry and insulted. Lovely.

Once in a while, though, I’ll meet the level-headed person who doesn’t necessarily agree with where I stand on religion, yet is very curious about my views and willing to listen. They cross their arms and lean back against the wall, looking at me curiously. Then, after their stare has started to make me anxious, they ask, “Well, if you don’t believe in God…that makes you an Atheist, right?” I answer, “Yes, but it’s complicated.”

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I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in a higher being or spirit that controls where we end up after we’re done living. The concept made sense to me at a very young age as my family taught me to believe that way, but as I grew older and went through school the idea made less and less sense to me. The concept of a “Higher Power” seemed more as a comfort or a common guideline of how one should act than a reality.

“What do you believe in then?” It’s sort of complicated when I first get into it. I consider myself Atheist, yes. Though, if I had to name my “being of worship”, it would be the planet we inhabit: Earth. Technically, I’m not a Pagan nor am I Wiccan (both things I dabbled in which did help to create my current beliefs). I don’t necessarily believe the Earth is a God or a Goddess or a Spirit like my ancestors believed (although, I love the beautiful portrayals like the picture below! ) and I don’t follow their rituals of worship or anything like that. My beliefs are complicated, yet completely logical. Hell, most of them just seem like common sense to me…but that can be said by anyone from any religion.

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I believe in evolution for one, so Earth really is Mother Earth to me because, in one way or another, we were created from “Her”. Two, where do we get sustenance? Where do we get water? Shelter? We get everything (let me reiterate: Everything) from this beautiful sphere of awesomeness we live on and seem to fancy destroying. It creates our food, it creates our water, and it creates things with which we shelter ourselves. Every mineral, every rock, every piece of this computer I’m typing on came from our planet in one way or another. (“Man-made” means something completely different to me. Simply put, we manipulate things we find in nature in order to create “man-made” things.) In an even simpler way to describe this entire paragraph: Mothers (and fathers) create us and mothers (and fathers) feed us, shelter us, and support us. We “worship” our parents. Earth does the same thing, except in a much larger scale. This applies even if you don’t believe in evolution. Even if you believe God put trees, water, and animals here. Either way you look at it, everything thrives from this planet, regardless of how you think it came to be.

 

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It’s really not all that complicated if you really think about it. I believe we should worship our planet, not because I believe it’s some supernatural being, but because I believe it is our home. Seriously, that’s really all it boils down to even without everything else I just said. You wouldn’t take a bulldozer to your home, would you? No, because then you have no shelter. Would you obliterate and poison all your food and water? No, because then you would die. It’s so simple, so logical. It’s just common sense. Sadly, common sense isn’t so common, because everyday we’re killing the one thing that created us, feeds us, shelters us, and supports us.

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If you think God put everything here, right on. More power to you. Though, do you seriously think (and really, think about it…) that He or She will continue to give us what we abuse to the Umth degree every single day? I would think, in the eyes of God, we’ve just turned into spoiled and inconsiderate children. I don’t know about you, but I don’t give into a spoiled child, and I most certainly don’t give into an inconsiderate child.

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Without turning this into a “Save the Planet!” lecture, I’m just going to leave it at that. Like I said, I believe the Earth is what deserves our worship. We live on it, after all. I don’t understand why we’re so ready to destroy our home…but then again, there is plenty that I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I try to do my part, even if it’s just a little bit, every day. I’m a vegetarian, so that’s one less burger being eaten by each of us veggie folk. I recycle, I take as short a shower as possible, I replant every year, and I try as hard as I possibly can to help the wild life. Small steps, guys.

In most ways, I’m a hippie. I can’t help myself.

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