Carrying On: Religion inciting inner conflict

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with religion.

I grew up celebrating Christmas, but quickly learned that my parents are devout atheists. I naturally adopted their beliefs even while attending a religiously affiliated university. Perhaps not unlike others, my relationship with religion is characterized by conflict, contradiction, and uncertainty. In fact, I wrote my first “Carrying On” article on my thoughts on religion and how it seemed to surround me at every new corner in my life. My current relationship with religion is no less complicated as I find myself more open to the idea of God.

My home for the past six months has unquestionably influenced my thoughts on most things—politics, language, and family, as well as religion. The Russian Federation, in its natural and preferable state of isolation, holds diverging views on these topics when compared to other nations, especially when compared to its former self, the Soviet Union. I speak of Russia not only because I am currently studying there, but, being my parents’ cultural home, its ideals and cultural practices have been a part of my life since birth.

I always associated Russia with the stereotype I am familiar with through my parents—the Soviet Union. I arrived in Russia six months ago with the thought that it was an intensely non-religious place, and I was comfortable with that. I expected to come across only museums or war monuments. I was familiar with a post-revolution that celebrated complicated literature and history, completely devoid of religion. But after visiting golden-walled cathedral after cathedral—that were either closed, renovated, or transformed into museums during Soviet times—I learned that my initial impression was wildly incorrect.

Religion is an active part of culture in today’s Russia. Most surprisingly, however, was not the number of gaudy orthodox cathedrals, but the number of devout Russians who frequented these cathedrals. Communism in the Soviet Union was synonymous with an anti-religious ideology, so, for some reason, I expected secularism to transcend the fall of communism and remain a part of Russian life irrespective of its current political state—my parents being the driving force in my expectations.

Many non-religious people still existed in Russia, and I knew this, but it was also hard to ignore the crowds of people kneeling on the wooden floors of churches, whispering to themselves lines from the Bible. Their intense dedication frightened me. It seemed primitive and uncharacteristic of the Russia I knew. They represented a part of the culture that never found its way to me, and which, as a result, I believed didn’t exist. This wave of religious activity in Russia confused me and challenged my familiarity with the country.

“You don’t believe in God?” asked my Russian host-mother with a crooked smile on her face. I was familiar with this question and had answered it countless times, usually with full conviction. I was always certain in my beliefs. This time, however, I had trouble answering with a definitive “no.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. I was troubled by the words that had just left my lips. I had become so comfortable with rejecting God that anything less seemed unacceptable to me.

She followed with a beautiful Russian anecdote about a baby leaving the womb, who confused her mother with God. The anecdote was not aggressive and didactic. It didn’t try to support God’s existence, but rather emphasized not knowing. It focused on the beauty of life and not religion.

I responded well to her defense of religion—I even liked it. Recent political events and the pain that came with growing older and experiencing more made me want to believe in God. I felt myself opening up to the idea. I thought it was beautiful and comforting to believe in something more than pain.

I cannot say that my host mom or the discovery of a religious Russia were enough to make me renounce atheism or switch my religious views to believing or even to agnosticism. I think I’m still an atheist. What I recognize now that I had trouble with before was that my views are changing. They are evolving, even dwindling at times.

But this does not scare me. I am accepting of the challenges that my beliefs will face in the future and am even looking forward to them. If we open ourselves up to alternatives, we become more understanding, capable, and ultimately, complex people. We become better.