Whenever someone asks me, “Hey, so what are you religious beliefs?”
I always respond with a shrug and a shaky, “I’m not sure, actually.”

Before I can even begin to elaborate on this statement, that person puts on a condescending little smile or straight-out launches an unasked for lecture at me about the importance of decisiveness. They either think that my lack of a concrete religious belief is an adorable side-effect of youth (like dying one’s hair green or reading Ayn Rand), that I’m a lazy atheist, or that I am aimlessly wandering through my life like a drunken hamster.

Now, I can’t speak for the other people who share the same belief as I do, but I can speak for myself. I can try to tell you why I have the belief that I do; all in the hopes that you’ll see me as something more a fickle teenager/a hibernating atheist/a drunken hamster. So, here it goes:

I can’t say that I believe in God as religion knows Him. For starters, I don’t understand why God is a “Him,” as in, a human male (or the human male is an image of Him, or something like that, I’m not 100% sure). The Universe runs far and wide in all directions, and it’s difficult (and makes me feel awfully lonely) to imagine that we’re the only conscious beings here. Now, if we say that God also created those other live forms that probably exist, that he has played an important role in their creation, that he plays an important role in their lives, and that he may not ONLY be the glorified reflection of man, then we are no longer talking about the same God that billions of people know and love.

But, I also don’t believe in Nothing. When I see my parents making lame jokes together on our couch, or smell pancakes on Sunday morning, or hear Adele’s new album, I have trouble believing that everything is the product of a freak cosmic accident. When someone dies, I have trouble imagining their once active soul equally dead and rotting 5 meters underground.

I think that all I can say right now is that I believe in a Something and a Somewhere. And I just hope that someday, someone who asks me “Hey, so what are your religious beliefs?” will be even somewhat okay with that.