Understanding religion for me is like trying to understand a different language. I will never comprehend how someone can believe stories in a book, and truly think that the universe is controlled by a God in the sky. However, on a vacation in Montreal, I was given the opportunity to walk into the Notre Dame Basilica, and I could not help but marvel at its significance and beauty. To others, this was just another place to pray and feel closer to God, but for me, I was standing in the middle of something that I should not be a part of. I almost felt selfish. Like I was taking up space for those who do go to church and live for God and believe in heaven and Jesus and the bread and the wine and the arc and the shark and every other story in The Bible. I was just there, trying to connect thousands of thoughts whirling around in my head. Are people here to pray? To take pictures? Why are there candles everywhere? Where do I go? Do I sit? And then all of sudden, I stopped. I stopped trying to understand. I stopped trying to “get it”. I thought that if I was going to really appreciate this church, I was going to appreciate it for what it was. It is history. It is art. It is culture. Music started playing. Exquisite organs and piano keys fluttering throughout, reaching everybody’s ears. This music made me believe I have a soul. I was out of my body, viewing the church from a different perspective. The church attacks all of your senses. The church absorbs you. Makes you believe it’s telling the truth. And for a second, you almost believe it’s true. You marvel in the art, viewing statues and symbols and you don’t know what it means but God it is stunning and detailed and it must mean so much more to those who care and admire these figures. You look up. The ceiling makes you believe heaven is above you. That maybe if you do pray enough, death won’t be eternal TV static.
Needless to say, I had a different experience that day. I felt God, I felt their idea of a God; this comforting spirit, this thought that someone out there is “watching over you”. I started to gather bits and pieces of why people believe in a higher power. And I think it’s just because it’s a better thought than being alone. That there isn’t just a vastness of space and the universe won’t swallow us whole. It is better to believe in “something out there”.
Out of all the people that walked in that church that day, I think the atheist was the one who appreciated it in another perspective; that there is no God out there, but fuck, the thought is nice.
