[GateandGarden]

Technically, I was baptized in a Baptist church, went to a Baptist preschool, and attended vacation Bible school one summer. I've been to some Baptist church services here and there also, but that's the extent of it. I never really took any of it seriously. There was a time when I wanted to because I thought I should, but it didn't feel right to me.

I identify as a agnostic. I don't particularly believe in a god, but I'm not ruling it out, as I don't think we can be certain. I personally think there was some sort of creator that set everything into motion, but when it comes to believing that that creator is still involved in every day activities of man, I personally don't believe that. I believe in the human spirit, and I don't think that, as Ani DiFranco says, "...when we are dead we are just dead," I think we go somewhere, but I realize that I could be wrong. (That goes for pretty much everything I've said so far and will say in this paragraph). I personally don't believe that dead is the end. As Carly Simon says (though she borrowed it from someone else)--"Life is eternal, love is immortal, and death is only a horizon."

The human heart also has spiritual significance to me, a kind of significance that I can't really define but it is still very vital to me. I'm ultra old-fashioned in that I believe that the heart carries the essence of us in some sense. The ancient Egyptians felt the same way, and though they were light years behind us in terms of medical science and many other fields, I think they were an amazing people. This is a huge part of why I love stethoscopes and listening to hearts so much; I call that part of my religion sometimes. (Though I say that a little facetiously, as I don't have an actual "religion," per se).