California Coastal Cosmic

This is a belief system that springs from growing up in California from a mystical Christian background, being exposed to the culture of Northern or Southern California, meeting Surfers and hippies in college in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s etc.

It has evolved over the years and other areas of the world also subscribe to this belief system as well like Portland, Seattle and other areas as well. It is a point of view that comes from an active lover of nature (of which there still is a lot in California, Oregon and Washington). It is a very free and open point of view which tends to embrace all cultures and all religions that are kind, non-violent and culturally interesting. It tends to be a philosophy of many people in Hollywood and people well educated who travel all over the world during their lives and who tend to be cosmopolitan in that they embrace the parts of cultures around the world they visit and live in without losing their California identity.

Though many people in other parts of the world see this point of view as too laid back and all inclusive it is also the basis of world peace, being ecumenical and even if you stretch it out to it's limit the possibility of being politically correct enough for people not to die because of cultural, racial or ethnic differences.

I taught my children to think this way too and both my older children tend to think this way. However, when my youngest daughter and wife decided (without me) for her to go to a private Christian School (which had many fundamentalist types that would be there) I said, "This is going to harm my daughter to go there. She is 13 and very sensitive and shy and it likely will damage her belief system. Neither of them listened to me. She went. I was right.

Her friends she chose at her new school (even though she only went for one year) put my daughter down for having (California Cosmic Beliefs). Her reaction to this was: "Either all religions are right or all religions are wrong. So, I won't believe in God because these people are crazy!"

So, since she has been 13 her point of view has been "Private school Atheism" or what I would call "practical agnosticism" because to call someone an atheist who is a teenager is to be laughable.

Someone in their 20s could call themselves an atheist or agnostic and I might not laugh but a teenager is just so "transitional" their thinking that I can't take the concept of an "Atheist" teenager seriously at least until they are 25 or 30. And even then being an agnostic is logical "in other words saying you aren't sure if there is a God or not." Whereas saying you are an Atheist is more like saying, "(At least in the United States) "Christians have harmed my sensibilities so I hate anyone who believes in God" rather than actually not believing in God.

In other countries it might mean something else. But, in the U.S. this is usually what it means. So, in the U.S. saying, "I am an Atheist" usually means "I'm really pissed off with Christians who tried to shove their religion down my throat." (rather than something else).

I'm not attached to her believing in God because I know many people who are spiritual who don't believe in God because they are Buddhists. But, what I realize is that I'm attached to people being spiritual and kind even if they don't believe in God.

For example, one of my God Daughter's husbands is an atheist but he is kind and helpful to me and my wife so that is okay with me. However, my youngest daughter is not kind to my wife and I and I have difficulty with that. It is sort of like she is punishing us for our belief systems which tend to be more Cosmopolitan California Coastal Cosmic in nature.

I have met people who tried to talk the talk of California Cosmics from other places like Idaho in the 1980s who wanted to think like this but who weren't able to walk the walk and this was obvious to me at the time. So, many people try to be California Cosmics in attitude without fundamentally actually sharing these beliefs to their very core like I and my friends I grew up with did.

However, like all really deep belief systems they come naturally in the course of someone's life or they don't come at all.

So, what do I do with my daughter? I guess I have to love her anyway because she is the least likely to get into any kind of trouble kid of all my kids even though she gives me a harder time than all the rest of my kids put together. In other words she is an ideal private school "I don't believe in God" kind of private school person and all her friends share her beliefs too. So, though I love her it is very difficult to have any kind of useful conversation with her about anything to do with beliefs. Since my beliefs are at the very core of who I am in this sense at least she doesn't really know me. So, in some ways it is like strangers living in the same house. For me, this is very sad. However, one way for me to look at it is this: "She has to have someone to rebel against and maybe this way of her rebelling against my wife and I is much less physically dangerous for her than many other things she could have done. At least she stays out of problem situations  and is a very good student and is preparing to go to college next year. Maybe I just need to count my blessings. She is headed towards a very well educated and good life. Maybe that has to be enough. And besides, if I look back at all the people I was between age 18 and 30 I had to have done a couple of 360s in attitudes while experimenting with all sorts of ways of seeing the universe between age 18 and 30. And I survived okay too. Barely!

Maybe she will be just fine. I pray to God that this is true!