I know its selfish to defend yourself - theres nothing noble about it, its just a knee-jerk thing we are all at least inclined to do. Still, to anyone who cant figure out why I went off the deep end about not believing in the supernatural, Id like to attempt an excuse. First, I cant deny that its weird to be obsessive about anything, and annoying to anyone who doesnt share the interest. I get that. What I played on to excuse my own constant ranting was the fact its OK, and in fact a good thing, if a religious person is obsessive about God. Its considered good by other religious people if they attend church multiple times a week, pray, read their texts, and try to convince others that their way is right. Consider that this was my background. Missionaries are the ultimate Christians, completely uprooting themselves to spread the truth abroad. My background prepared me to a much higher value on truth than the feelings of others. I was going to be a Christian missionary and based some big life choices off this goal. It would be difficult to quantify the amount of mental stress I went through to try to please God. I lost count of how many times I got saved. Even as early as second or third grade I felt terrible if I laughed at something that God wouldnt appreciate or find humorous. I constantly feared dying and going to hell. I remember stepping outside the church one Sunday morning as a kid after praying at the altar and feeling amazing because I wasnt afraid that I would die and go to hell in that moment. I didnt date because for one thing I was incredibly backward and for another I had to date and marry a missionary only. I was terrified of having kids because I thought at any time the anti-Christ would reveal himself and soon after kids would be forcibly removed from their Christian parents to be indoctrinated by the beast kingdom and encouraged to deny Christ. Is it weird that I go on and on about atheism as if its something that even matters? I mean, its a non-belief! Of course its weird - and anyone who cant understand why someone else would do that is lucky. Maybe you never had the experience of coming to think (right or wrong) that almost everything you had previously thought was completely wrong. If you care to understand how jarring that is but dont necessarily care to read the rants of ex-Christians, read the rants of ex-Muslims or ex-Mormons. These rants are all weird to someone who has never been intentionally and systematically indoctrinated into a system that they later come to see as false. I do recognize that nothing but the best intentions resulted in my indoctrination - just as I had the best intentions as I did my best to pass the beliefs on to my daughter up until a little over a year ago when I did my best to undo what I had done in ignorance. Not calling anyone who trains their kids in their religion ignorant there, either. Im still ignorant about most things, I just feel less ignorant about the particular religion I was raised in. There are highly intelligent and informed people on both sides of the issue, which means many more intelligent and more informed people than me see me as (correctly) ignorant and (in my opinion, incorrectly) wrong in my conclusion. Anyway, if you read this far thanks and please accept my apologies for the many offensive things Ive said while expressing a lot of frustration and anger that I should have probably written down in a journal instead. I know Ive come off as unbalanced - and I have been unbalanced. Id venture to say that so would you if at 31 you had something you were told was the absolute most important thing, and believed and exerted a ton of energy toward, unravel into nothing. But Im glad it did. I never did enjoy thinking most people were going to burn forever, even if I was going to go to heaven forever. I miss the social benefits of believing like most people around me, but I dont miss one iota of the theology. Anyway. I think Im doing better since the issue is fading a bit into the background. Thanks to those who have continued to be my friend even though I know Ive been extremely difficult.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 07:45:02 +0000
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