I recently confessed to a friend of mine that I’m atheist. During lunch the conversation came up and I was surprised to realize this person, whom has known me for several years now was unaware of my theistic disbelief. My friend stopped in mid bite and looked at me in a seriousness that I have yet to witness and said “if you don’t believe in God you’re going to burn in hell”. To which I replied “I’m not afraid of an imaginary place such as hell because I don’t believe it exists” I am afraid of hell as much as I’m afraid that one day I’ll be gored by a unicorn, or bitten by a fairy. There was a time in my life when the thought of biblical stories were appealing to me, as a child I remember not liking going to church probably because I didn’t care much for going to school and church seemed like school. I grew up in Florida and as most people know the south is rich with religion types. Some of my friends went to church because that’s how they were raised, I remember wanting to go with them. Not because I wanted to get the weekly lesson in how to not be a sinner but rather because in the 80’s we only had 3 TV stations none of which played cartoons on Sunday morning and the activities at the time consisted of watching TV or playing outside with my friends. As I just mentioned most of which were at church. So going to church (any church) was a way of getting out of the house and hanging out with my friends. I also remember the uncomfortable feeling of thinking I didn’t belong there. Church never made me feel comfortable. It wasn’t that the people weren’t nice it was the whole semi-gothic ness of the church. Ok some of you reading this might be thinking “what the hell are you talking about?” I’m talking about the atmosphere that is portrayed in church. The 8 foot tall stained glass windows that depict historical characters’ from the bible the mammoth pipe organs on the wall. The statues and paintings of the dead guy nailed to the wood. Then there’s the man behind the podium standing in front of the room reading from a book that’s bigger than his head and sometimes calmly explaining how bad everyone in the room is and how they need to live a better life. Or better yet the crazy ones that yell and scream to try and “put the fear of god in the congregation” I rarely felt moved or compelled to participate and I found it odd and creepy when people got so moved by the sermon that they would stand up raise their arms in the air and act as if they were possessed. This kind of behavior was very common place in the south. Even as a child I found it discerning to see grown ass people make such a spectacle of themselves in a room full of quite disciples. And then walk around and converse after the show as if they are normal. I have attended church services in huge elaborate buildings built specifically with the thunderous acoustics in mind to send home the message of god and I have attended southern Baptist services is an old gutted out poorly lit convenience store complete with full frontal glass walls and the coolers still in place. I have been to church camps held in large open fields that were conducted in construction trailers and I have even been baptized in a leech infested pond by a guy that had what I believe to be the coldest hands ever! Damn that was scary. I never told anyone but I had nightmares about that for years after that experience. So back to the beginning, I am middle aged now and without the guidance of religion I think I have lived a very productive life in society I have many acquaintances and a few very close friends I don’t need a man in a suit to tell me every Sunday to live a good life and be kind to others. I do that at my own free will. My dis belief in a higher power doesn’t make me a heathen. I contend that people that need a constant reminder to do good things and conduct themselves according to a fear of an imaginary eternal punishment are really not good people. Good people do good things and care for others because they want to not because they are told to. I have beaten this topic up a bit here but I’d like thank those of you that have taken the time to read this. And remember if you’re religious and find this offensive keep in mind the only difference between your belief and mine is that I believe in one less deity than you do.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 12:44:47 +0000
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