I’ve been posting a whole lot of atheist/secular humanist
images/ideas to facebook.
I’m not doing this to make Christians or people of faith angry, nor am I doing it to shame my family
or put them down for what they believe. What’s happened here is like a slow drip from a faucet,
and I finally had the courage and confidence to turn on the sink full blast. Allow me to explain this comparison. Ever since I was a young child, I had a very inquisitive mind. I wanted to know as much
as I could about everything. According to my parents, I taught myself sign language (though I have no recollection of this). I remember going outside to collect tiny “seashells” by the tree in our
front yard and analyzing them under my microscope to see what was in/around them. I remember
asking “why?” almost constantly
when my parents gave me an idea or a decision that they
had made.
I remember our family doing Bible studies a great deal.
When I was very young, I (and several members of our church) were very proud of
the fact that I had read my entire Beginner’s
Bible (a Bible for children which, as you might expect,
leaves out a lot of “adult” information common in the Bible). I remember one
day when my family went out to eat and as we all
got out of the car, I had a “blank” moment and my family
vanished. (I would later realize that
this was an absence seizure, and my family hadn’t
vanished, I had simply not been aware of
them walking into the restaurant). In this moment I
panicked, believing that the Rapture had
just befallen my family and I had been left behind for
not being faithful enough to God.
Delusions like these would continue throughout my life
and become more and more pervasive.
I would listen for trumpet sounds and be vigilant for any
signs of the impending apocalypse.
My family and friends may not have seen it, but I was
feeling a tremendous amount of anxiety constantly.
One Bible study in particular sticks out in my mind.
Leviticus 24:23. In this verse, God
commands Moses, who then commands his followers, to stone
a blasphemer. Murder him.
*Drip. Drip.* I implored my parents to tell me why a merciful
god would command such a
thing. The answer? Something along the lines of, “God is
God, and we cannot understand His
ways or His plan.” *Drip. Drip. Splash.* I cried for the
blasphemer. He is long gone, but my
heart ached for a man who simply had different beliefs.
Fast forward a bit to Christ in Youth, a conference aimed
at bringing preteens/teens to Jesus
and providing a place for existing teen believers to
congregate. Before I go any further I would
like to say this--I know I have friends here who loved
CIY and still do. I sincerely apologize
for this, I know how much you treasured this time. I did
too, for the friendships it
strengthened.
I remember our youth leader acting with revulsion toward
a particularly
flamboyant, presumably homosexual male. This made me
angry, so I told the youth leader
what I felt about how he had acted. *Splash. Splash.
SPLASH.* I remember another youth
leader not asking, but COMMANDING us to go pray for a
random group of women. This made
me uncomfortable. I have social anxiety as it is. I told
him that I didn’t feel right doing this
but he insisted that god wanted us to. So we did. I
remember the sneers of derision from the women as I awkwardly stumbled in
prayer. Looking back, it was wrong of them to act so
rudely. Were I in their stead at this time, I would have
probably felt pity, not derision. But I digress. *SPLASH. SPLASH. Trickle.*
I could point out other instances similar to these, but
that would take far too long and I’m
not sure anyone here will have read this far in the first
place. My point in describing these situations is that I have always had doubt
about this faith. Those of you who believe in the Christian God may believe
that my newfound worldview is the result of the devil’s temptation,
but unless my thought process itself is the devil I can
assure you that this is not the case. The reason I am being so vocal about this
now is that I never truly felt that I could be vocal about it before. I want to
proclaim what I think and feel just as those with other beliefs want to
proclaim what they think and feel. I feel all at once a
huge burden lifted off my shoulders and
a heavy heart for family members who truly believe I am
going to a place of eternal torture.
But I would like to ask this: if God does exist and has
offered this ultimatum--accept and
worship me or be damned for eternity--is he really a God
worthy of reverence in the first place?
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