When I was younger, parents went to church, so I went with them. Every Sunday we woke up early and dressed up to go to church. It was typical. I was a southern baptist, and my church was a small, sort of wounded looking building. It was a very humble place. Everyone knew everyone and all that business. We were friendly, and I was probably related to over half of them. I called everyone "ma'am" and "sir" and respected everyone. From what I can remember it was nice, and also kind of scary. My preacher at the time (our church never seemed to be able to keep preachers, so we had three or four different preachers while I was there) was a very intense person. Often times he would get really into his sermon and bang on the podium, shattering the quite of the church. This always scared the shit out of me. He was intimidating, like the power of the mighty "god" had gotten into him or something like that. It always bothered me, but the man himself was really nice and friendly. I liked him a lot.
Being baptised was the big thing for kids growing up in the church. All of us knew each other, and had all been brought up going to that same church and staying in the same Sunday school classes. When one of us accepted "god" into our lives, often times a few others followed. It made going through the rather massive experience easier. When I saw one of my cousins getting baptised, I decided I wanted to do the same. My dad spoke with the preacher and he came over to my house. He sat me down and asked me a bunch of questions, all regarding whether or not I really understood "god" and if I was ready to let "him" into my life. I told him yes, I really wanted to do this. The next weekend I was baptised, just like that. I remember the experience vividly.
Looking back now, I understand why the preacher wanted to talk to me before he announced that I was to be baptised. He wanted me to understand what I was doing was huge in the Christian faith, and to make sure I wasn't just doing this because all my friends had. I don't believe in any of it now, but I can understand why, to someone that is a devout Christian, being baptised is a big deal.
Not long after that; a few years maybe, my parents slowed down going to church so much. I don't know why, maybe the change of preachers, but we just started to slack off some. We stopped going all together for about two months, and if I wanted to go at all I had to ask my grandmother to take me. She lived next door and didn't have any problem with taking me and bringing me home. It was kind of like our bonding experience, so I looked forward to it. But after a while, my parents picked back up a little and we started going again for a while. I don't know how long we went that time, but I don't think it was too long. After that, we stopped going all together. I haven't been back to that church in maybe five years.
I started questioning my religion when I got in the seventh grade. I don't know why I did that particular year. I guess it has a lot to do with just growing up and finding out who I am. I began to wonder if "god" was real. For a while, I tried to hold on to him. He was my staple that put things into perspective and helped me make decisions. I prayed when I started doubting him, and hoped I would get answers. I never did.
I remember one distinct sermon that stuck in my head for a long time. It was about homosexuals, and how that was one of the greatest sins. People weren't meant to be intimate with those of the same sex and it was wrong to do so. This was one of those sermons that my preacher got really into, slamming his fists into the podium to make his point. It scared me more than normal, and the more I thought about it, the more it angered me. I don't think I had ever personally encountered a homosexual that I was aware of, and I know I hadn't seen anything intimate going on between two people of the same sex, but the fact that he was standing there yelling about how it was so wrong to do so really started to upset me. Homosexuals were people too, right? And you were supposed to love and respect everyone you came across, right? That's what he, the man standing there banging his fists, red in the face, yelling about how this was so wrong, had taught me all my life. It really hurt me, and it bothered me that it hurt me.
That was one of the last sermons I heard from that preacher. And I haven't thought the same of the church since. In the seventh grade, when I started questioning if this "god" was real, I kept thinking on that one particular sermon. While I was questioning the religion I was brought up in for the first time, I was also still very young and trying to figure out who I was. I was figuring out that I was attracted to girls in the same way I had been attracted to boys, and due to my religious back ground, that was incredibly wrong.
I think the worst feeling in the world for me was to realize I was attracted to women in the same way 'normal' women were attracted to men. I tried really hard for a long time to just drop it and to not acknowledge any of my attractions to women.
During that time, I stayed a lot with my best friend and her family. Her mom didn't have a full time job so she was always around to talk to. You could say, in short, that her mom's views were very different from those of my family. She was liberal, first off, and she believed that everyone was equal. My parents are very conservative republicans and tend to think some people are lesser than others. Since I spent a lot of time with her and since this was during the time that I was developing my own views (not that I am through that phase, I don't think everyone actually finishes that phase) many of my views today are much like hers, and unlike my parents. She was very accepting of homosexuals and didn't think they were any different than any other person. I think when she vocalized this view to me I realized that maybe the religion I has spent all my life believing in may have been wrong.
I started doubting my baptist upbringing. I felt bad for a while because I was always taught never to question "god"; that he had a plan for everything. Well if that were true, then wasn't his plan for me like women? And if that was true, why was someone telling me I was wrong to do so? See how this contradicts itself? Granted, all of this was going on in my head when I was 13 years [young].
I started reading the bible. Before I gave up believing in something that I had always put faith in, I decided I should do some research first. The bible is one of the hardest things I have ever tried reading (tried, being unsuccessfully). For someone in the seventh grade the language is hard to comprehend and the characters are hard to follow. What I did get however, were contradictions. So many, in fact, that over half the story doesn't make much sense. I didn't understand how in the bible the Ten Commandments, those rules Christians are supposed to follow, were broken, but how in 'real life' it's a mortal sin to even think of breaking them.
I guess, to me, its just simpler to go by the 'golden rule' than the many rules the bible says to follow. The rule that states you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That generally is the rule I try to follow and so far it's worked.
The bible is a book. Its a long, difficult, poorly written book. That's just how I see it.
Now, I know that seeing what I just wrote is going to set many people off. Its an opinion that I have every right to have, just like you have right to think otherwise. You choose to be religious, in the same way that I choose not to be.
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