I got bored.

When I was growing up, my grandfather told me to never back down from what I thought was right. Never give up when people tell I can’t do something. To never be ashamed of what I am because other people think it’s not cool. I’ve always tried to do what he told me. My dad always told me that I could be anything I wanted to be. When I got older I realized that every father tells their child that. But I did take comfort that someone believed in me. Those two men taught me everything I needed to know about the real world, rather they knew or not.
I’m not the same person I was when I was growing up. When I young I believed everything they said to me. Now, I know better. My father once told me I had brothers and sister in New York after I told him about a dream I had. Now, looking back, I realize that’s a bunch of B/S. My dad got me into reading. I love reading now, and I hope my kids enjoy it as much as I do. When I was young I decided to read the Bible. That’s where my trouble begins.
After I read Genesis I had a lot of questions. So, I did what anyone in a Christian school would do. I asked questions. Problem was nobody was able to answer me. Instead of answering my questions I was told to “Just have faith and God will lead you.” Little did they know I was already losing my faith in that god. I didn’t understand how a god that was supposed to love everyone on earth, but kills children in a flood because their parents didn’t do what he wanted them to do. To be honest I still can’t understand that. I don’t think anyone can understand that.
I didn’t stop reading the Bible because I thought that every Christian need to know what the word of God said. If I had just stopped there, I would probably still be a Christian. But I didn’t stop and learned a bunch of things about the god I chose to serve that I didn’t agree with. I had no idea that women were considered property of men. That women could be traded like objects with little or no value. I was told that God thought every person was equal in his eyes. The more I read the more I learned that this god didn’t care about everyone like I was told.
I just couldn’t believe that my family never told me this. I was so mad at them for not telling me. Then it occurred to me that maybe they haven’t read the book like I was. I read the book from cover to cover and when I was done with it my faith in a god that loved me was nearly gone. I asked more questions and never god answers. I was told that God loved me and I had to believe that what they said was true. I was supposed to believe it, but they couldn’t prove what they said was true.
Growing up I wanted to be an author. Never really got started writing until I had my spinal fusion. I was sixteen then. That was the same year I lost my faith any god that was claimed to love everything. If the god in the Bible was real, then he only cares about himself. He’s just not what I pictured a god to be. He’s not what I pictured any loving god would be like.
It’s funny looking back and thinking that I was the only one that felt this way. Back then, the world ended at the city limit sign. I had no clue that there were people outside of my little home town that shared my views. I was born and raised to love this god that did so much good for the world. When I looked at the world I didn’t see this wonderful place. All I saw was people in pain that prayed and lived by this book. Where was this god that was supposed to be protecting them?
I’ve seen people give money to the church every Sunday, pray every day, and did what the preacher said the Bible told. They did everything their preacher said to do and they were still suffering. They gave money to the preachers and went hungry through the week. This wasn’t something that a loving god would let happen to his followers. If he really loved his followers, he would have given them what they needed. That’s what I was told as a child.
The thing that really gets to me is that when things like this happened to these people they said it was God’s will. If that was God’s will then he was an asshole. And that’s the way I thought of him for a long time. How else could a person think of him? Then an idea came to me. Maybe God wasn’t real.
That thought scared the hell out of me. For about two seconds. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I realized that this story of contains things of a fairy tale. Things like the killing of innocent people, dragons, unicorns, talking animals, and even talking trees. I stopped looking at the Bible as something that fact and starting looking at it for it really was. A fairy tale meant to scare people into submission. And it seems to that really well.
I noticed that there were a lot of controdictions in the Bible. How to get into Heaven seemed to be biggest contradiction of all. I was told that you had to believe that Jesus was your personal savior and you had to ask him into your heart. When I read the New Testament there were a lot of other things you had to do as well. Like sell everything you have. I know nobody that’s done that. My personal favorite was love your neighbor, but hate everyone. I’m still trying to figure out how that’s supposed to work.
So, I stopped believing in God, just like I stopped believing in Santa. It surprised me how none of my family could see what I saw. I never told them the way I felt because I knew they wouldn’t understand. Also I was worried they make take the Bible to heart and kill me for not believing. I did grow up in a God fearing land. I was always the odd one out anyway. I never really got along with anyone so when I decided that the Bible was just another fiction story told too make people feel comfortable, I really started to close in.
I didn’t know that were others that believed what I did until I got married. I never met anyone that shared my beliefs until about a year ago. I didn’t find that out until after I made a profile on a social network after I was laid off work. We didn’t really know each other until after we were out of work, but she’s became my best friend. She was brought up in a religion just as I was. She’s probably the only person that I know that understands where I’m coming from.
I’m not saying that there is nobody else on earth that understands. I’m sure there are other people that have went through the same thing. Pretty much everyone grows up believing in some form of religion. She’s just the only person I know personally. She’s a great person and I’m thankful that I met her.
I didn’t think that I would ever tell anyone the way I felt. The first person I told was my husband. To my surprise he didn’t divorce me or try to make me think any different. He tried to understand me in a way that I didn’t think anyone could. I was so shocked to see that he didn’t mind. He was totally supportive. He still believes in God and that doesn’t bother me. He’s a good person and he doesn’t treat anyone different than the way he wants them to treat him. I’m sure he got that from Bible, but I don’t care.
I really don’t have a problem with people that believe in a god. I really don’t. What I have a problem with is when people start being cruel to another person because of the way they choose to live their lives. The thing I hate most is when people of a religion start dehumanizing homosexuals. That kind of behavior is something I can’t stand. I’ve been told that the black people were cursed by God and that was the reason they were slaves. Those are the kind of people I don’t like to be around. And I make an effort to stay away from people like that.
I know some people would tell me that I need to talk to those people and make them see that those things are wrong. But how do you talk to someone like that when they’re getting this from the book they believe is the word of their god? You can’t make someone see something they don’t want to see. You just can’t. What you can’t make them see is that this book was written by men (I mean humans with penises) that believed the world was flat, the sun was a mystery from God, and an earthquake happened when their god looked down on earth.
We don’t think that earthquakes are made because God’s looking down on us, that the world’s flat, and we know how the sun works, now. Why is it that we know about those things, but still feel the need to believe that the Bible is the word of God? Of all the things we now know, why are there some that believe that the Bible is the word of the one true god? It just doesn’t make any sense. Not to me, anyway.
I know that science hasn’t explained everything about our world, but there is a lot that it has explained. More importantly, you can see their studies and the work they’ve done. There’s evidence to that backs up their claims. The only thing the Bible has going for it is there is evidence that the Israelites existed. There is no proof that their god is real, though.
When I tell someone that I don’t believe in a god, they tell me to prove to them that there is no god. They don’t seem to understand that it’s not me that has to prove to them. I’m not making a claim that he’s in fact not real. I’m saying that I don’t believe he’s there. They are the ones that claim they know he’s real. If a person knows something is real, shouldn’t they have some kind of evidence to back up their claim? If I said something was true wouldn’t you want to have proof from me that what I said was correct?