Growing Up With the Holy Ghost Part II: Cancer with Christ

In part one of the this blog, I talked a lot about my first experiences with religion. The Baptist church of my stepfathers was really the first church and experiences with Christianity I can remember a lot about and was very involved in. However, this wasn't the last church I called home before I ended up here. After falling on some very hard times, my family and I moved to a neighboring town. While the Baptist church wasn't very far away, we decided to start going to a church that my aunt had been attending and recommended to my mother. This one was a Pentecostal church and it was quite a bit different. During this time, a major event happened in my life I'd like to tell you about...

In March of 2003, at the age of twelve, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I had come home one evening and noticed a large lump around my collar bone. My mother took me to the ER that night. At first we thought it might have been an issue with my collarbone considering how large and visible the lump was, but I was in no pain at all. From the start, I was worried about the possibility of, well, cancer. My mother had mentioned it briefly going over possible causes and I was old enough to know that lumps = cancer a lot of times. After some tests, we were told by the ER doctor that I had several enlarged lymph nodes from some type of virus or infection. I was told to take the antibiotics he prescribed and the nodes would go down in about four weeks. I remember getting home later that night feeling incredibly relieved. I had no idea about lymphoma's and my worries about cancer were put to rest for the time being. I also remember doing something else that night. I had this special nightly routine of my own, personal bedtime prayer. I always thanked God for another day, asked for more of them if He was willing, sent out a broad, generic prayer for all of those suffering around the world, and would usually finish with "I rebuke the Devil in your name. I love and believe in you with all of my heart." I would also fill in specific prayer requests for others and myself if I needed it - it usually followed my request to end world hunger. I will always remember my prayer that night. I remember thanking God for letting the lumps only be swollen lymph nodes and not something more serious. My mother, a nurse, didn't feel quite right about my ER diagnosis. The next day she set up an appointment with my pediatrician to see me as soon as possible. After that visit I was immediately sent to a surgeon for a biopsy on the lymph nodes on my neck. It was then that the cancer was found and I was flown to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital a few days later.

I'm sure some of my Christian readers read that and thought "Oh, this explains it. He's mad at God for letting him get cancer!". I can assure you, that isn't the case at all. After I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's a week later, I felt no anger at all. I didn't even question it that I remember. The only questions I had were "What did I do?". No anger, I just thought it may have been a punishment for something I had done - in all of my twelve years to raise hell. I didn't dwell on that, however. I, like I had been taught, simply assumed this was in God's plan and I couldn't understand it. In my world anger towards God or questioning his motives was never an option. With this approach, my faith strengthened as I felt I needed God to make it through treatment. I leaned heavily on it throughout the entire ordeal. Never once did I feel any sort of anger about my situation. Even when I was faced with bad news from this test of that scan, I still held on as tight as ever.

 In late summer of 2003 I had just finished up my chemotherapy treatments, which were the bulk of all my initial treatment protocol. After a routine scan I was found to be cancer-free. I was absolutely ecstatic! I had just beaten cancer in a few months and before I had finished treatment! That night I had a lot of praise for God/Jesus for taking the cancer away. The prayers had worked and my God had come through again like he always had: we won't talk about the times He didn't, it's His will, don't worry about it. He had worked another miracle and I owed him even more now. Even though I had went into remission quicker than expected, the doctors wanted to follow through with protocol and go on with radiation. It was my choice and I opted for it. A  few weeks later I was in Memphis to begin some low-dose radiation. After a week of routine appointments and prepping for radiation, I took another scan. This one, however, showed the cancer was back. I had relapsed and it had actually come back more aggressive than previously. Just like the first diagnosis, I was not mad at God in the least bit. Once again, I accepted this as God's will and knew he would get me through it once more. I never even regretted the praise I had given him for ridding me of cancer the first time, either. I just happened to be unlucky, but as I heard and still hear so many times, "If God brought you to it, he'll bring you through it." My faith in God was kicked up a few notches still and I felt I was leaning on him even more now. After nine months of twenty rounds of high-dose chemo, twenty-two radiation treatments, a handful of surgeries and a stem-cell transplant, I went into remission again...and where do you think the majority of my gratitude went? None other than the non-existent invisible man in the sky and talking to myself prayer. After my transplant the cancer was still there, but shrinking. The protocol called for two more rounds of high-dose chemo post-transplant. I went in for the first treatment and was feeling absolutely horrible from what I do remember of that day before waking up in ICU. I had fluid building around my heart and lungs, on top of that pesky cancer in my neck and chest. My mother called our preacher, our new Pentecostal one, and he and his wife came out to the hospital and a prayer meeting was held bedside by them, my parents and my aunt. All in attendance "laid  hands" and the pastor and my aunt spoke in tongues. About a week later the doctors managed to keep the fluid off of my heart and lungs. I was finally released to go back home, not knowing at all about how close I had come to dying. A week or so after my trip to the ICU, I had the first of the two rounds of chemo originally planned. A scan soon after showed the cancer had shrunk more than what it was visible immediately after my transplant. Though we were told that the effects of the transplant were likely to be delayed, this "miracle" was of course attributed to the perceived power of prayer. I finished the last two rounds of chemo and the scan after that round revealed the cancer was essentially gone. After another biopsy it was official: I was cancer-free. I never lost faith during this time, not even a question as to why this was happening to me and the thousands of children I saw going through much worse at St. Jude's. My faith soared to where it never was before I got sick.

As I mentioned several times before, I can never remember being angry at all towards God, only thankful that I was pulling through and also that my situation wasn't more serious. I emphasize that for two reasons: 1) for those that believe this was when I lost my faith or I am mad at God for my illness and 2) to show how much of a hold Christianity had on me at the time. This was a life-changing event and my outlook on life, now at the age of fourteen, changed dramatically. I frequently saw children much younger than me with much more life-threatening diagnoses, and some of these little ones didn't make it. Some of my friends I made didn't either. Death is a lot to take in as a thirteen year old; it's a lot to live with now at twenty-three. Coming in for a treatment, asking about a friend, only to find out she passed away the week before (I just had seen her smiling face a few weeks prior) was a very hard thing to go through. My algebra teacher's daughter had visited me during my treatment, having just beat Leukemia herself. Not much later after that, she was diagnosed with a extremely serious brain tumor. The next time I got to visit her was at her wake, she passed at the age of sixteen. Both families of these heroes of mine were very religious like mine. There's an extreme amount of guilt some people in that situation carry afterwards and I still feel it to this day. At the time, I tried to turn it into something more positive. I told myself that my friends death, the death of other children I met, and the plight of countless little ones suffering these horrible diseases were all a part of God's plan. I was told that God had something in store for me, that I lived for a reason and that reason was to serve him and fulfill his almighty will: whatever that may be. That's a lot to take on for anyone, especially at that age. I was burdened not only with doing what God needed me to do, I also had to live in honor of those who didn't survive. The latter is something that still sticks with me today. While I don't believe in any ridiculous plan of a non-existent deity, those that passed away were real and had their own plans, hopes and dreams.

Today, when I tell someone I'm an atheist and that I'm a cancer-survivor, a lot of them can't understand how that could be. God, they say, brought me through it and saved my life. I only managed this because I had strong faith, that I survived only because I was a believer. My answer is that while, yes, I did believe in God when I beat cancer, I was also was just as strong a believer when I got cancer. The Lord giveth before he taketh away. I also have heard that I'm only an atheist because I'm mad at God because I got cancer. This, as I've shown, is just completely false. As I mentioned several times above, while going through my illness I only became more passionate about my beliefs. It was years before I lost my belief in God and cancer had absolutely nothing to do with it. The only thing I'm upset with today is the fact I was so naive and foolish to believe there was some being meddling and saving my life. I'm also ashamed of the fact that I didn't appreciate the true reasons I pulled through: my family, my nurses/doctors, and advanced medicine. Science was my savior, medicine my messiah. The notion that I'm angry at God also doesn't make sense for one very big reason: I don't believe in the existence of a God. I'm an atheist because I have come to the sound conclusion that there is no God and never was. For me to be angry at something, I'd have to acknowledge its existence. This is impossible with atheism. Some need to understand that us atheists aren't pissed at some imaginary being, we can't have emotions towards something that isn't there. It would be like being depressed that my imaginary friend died or when I don't get something I wanted at Christmas time, I get pissed at Santa. 

This event that occurred my life has affected my current beliefs and shaped my overall approach to life. As I said before, it gave me a purpose in life. At the time, I thought that purpose was to devote my life to a religion and its God because I had been mercifully spared to carry on the torch of the trinity. I realize now that I had it all wrong. The purpose I now hold is of the secular kind,. It's one of humanism that envelopes kindness, compassion, charity, and goodness without a god. I hear too often that a life without God is meaningless and not worth living. This arrogant, offensive and ignorant claim doesn't hold a drop of holy water. I have found my godless life much more meaningful than it ever was while I was a believer. Why? Because it undeniably is in every single way. Everything around you becomes so much more meaningful when viewed through a pious-less prism. Nature, for example,  becomes more amazing than it was before. The fact that our world has created and sustained everything around us is nothing short of incredible. When the truth reaches you that there was no creator planting this tree or flipping on that light-switch, that everything happened after billions of years of torrent changes and chance, it leaves you in complete awe. And us folks that inhabit it? I think Lawrence Krauss said it best...

"Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics. You are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded. Because the elements, the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in nuclear furnaces of stars. And the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were king enough to explode. So, forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be here today."

To me, that's so much more beautiful than any fictional story we may be told when we're growing up. The fact that makes it even more incredible is knowing that that is based on a true story, our story. As a kid, it may have been neat to think we were dropped in by a stork. But when we're older we see how amazing the process of life is. The reality is much more impressive than the children's story. It's the same feeling you get when the neat stories you're told in Sunday school about coming from dirt and a rib are replaced by the story of reality and fact that we're a product of stars, time and chance all coming together in an indescribably beautiful way. How could anyone call that a meaningless life? Because we know there was no God in the ingredient of life doesn't downgrade our existence and we should never let that notion go unchallenged. Contrary to what some may believe, a subscription to the absurd ideas that religion proposes does not give life weight. A manufactured messiah does not assign meaningfulness to what's already undeniably full of it. 

When examined, that life becomes that much more precious. It's meaningfulness is real, but the meaning is much different than what a religious person sees. I know it changed for me. You realize that this isn't a dress-rehearsal for some happy-ever-after (or not-so-happy-ever-after) outside of this life. There's no proof whatsoever for a heaven, hell or afterlife of any kind. I'll admit it, that's scary as shit. This is it. You're in it right now kindly reading my words(sorry). It's the purest form of truth and everything that is real exists here and now. It's palpable and short, not promised and forever-after. It is heaven and it's hell. It's a tiny blip in time to do whatever it is you want to do, then poof, it's gone. It's everything now that a religion promises will happen later on -  after you've given the one true life you have to it. It's the only thing an atheist worships. There's nothing more jaw-dropping than realizing the atheistic odyssey you' and everyone around you is on, whether or not they know it - because we're all without a God whether we accept that or not. While that's an uneasy truth to swallow, looking at what we have done on our own offers a lot of solace. When you realize that we've been doing it all on our own the entire time without help from some supernatural being, you see how truly special we all are. You had the strength the entire time to overcome any of those obstacles in your life. You had the kindness inside to help others all along, it didn't need to be activated by an alleged almighty. You may have passed a test, you may have created a life, you may have beat cancer...but whatever it was, big or small, you did it. You did all of those things you thought you couldn't do without help from the empty above. You. So how dare anyone say that your life becomes meaningless simply because you reject the non-existent omnipotent and accept the godless obvious.

When I was going through my bouts with cancer, I didn't see any of this. That, to me, was the worst ailment I experienced when I reflect on that time in my life. I was too busy sending up countless praises and prayers that dissolved after leaving my lips, never reaching what was never there. That was the most unfortunate part of my life that I look back on. I sometimes have to pause to think about what a tragedy it would have been if I had succumbed to my illness in that ICU room nearly ten years ago. If I had, Matthew Skeens's obituary would have likely mentioned God, angels and heaven; and it no doubt would have began "he went to be with the Lord today...". Perishing in youth is an unspeakable tragedy on its own, but personally, dying before the age of reason would have been the biggest tragedy of all. Defeating cancer seems easier now compared to wiping out the pious virus that I suffered from since it was first introduced to me sitting in the church pews as a young boy. I had no chemo or radiation to aid me during the internal struggle I faced years later while recovering from the terrifying and oppressing myths that flowed through my veins. While my religiosity was inoperable, in different ways the ever-omnipresent thing called science still led the way in my remission.

I've been cancer-free for nine years and Christ-free for four of those. The former I can't guarantee forever, but the latter I can. I'm cured.

Growing up with the Holy Ghost Part I: Child of God

This is  part one of my religious up bringing. This focuses on my early childhood mostly as a Baptist. I will talk about some life events during this portion of my life from about the age of seven to twelve, that I remember, and my thoughts on them now. Part two will be about my early teen years and switching to the Pentecostal life from the ages of thirteen to about seventeen. It will be on some of personal life events, my views at the time and how that has affected me...and of course what I think of them now. I hope you enjoy! 

_________________________________________________________________________________Before I go into the negatives I experienced, I will say that my time as a Christian wasn't a horrible experience. I met some amazing people that I will always cherish. I had a great time growing up with my Christian friends and hanging out with some wonderful people every week. No matter how I feel about religion and some Christians I meet, that will not change. I also want to clear something else up. I may use language that seems that I acknowledge the existence of God, so I want to make clear that I use that language when it is needed in referring to my previous beliefs , what others believe and in other contexts. I just simply don't stick "allegedly", "supposedly" and other words in front of every mention of the word "God". It gets redundant, boring and is not needed when I am writing from certain viewpoints. So, please know that I do not believe in the existence of a God and I am not acknowledging one, just simply the beliefs and viewpoints I and others held and do hold. Another thing I want to clear up is when I use the word "God". I am mostly talking about the Christian version. I do mention other religions as well and sometimes I use the word broadly, but mostly it's the Christian God I am referring to because that's what I am most familiar with, that's mostly who my readers are affiliated with and it's the version that I am surrounded by and has the most effects on me personally and everything around me. It's also what religion I believed in and refer to during my personal story. But please know that I do not believe in any other version either and will likely cover other religions as well in future blogs.
_________________________________________________________________________________

As I mentioned in my last blog, I grew up in a Baptist/Pentecostal family. I remember going to church when I was younger, mostly with my great-grandmother to her Pentecostal church. One that was frequented by snake-handlers many years before. At the age of seven my mom married my stepfather and we began to attend the Baptist church he had attended since he was young. This is where I was introduced to things like Sunday school and youth meetings. I always looked forward going to going to them. We would play games like who could look up a Bible verse the fastest and read it aloud, for example, along with a ton of different games that dealt with the message of that particular meeting. I could never wait for Wednesday nights and youth! We would have "lock-ins" where we would stay up all night, eat pizza and play games. It was my only socializing outside of school. I was saving my soul and having fun at the same time, what could have been better than that? I even played Joseph in the Christmas play a few times. The heretic today was nowhere to be found in the "good, Christian boy" then. I still have the bible that was given to me by the youth group, an earned treasure. I still have it today...

When summer came around, I would attend a Christian summer camp for a short time. It was mostly camp-like activities during the day with the exception of required attendance of morning and evening church services, with a midday service some days. Camp will always be something I will remember. Not because of the games and boating on the lake, but because at camp in 1999 I was "saved" for the first time. It was about a week into a normal camp stay, nothing too special had happened except for the typical saving of some of the very juvenile and slightly delinquent souls. During one evening service, the pastor was giving an unusually fiery sermon to the dozens of tweens in attendance. Temptation and hell was the topic, I remember. He told of what was coming and it didn't sound good, especially for a mature nine year old soul like myself. According to him, there were some crazy things about to happen with the world and a lot of it included it not being here anymore. Needless to say, it was important to get some insurance. Not that nine years old meant we were living on borrowed biological time, but biblically we should probably start working on our bucket-list with the impending apocalypse. We were pre-pubescent sinners, but heathens nonetheless, and we were only going to keep sinning as impure and sinful thoughts were carried on the back of puberty. The sins would be larger and to make matters worse, there might even be some homosexuals among us. The pastor had an answer, a solution to our young woes. All we had to do was accept Jesus and we'd be set. I already really loved Jesus like I was told to do, so this seemed easy enough. Those that wanted to accept Jesus Christ into their hearts could come up, go behind the stage and get to acceptin'. Several dozen of us were overwhelmed with our love for God scared shit-less enough to go back stage where we were broken down into a handful of groups as the energetic, spike-haired man of God made his way around to each one. He made his way through a couple of groups before he eventually came to us. There was a reminder of the consequences, the way to avoid it and the question..."Do you accept Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior?". We all naturally accepted, and it was as easy as Christians say. Well, it certainly appeared easy when viewed by a nine year old or equally enamored, myopic eyes on the Lord. Regardless, all my pre-pubescent peccadilloes had been washed away. I was straight with the house and just plain straight. Heaven awaited me and things were all right. I was feeling pretty good about myself. I felt I had just made a life decision that set me apart from a good portion of the world. I had accepted Jesus into my heart at the age of nine and my future was set. If I kept on the path of the straight and narrow (no pun intended), I would have a successful future and God would take care of me. I also had heaven to look forward to and I would walk hand-in-hand with him down streets of gold. Not only that, I had all of the answers I ever needed through Christianity growing up.

Where did we come from? God.

What will happen to us when we die? Christians, like you, will be with the Father in Heaven.

Will I ever see my great-grandmother Mammaw Carrie, again? Yes, she was a strong Christian. She's in heaven, young and healthy again.

How did my grandfather survive his heart-attacks? God was watching over him, he is responsible for all medical successes. He invented it, we're just using his tools. 

Why did 9/11 happen? The devil did that, the terrorists weren't Christians and Satan got a hold of them through their false religion. All other religions are really the work of the devil and he uses those to attack Christians. 

Why doesn't God stop him or the suffering all over the world? It's just his will, don't question it.

That was pretty much the answer to every single question I ever had. God was responsible for every positive thing that ever happened or will happen, regardless of how negligently intermittent his actions were. If any bad thing happened, the devil and his demons were responsible, even though God controlled everything. It happened because of God's enigmatic will, us children could never understand. If there was something that you just couldn't quite get your head around, you just didn't have enough faith and the devil was likely interfering. After a prayer meeting, you'd be fine and understand that God was always the answer. Sticking your fingers in your ears and repeating "God did it." is required at that age and essentially your entire life.

After the big event, there was a little confusion. First of all, I didn't know what really happened. The word "saved" wasn't mentioned that I could recall. I had always thought it was a much deeper and longer process that consisted of you and the preacher in private. I didn't find out that I was "saved" until I was talking to my friends and the camp leaders later on that night. I was a bit surprised and a bit more confused. I didn't feel much different, at least compared to what I was expecting. There were no signs of any cardiac-penetration by a Father, Son, or Holy ghost. Even so, I accepted the fact that I was now saved and still accepted Christ with my nine year old credulity. I did feel somewhat different, an uneasy feeling. I remember it hitting me that I was very young and that meant I had a long time on my hands to screw it all up. I also wondered how serious anyone took me when I told them I had been saved at the age of nine. I had just got my time-tables down not long before, so how could I have made such a huge life decision? Puberty still awaited me, but if I didn't get myself saved, hell awaited me? I was indeed saved, but it still didn't make much sense. This makes me wonder now, why isn't there an age of consent for the teaching of religion? You aren't really consenting to anything, you're being forced to do what someone else wants without the ability to determine what's right and wrong for you, and what's fiction from reality.

Fortunately, I can say that I was never mistreated during this time of my life. While religious, my parents are also pretty liberal on social issues that many others around me were not. There are far more worse things that others have been subjected to in the same situation. As I mentioned before, I enjoyed this time of my life for the most part. But as a kid, I didn't fully realize the effects of growing up in a culture like this. That is why religion is particularly harmful when you get your divine doses so early in life. If you start to question and step out of the God-glazed bubble, you see things differently. I wouldn't begin to really question anything until years later. I realized how much religion had affected me even though I didn't even know it. When I was taught that the earth was 6,000 years old, that was harmful to me. When I was taught that the world started from two fully developed human beings created from dirt, that was harmful to me. When I was taught that evolution never happened and was just a tool of the devil, that was harmful to me. When I was taught that the earth was flooded and every creature was rounded up two-by-two, that people lived to be 800-900 years old in biblical times, that a man was born by a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead...that was harmful to me. It was harmful to me mentally and intellectually. When I was taught that all of that was the absolute truth, that any claim to the contrary is a lie, that questioning any of it can send me hell, that was extremely harmful to me. You're not just told these things are true, you are forbidden to question them. That is perhaps the biggest tragedy of all. You're forced to believe such, with no proof, to be accepted by your creator, to avoid eternal damnation and see your loved ones again. Your freewill is robbed by a religion that espouses the very concept. Your imagination seeking individuality is crucified by Christ himself. To cause a child to become circumspect toward what is real and true is a blinding affliction. A revocable devotion to a dilapidated deity masquerading as anything resembling the truth is the real sin.

Another thing Christianity did was allow me to experience real fear. The fear I felt was more real than anything else. It was stronger than the love and connection I had for God. It wasn't that my faith was weak, I believed in it as much as anyone, anywhere. The fear was terrifying, but now I realize that's just how it's supposed to be. Without the fear of something like hell and a loving God's vengeance, it doesn't stick. While "no questioning" is the edict, the fear of hell and punishment is the enforcer. I don't know how many times I heard how doubting/questioning was a tool of the devil and result of his meddling, but it seemed to accompany every lecture. If you doubted the dubious, Satan was in possession of you and he would lead you away from God and into Hell. That was enough to push a lot of legitimate, yet Satan-inspired questions out of my mind. The amount of hindering of thought and individual growth caused by religion is immeasurable. Along with this internal fight with the devil over my mind, I was still a flawed human being in perpetual sin according to the God that created me in his own image. Emotionally speaking, there are only a few things that can damage you more than religion. Some don't even realize it. Have you ever had a relationship in which you feel that whatever you do, you're not good enough and never will be? It has a large, negative effect most of the time. Some realize this and end it, others stay because they feel they love that person and may eventually be good enough. This is essentially an average relationship between Christians and their God. Unlike a relationship with a significant other you might have experienced, it's much harder to break it off with someone you're told created you, loves you unconditionally but will send you to hell if you leave. According to the Bible, we screwed up from day one and have been doing it ever since. While Jesus did die for us, we are still condemned unless we accept Him into our life, worship him, and constantly repent for the sins we commit everyday. If we don't, Almighty God will send us to hell. There's no free-will in that, the worst kind of relationship.

We're told we owe everything to God. We're alive because of him, our loved ones too, and every single good thing that has ever happened to us, He's the cause of that. We have an obligation to love and obey him unconditionally based on that alone Another important reason is that we will die someday and our afterlife will depend on our devotion to God. We can be ungrateful for all God has done and commit sins without repentance, the end result being eternal pain and agony in hell; or we can dedicate our entire lives to God, always praising what he has done no matter what and constantly asking forgiveness for being a terrible human-being. It doesn't even sound that bad when you look at it from that perspective, especially when you have been convinced since you were a child that you are forever in debt to God and he is even going to reward you if you just do what he says, ever how undeserving you are. I didn't think much of it; it sounded like a good deal. Today, however, I see how imperil and flawed that was.

My first issue is that I was told, as an innocent child, I was a flawed, unworthy person. I understand that we as human-beings have many imperfections, but our imperfections have nothing to do with manufactured faults from a two-thousand year old book. We're made to feel ashamed of our bodies and sexuality. We're told that if we're attracted to someone of the same-sex, we're abominations to the Lord. We're made to feel inferior in every way for just being ourselves, the way God supposedly made us. We're told to reject complete strangers because of their sins or their opposing beliefs. We're told we're forever-flawed because, again, what men deemed right/wrong 2,000 years ago in a horrendous society. Keep in mind that this same book tells you how to treat your slaves (Leviticus 25:44 -45 -46, Exodus 21:2 -3 -4 -5 -6) and not to not have fucking slaves! It doesn't condemn rape, only that the rapist must pay her father and marry her, never allowed to be divorced from her (Deuteronomy 22:28 -29), that the rape victim may be put to death (Deuteronomy 22:23 -24) and apparently God lets men who attack the cities he wants, to rape the women and children (Deuteronomy 20:10 -11 -12 -13 -14) - the last one being one of several supposedly historical accounts of Gods gift to those that kill in his name. But nothing about not fucking raping someone! As you can see, the book is clearly written by men. Women are treated like chattel. They are forbidden to speak in church or ask questions (1 Corinthians 14:34 -35), daughters can be sold into slavery by their fathers and can't be set free (Exodus 21:7), women must keep their head covered and must always obey men (1 Corinthians 11:6) - I could go on and on about how women were to be treated according to the Bible. I know I rambled on a bit, but I wanted to make clear what kind of people we're talking about. The same people that wrote this, supposedly inspired by the perfect Father, are the same ones that have deemed you flawed in the eyes of God.They made the rules allowing this disgusting atrocity and that horrific act, yet you're the immoral one that's worthy of hell? Of course these things aren't told to you as a child, those particular verses are missing from most Sunday sermons even though the Bible is full of similar divinely-deplorable laws. We're told that we owe everything to an invisible being that is responsible for every positive thing. We're told to do this without a single bit of proof. We also must always beg forgiveness to Him because of our completely natural actions that have been deemed immoral by a book that any person with half a conscience would consider to be grossly immoral at best and when examined there's so little to base even the weakest belief on and so little morality to base even the most half-hearted attempt at a just and compassionate life. 

The biggest issue to me with this is the unwavering devotion to a God that has little to no evidence to his existence. There's no verifiable account that anyone has ever seen, touched or heard this deity (but I understand that many think they have). What's most damning to me is that there is no historical, natural or circumstantial evidence to support the notion of a God, especially the Christian one (or any major, modern religion of that matter). I know some believe there are mountains of evidence, but in reality that's not the case. Atheists are always told that we're angry at God, that we just refuse to acknowledge him. This couldn't be any further from the truth considering we can't be mad at or ignore something that we believe isn't there. Most people, like I did, accepted there was a God without any sort of examining. I assumed everything in the Bible was true and that evidence was more than enough to establish God's existence. However, when you do a little reading, you learn that the Bible isn't the solid foundation you once thought it was. Among the things I learned was that there was never an Adam and Eve, there was no Great Flood, there is no evidence of a city called Sodom and Gomorrah(no, it never existed before it was supposedly destroyed), there was no Tower of Babel and there's a long list of people and places that never existed. The fact that there is no evidence or even a mention of many biblical events, people and places outside of the Bible was a massive hit to my belief in Christianity years later. What were the pillars of my acquiescent ardor for the messiah, became the protagonist for the jilting of Jesus in my life. There was no enmity with the evidence-less entity I called Father, the pious preeminence of the Lord was gone. I didn't just find that the eternal emperor had no clothes. The emperor was never there to begin with. 


I now realize why religion is pushed on younger people as often as it is. At that time in your life, you're extremely impressionable. Your opinions are shaped largely by those around you, family usually being biggest influence. Everything from the food you eat to simple political views are chosen in youth. This is why you find such a minority of people who have split off from their parents political or religious views. A lot of things are simply picked up and carried on through life. Things like religion, however, are often pushed on children for a specific reason. Adolescence is an advantageous time for religion and your membership must come with birth whether you like it or not. While we can't blame parents for not wanting their children to miss out on something like religion with its perceived benefits and safeguard them from the harsh consequences it creates, it still doesn't make it right. A list of religions aren't laid out in front of the kid by the parents, it's just drilled into them that their beliefs are true and that's the end of that. How many kids would pick that religion, or a religion at all, if more choices were put forth? Or if only just the 41,000+ denominations of Christianity were laid out, how many would pick their parents' particular one? There simply is no such thing as "free-will" when it comes to religion. It's an illusion. If you're a Christian, you likely didn't choose to be a Christian no more than you chose where to be born or who your parents were. Your parents and location, location, location. How many Christians can really say that if they were born in an Islamic nation, that they would still be a Christian? While there are exceptions, you'd likely be Muslim because you were born in a predominately Muslim area to Muslim parents. That's a hard pill to swallow, but it's the reality of the situation. How true and special can your religion be when the factors that determine your most sacred beliefs aren't much different than the factors that decide which sports team you root for? Indoctrination isn't a good thing, yet whether people want to admit it or not, that's exactly what happens to children with religion. Richard Dawkins said in his book The God Delusion, "There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents." There's no better way to put it. And since we're not born with any knowledge of religion and certainly not a belief in a God, we're all born atheists until someone tells us there's something there that really isn't.

I look back during this part of my life and have mixed feelings. As I said, I was never mistreated and never experienced anything horrific because of religion. Some young people are kicked out of their home for being homosexual. That's purely because of religion for it is the catalyst of the hostility and hatred towards gays and lesbians. Societal definitions of natural and unnatural is where the "it's unnatural" notion comes from, homosexuality is natural in the natural world. The hate and bigotry aimed at homosexuality is not: it's a choice, unnatural, and synthetic as the man-manufactured sin it derives from. This group of people are driven to depression and suicide, sometimes they are murdered and beaten, and are outcast by their own family into the streets with no one. All because of a handful of sentences condemning homosexuality that a man named Moses and Paul said to some others, who they told and passed on and on and on to someone who wrote it down, that God told them that's what he wanted. What little good that can come from a place where hatred is derived cannot overcome all of the ills of the world that is caused by religion. It still could have been worse. I wasn't one of the children who was let die because my parents rejected medical care and replaced it with prayer, like the parents of this sick girl. She died a horribly painful death because her parents refused to seek medical care, instead praying, something that consistently fails (it's true, but I'll go into that more with an upcoming blog). She wouldn't even give the poor thing Pedialyte for the severe dehydration she was suffering because "that would take the glory away from God", according to her mother. There was no glory or God to be found when the girl later died suffering, even then the parents thought God would raise her from the dead. This is just one of the modern cases out of hundreds of recorded ones since the 1970's. There's been countless many before. I could have been them and that still scares me to this day. These people worship the same absent and ambiguous Abrahamac version of God my family does and seek guidance from the same beacon-less book. As long as there are people that do as well, the inflictions will be inherent and infinite. 

I was one of the luckier ones because I have a good family who are good without a God, even if they don't know it. While I am happy because of that fact, I didn't escape growing up with the Holy Ghost unscathed. It wasn't life-threatening injuries, but there are scars. It was something that had a grip on my life, but not tight enough. The grip seemed strong, but I found that the hands of my religion are weak and fragile. The hold it may have on you is just no match for the natural and internal intellectual-hostility toward such scared suppositions. My savior's impact was surreptitious and only now have I started to see the negative baggage that came with my religious upbringing. Pious prejudices were created inside me. Curiosity and inquiry were pushed out to make room for divine absurdities that carried no more truth in tow than the bedtime stories I heard growing up. Even though our imagination as a child is supposed to be cultivated, inquisitiveness was not a prerequisite for my religion. Nor welcome, I later learned. Taking from the Tree of Knowledge was a sin for a reason and is still the greatest of all sins today because if you do, you might just end up like a godless heretic like me...