I saw the documentary "For The Bible Tells Me So" the other day and it had this cartoon in it. It's hilarious, plus, there's a lot of information in it I had no idea about. Enjoy.

And by the way, I would strongly recommend this documentary to anyone. Even if you're already tolerant, it's still an excellent film. And naturally I would especially recommend it to anyone who is or has been raised in a christian family.

Is It a Choice?

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Something profound has happened to me over the course of the last few years. Something that, in my childhood and teen years I probably never would have imagined.

I stopped believing in God.

It didn’t happen all at once. My faith has been slowly ebbing away over the years. It was chipped away by circumstance, as I found myself too busy to attend church on a regular basis. It was further shrunken by maturity and intelligence, as I found myself constantly questioning the validity and yes, sometimes even the sanity of some of the things I had come to take for granted about the Bible. I would say the last embers died some months ago. Not for any particular reason or because of any singular event. It all just piled up. All the doubts, the confusion, the inconsistencies. It all finally reached critical mass and, with a quiet whisper rather than a big bang, the last bit of my faith in religion died.

And you know what? I’m happy. I can honestly say that I have grown past the need for religion. I can look back at my life and see that religion has been nothing but a frustration to me. I won’t go into all the details except to say that I always felt stifled by religion. I can see now that I had been living in a bubble of self-delusion that most of my family still exists in. It’s only now, after stepping outside the bubble that I can see it for what it is. A shell. A womb. A safe place where you can shut your eyes and plug your ears and ignore all the bad things, constantly believing that God will make it okay and will protect you.

Well, it doesn’t work that way. In fact, I’ve come to believe that most christians have an extremely unhealthy way of looking at life because of the simple fact that they believe God answers prayers. The problem with faith is that, if you believe that God will protect you, you find yourself spiritually crushed when an event comes along that God should have shielded you from. Sure, many christians just go right on believing, feeding themselves nonsense about “God’s plan”, instead of admitting the truth to themselves. The truth is, they’re scared. They’re afraid to admit that maybe bad things just happen for no reason. That life isn’t perfect. That there’s no one out there watching out for them.

And it is a scary thought. A thought I’ve come to accept as the truth. And I really feel better for it. I feel more human. More adult than most christians I know who are older than me. The fact that I can admit to myself that I only wanted to believe in God because I wanted there to be a meaning to my life makes me feel... mature. I see the world differently now. I’m not afraid to live my life knowing that when I die I may just cease to exist forever. That doesn’t scare me anymore. And even if it did, I’d rather be somewhat afraid of that and admit that I’m afraid rather than accept the dogma of a religion that denies science and forces me into a bubble of self delusion.

Of course, these are all things I can never tell my family. Not out of shame, but out of love. It would break my dad’s heart to know that I don’t believe in God anymore. And I’m sure my brother would just think that I only came to this conclusion because our mom died of cancer. A lot of people might think that, actually. But I held on to God for a long time after that.

This new awakening has nothing to do with the fact that my mom died. It has to do with me. It wasn’t a decision I came to out of anger or bitterness. After all, I can’t be angry or bitter at a god that I no longer believe in. I’ve simply reached a point in my life where I’m too self-aware to lie to myself.

But like I said. I’m happier now than I ever was in church. It makes me feel even better about myself to know that my happiness has nothing to do with religion or god. I’m happy because I choose to be happy. Because I have a good life even though I don’t go to church.

Not sure why I decided to suddenly write all that down. lol. But there it is.

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