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The Out Campaign: Scarlet Letter of Atheism
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A Lack of Faith
Saturday. 5.31.08 7:01 am

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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New Music (finally)
Wednesday. 5.28.08 3:14 am

Music is The Call by Regina Spektor. It�s from the soundtrack to Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. EDIT: Or not... I can't seem to get it to play. Stand By. Weird. Okay, well that didn't work. Must be the song. Anyway, this is Part IV - Morning In May by Ludo. This is an awesome band. Very unique songs and lyrics. (Check out Save Our City. It's about Zombies. Seriously.) Listen carefully to the lyrics of this song. It's so much more touching and sad when you know that this song is part 4 in a series of songs about a guy whose wife died in a car accident. The first 3 are about him traveling in time to get back to save her.

Saw Chronicles of Narina: Prince Caspian the other day. It was pretty good. About as good as the first one. And just like the first one, the peripheral characters were much stronger actors than the stars. Those kids just aren�t very good at playing real emotions.

The action sequences were very well done. The music and the visual effects were great, and the story was solid. All in all, a good movie that only suffered slightly due to inexperienced child actors and the occasional cheesy line.

Also saw Indiana Jones, which was also good. Special effects were amazing (and I include whoever did Harrison Ford�s make-up in that category). A few things I would have done without... such as the horribly unrealistic �flight of the refrigerator�. But what can you do. It�s Indiana Jones. It did have a surprise ending which I wouldn�t have seen coming. I won�t say any more in case some of you haven�t seen it yet.

Well, the sale got pushed back a few weeks, so we�ll be leaving the 10th of June, now. It�s a small delay, but it�s still frustrating. Now I�m just hoping I can get a job when I get there. Thankfully Jenn already has one lined up.

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