I had worked at a few old folks homes, and they are all
pretty much religiously run. I don’t have a problem with this at all, it was
just a little difficult to keep finding excuses to leave the room or to go do
something else while they held prayer or sermons. Other than that, the
religious part of it was fine. The entire staff that worked there were
Christians, with the exception of me. One girl had even became a missionary teacher on some island near the Philippines. I liked her. We had a long discussion
about why I don’t believe in a god, and why she does. She was very
understanding of me, and I hope she thought the same of me. She had asked me
some questions that probably would have irritated me if it had come from anyone
else, though. One of these questions was basically asking if my parents were
divorced. The answer was yes, however I don’t think that this had anything to
do with my lack of belief in a deity because the divorce happened after I
stopped believing it in. She suggested that maybe the way I was raised, and
possibly the lack of union in my family might make me question things about
life that those who had not been in my shoes would have. While this may be
slightly offending in a way, the way she had meant it could very well be true.
This brings me to my next thought, which is ‘Had I been born
and raised in the traditional Christian family setting, with parents who don’t
hate each other, would I still be a Christian?’. I hate to say it, but I probably would be.
Looking back at it, the thing that made me question everything related to the
Bible, was how my parents should have divorced 10 years earlier than they did.
The reasons why they didn’t divorce, was because it was supposedly a sin, and
that they didn’t want to break up the family. So, I was wondering why they don’t just get it over with instead of dragging it out and
making it more painful for the entire family. The way that I saw it, was that
if my parents had just gotten the divorce, it wouldn’t have been any different than
the way things already were except that my dad would have been free to decide
things for himself without the craziness of my mother, and my mother could
decide things for herself without the constant feeling of being looked down on
by my father. This would have drastically improved the relationship of the
entire family. So the argument that they wanted to keep the family together was
kind of a farce, especially since that particular idea failed. My mother kept saying
something about how getting a divorce was a sin, but wouldn’t elaborate on the
specifics of that.
So, without the internet at home and SO not up for reading
the Bible, I just went along on my way with my own thoughts on the whole thing.
I felt that it was a stupid idea that two people who hated each other so much
should be forced to stay together in a way that did not benefit anyone, simply
because it was ‘wrong’ to get a divorce. So, why is it wrong to get a divorce?
Who said so? What makes a divorce so wrong? This idea is pretty much where it
all started. Then I started to question why ANYTHING is wrong, and who decides
what is right and what is wrong. I didn’t come up with any conclusions on this
thought for a few years, and they definitely weren’t things that I was
going to talk about to anyone at the time.
Another question that this missionary girl had asked me, was
if I had any other friends who were atheists who might have influenced or
convinced me not to believe in the religion I was raised with. The answer, was
actually No. This bothers me a little bit now, but at the time it didn’t seem
so important. Yes, I felt very alone with my thoughts and beliefs, but considering
it didn’t seem to be something that people would zero-in on, I didn’t feel particularly
hated for it. So it was okay. But this made me ask her the same
question in return, with the same theory. What about all of the people around
her? Would she be as religious as she is, if she had not been raised that way,
or did not have all of the people around her believing in the same thing? She
had admitted that no, she might not be. Her faith was based on how she
understood life, and the values that she personally finds important. I have an
enormous amount of respect for her and her way of thinking. I also hope that
she understands how much this discussion has helped me to deal with others of
the same religious background.
The thing that I find most important in life, is
understanding. She didn’t immediately dislike me, or what I believe or don’t
believe. She took the time to find out why, and try to understand it, and THEN
decided that she RESPECTED me for my decision. If only everyone could do
that… Now, the entire discussion was based on a ‘mutual’ respect for each
other, which meant that I also respected her for her decision about her belief.
Had either of us not held that kind of equal respect for each other, the entire
conversation would have probably ended very badly.
The reason why I have become more vocal about my beliefs (or
lack of belief in a deity) is because the mutual respect is not there. I try to
show all people a general respect for their own lives and experiences that gave
them the faith that they do, but most people completely disregard mine. Around
here, they don’t become angry (at least I haven’t had an angry response to me
specifically), but they just ignore me like my thoughts and ideas don’t matter
anymore simply because they are different from what they ‘know’ to be the
truth. I appreciate that those around me don’t become confrontational, but at
the same time, they won’t even listen. So, I have adopted the title of Atheist.
While it does draw a bit more of a confrontational response, I at least get the
time of day. I feel like the naughty neighbor kid who gets into trouble just to
get attention. : /
So, with the territory of announcing a position, I needed to
arm myself with the knowledge to argue facts and reasons that I could defend
myself with if someone decided to attack me for it. This particular step didn’t
happen until last year sometime. I hadn’t felt especially ambitious about
finding out this kind of information until I had found a website someone had
posted on Facebook that was talking about how the theory of evolution was a
load of crap. This sort of sparked my curiosity because I had thought it was
common knowledge that evolution was a known truth because of science, and
genetics, and different species, family trees, ect. What I had discovered with
this article, was that people were actually denying that evolution was the
truth because it didn’t match a story in the Christian bible. I remember
my biology class from high school pretty well. We didn’t really talk about
evolution very much, but we did talk about genetics, and how it was passed down
through generations, and cloning, and how humans had evolved from Neanderthals and
all of this was proven through science. But never once did the topic of
evolution actually come up in this way. What I had learned by reading this article and then doing the research myself, was the actual
meaning of ‘The Theory of Evolution’ and how the entire concept of Biology
would not work without it. This is NOT something that I was taught in school. There needs to be some fine-tuning with the theory,
but that is because it is a THEORY that Darwin ( ßan
actual human, not a God) came up with to try to explain the origins of
humanity.
Now, the outright rejection of the theory of evolution made
me question why people think this theory is so wrong, especially if an entire
study of science is based off of it. The answer, I found, was simply that the
Bible says that God created Adam and Eve and evolution tells a different story, saying that we
evolved from apes and we are not apes. So, me being naturally curious about why
people would put so much faith in the Bible, but completely reject an entire category of science, I decided to find out where the Bible actually came from, and who actually wrote it.
As it turns out, the first testament (or Old Testament; OT)
was the original word of God that the people were supposed to follow. It is also the part that the Jewish people follow, because they rejected the
second testament (the new testament; NT) since you can't just 'change the word of God'. The second testament is basically a
compilation of letters and gospels thrown together by the Church to ‘adjust’
the laws. This is my understanding of it, and if you don’t like it, then
go look it up yourself and make your own judgment of what you find.
So, this totally blew my mind with the entire Christian religion,
and I felt personally betrayed that nobody had actually thought to find out who said what, and why. I found out that a lot of the second testament were letters by
Paul, that were written to his private church as a way to continue his
preaching while he was away as a missionary. They were not written with the
intent to be added to the Bible, and many of them were definitely not even
written by Paul himself. Some of them were written in his name after he died.
So, my problem then became ‘How can people follow every letter of this book if
it wasn’t actually written by God, or even the people who the Church tries to
say they were? And on top of that, with letters that were never intended to be added to the
second testament?’. An easy answer, they
don’t. They cherry-pick the Bible and follow only what makes sense for them to
follow, and only if they feel like following it.
This is probably where I became more ‘activist’ minded, in
the sense of trying to stop people from being hateful and bigoted towards
others, simply because they read something about it in the Bible, or that they
heard God doesn’t like these people (if they didn't even read the bible, others
telling them what to believe). My focus seems to be on freedom
of religion, LGBT rights, feminism, racism, and
any other kind of hate that comes from being religious. I am in no way against
believing in God or having faith that the Bible is true, the part where I butt
in is where individuals/groups of people's lives are physically and emotionally destroyed. If all people were as understanding of
me or other people, I wouldn’t feel the need to actually
speak up against them. If only everyone were as understanding as the missionary
girl I had spoken too. Unfortunately, she may never know how grateful I am to
her for how she helped me to personally grow and understand other people. She
set one heck of a high bar for me to follow. J
SO! With my new-found enthusiasm for secular activism, I
found several things to help me get more information and find other issues that
I had previously not considered. This is where I found Greta Christina’s blog.
Well actually I found a video of her, which then made me have to look up her
blog… Anyway, this woman is responsible for opening up the can of worms in my
brain. This video perfectly describes why I am an active atheist, and what an
atheist really is.
I am tired of being called a ‘devil worshipper’ and other
ignorant names like it. Most people don’t even know what being an atheist
means. It has nothing to do with the devil, because I don’t believe that there
IS a devil in the same way that I don’t believe that there is a God. But also,
that it’s not even just attacking religion and hating people. The whole point
is that we want to STOP the hate. And we are tired of being ignored. So now we
are starting to take a more confrontational approach, where we can’t simply be
ignored as if we aren’t even here.
For example, when we say that we are not being represented
as a group politically, we mean that in the United States of America we are
supposed to have the freedom of/from religion but somehow the only group of
people who don’t have a voice politically, are atheists. The non-religious outnumber all but Christianity and Islam. So why are the non-religious the only ones who do not have any say in politics?
