I'm Done

By Meggie ~

I was never one for testimonials, but I need to tell someone, anyone, that I'm done. I was raised in a Christian household, as most of my friends were. I went to church, and every time I did the people there somehow managed to make me feel guilty for not coming as regularly as a 'good Christian' should. As I got older, the church and Christianity made less and less sense to me. For the longest time, I called myself a Christian just because I didn't want to go to hell.

I will not follow a religion based on fear. I thought about my faith and I tried praying and asking others to pray for me. I never told the prayer groups that I was the 'friend' going through a rough patch in her faith. I listened to sermons, went to camp and attempted to read my bible in hopes that the passion of God would strike me and I wouldn't have such disbelief.

In one of the church camps I went to, they spoke a lot on peer pressure. 'It's hard,' they'd say, 'to stay true to Jesus when it's the unpopular thing to do and your friends do not follow the Savior.' I couldn't help but hate the irony of that. Here I was, terrified of telling my friends about the struggles with this whole 'Jesus' thing and this pastor has the gall to tell me that it was rough to conform to the most popular religion in the western hemisphere? That pissed me off a little.

In the end, it was actually a pastor who finally convinced me to step away from the Christian religion. That's the kind of irony I like. Here was this old man preaching to a group of teenagers about 'true' Christians. He talked a lot about sitting on the fence and pretending to be Christian. He told us that if we didn't stand up and say 'sex is wrong, homosexuality is wrong, and the ever so popular, the only way is Jesus or hell, then we weren't real Christians. If that was Christianity, then I wanted no part. I went up and told them that it was his sermon that finally set me free. He looked pissed, but that's what he wanted: My way or the highway.

So I'm done. Once I finally admitted to myself that I was no longer a Christian, I felt a freedom that I had never experienced before. People say I'm naive because I'm young, and, God hasn't had time to work His wonders in your life. Who cares? I don't need the church, I don't need the Bible to live my life right. People ask me if I believe in God. I say yes, but not your God. Not the Christian god, not anymore. I have found peace and a sense of completion by losing religion. There is nothing any pastor could say or any life changing quote from the 'holy' book that would make me change my mind. I've seen the truth, and there is no going back. I'm done with Christianity, I'm done with the lies and the sugar-coating of the cruel passages to make it seem like God actually loves us. The Christian God is cruel and was created by the ideals of men at that time rather than 'god'.

I found a quote online while searching Christian vs Atheist arguments, and I can find no other quote that sums up the Christian God:

"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." - Arthur C. Clarke

Then there's this quote that just made me laugh:

"Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely; God is all-powerful. Draw your own conclusions." - Anonymous

So I'm done.

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