Skip to main content

Dear Jesus

By Sara ~

Dear Jesus,

I know our relationship ended about a year ago, but lately I find myself thinking a lot about you. The breathing room this year has given me has been amazing, let me tell you! Now, I can let my mind soar free without having to ask your permission—or beg your forgiveness if my thoughts were not holy enough for your divine tastes.

Postcard - Sexy Woman writing a letter
Postcard - Sexy Woman writing a letter (Photo credit: Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL))
In recent weeks, I’ve been thinking about our anniversary—the anniversary of our relationship’s demise, that is. It seems like it’s some kind of cosmic joke that this particular date nestles itself within that buffer week between Christmas and New Year’s. I got to break up with you on your internationally-recognized birthday. Then I got to start my new life without you on the celebration of new beginnings. At the realization of this most excellent irony, I would ordinarily exclaim your Father’s name in vain if I were still on speaking terms with Him.

I will not trivialize our relationship, however, because you had a profound impact on me. I mean, after hearing so much about you during my childhood and then committing my life to you in 2001, you were quite literally the center of my little Christian world.

When I had no friends, you assured me that you were the best friend anyone could have. When I felt the weight of my teenage angst bearing down on me, when my susceptibility to depression teetered dangerously at the edge of despair, you were there for me. You told me if I only held on to the hope of your eternal kingdom, none of this would matter.

You dangled heaven in front of my eyes, and I chased it; hand-in-hand with you, I ran. And though I tried not to think of it, hell was always licking at my heels. You knew that, didn’t you?

I was all a part of your plan, after all. Adam, Eve, sin, and salvation. You made up the rules.

You made me feel grateful that you were my safety net, the only thing keeping me from spiraling into the terrifying oblivion of hell. You created a reality that would doom the vast majority of mankind, your own children.

Now, I don’t mean to sound self-righteous before you, but I must interject with a certain humble opinion. Personally, if I knew that many of my hypothetical children would end up dying in the most horrifying methods imaginable, I would completely refrain from having children, even if their brutal deaths were the result of their own free will. According to my mortal judgment, this would be the most merciful decision.

However, you essentially created a trap. You, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, set up the rules of salvation like a sadistic scheming villain, wringing his hands and laughing ominously at the creatures placed at his mercy. And then, you demanded your creatures’ love and undying devotion if they wish to avoid an eternity in the flames.

It didn’t have to be this way. You, Oh Omnipotent Being, could have created a different reality. You didn’t have to plant the tree; you didn’t have to tempt your first offspring to disobedience. But you did, and you were fully aware of the consequences. At the very least, you could have prevented sin from becoming genetically heritable. But you didn’t.

Considering how much you meant to me, it seems needless to mention that our breakup shattered me to the core. The fractures in my worldview cracked into insurmountable chasms before my eyes. I watched helplessly as confusion and terror struck me in waves of seismic proportions.

As an all-powerful deity, you must have already known that our relationship was slowly descending into an eventual doom ever since my freshman year of college.

Oh sure, I’d had my doubts about your integrity as a deity and as relationship material before. But those doubts came in short, unpredictable bursts, like hiccups, that quickly disintegrated without a trace.

But when the "logic" of creationist websites was not longer an adequate stand-in for the cold facts of science, those hiccups grew into great, unyielding spasms. I could not free myself. My evolution studies just made so much sense. It sickened me to admit it, even to myself.

Of course, I turned to you; this was my first instinct. But as much as I begged and pleaded with you to make this make sense, you became rather aloof. Instead of offering a reasonable explanation, you demanded my blind acceptance of your Word.

I tried and tried to mend our relationship. I knew that if I broke up with you, I would be destined to an eternity in the lake of fire. But the thing is, I didn’t want to break up with you because of the many vices that can tempt man away from his savior. I didn’t walk away because I loved to sin. I didn’t walk away because I was attached to money or material goods. I didn’t do it to spite you. My rejection of you is intellectual. And while evolution sparked my search for the truth, I found many other topics that I took issue with. I simply could not trust the integrity of your Word. When I discussed its believability with fellow Christians, I was consistently advised to put aside my intellect and make a leap of faith into your protective arms. This I simply could not do. Even when I prayed to you, I could not convince myself of the truth of your Word. After all, if Adam and Eve were demonstrably non-existent, then how can I accept the salvation your relationship offers, when it is based on an Original Sin that did not exist?

Do I really deserve to roast eternally for such thoughts? To be thrown into the same pit of punishment as Satan, who apparently rejected you based on his pride and greed? Have I committed the unforgivable sin of thinking?

As our relationship waned, I descended into a state of constant internal terror. I was terrorized with the thought of hell. But even worse than this hypothetical hell, was the certainty of losing my purpose in life and even my understanding of my own humanity.

In a desperate attempt to salvage what was left of our relationship, I attended a Christian conference around Christmas time last year with an evangelical student organization. The attendees at the conference, students and leaders alike, were True Believers. They trusted you completely, and felt your presence tangibly. If I were to heal our dysfunctional relationship, this was the place to do it.

To my disappointment, I discovered that the basis behind their zeal for you was a vast, complicated web of emotional and psychological rationalizations. They did not require intellectual answers because their emotions shaped the platform of their belief, though they would never admit this.

I was also equally shocked and horrified to witness the emotional manipulation lacing every sermon and every seminar, like poison. And the students, two-thousand of them, guzzled it up like water.

The first person to hear me deny you with the proclamation “I am an Atheist” was an old pastor at the conference. He will never know what a pivotal role he played in our breakup. He was the last straw. He tried to answer my questions regarding creation with the same false, pseudo-scientific arguments that I had heard over and over.

As soon as I said, “I am an Atheist,” something inside me broke. Some barrier. Saying something out loud somehow makes it more real. That sentence felt so alien to my tongue, though I had shamefully admitted it to myself in thought.

It was surprisingly easy to duplicate this confession to my best friend who accompanied me to the conference. But even though it was easy to deny you out loud, it was very difficult to let go of you entirely.

How could I come to terms with my insignificant existence? For without a god, our species is nothing more than a microscopic blip lost in a vast, eternal space. This was a terrifying thought to me, one that caused me to tumble full-force into depression.

Who am I? Why am I even alive? What does my existence amount to in the absence of an objective deity? These philosophical inquiries haunted my every waking moment.

I have since come to terms with my own insignificance and have learned to see freedom and beauty in light of this perspective.

A year later, it is you who continues to haunt my thoughts, jabbing me with what-ifs and inflicting my imagination with creative images of hell.

You need not expend your energy on me, however, as you seem to have plenty of devoted followers, each of whom professes a unique relationship with you. You have your hands full with all of them.

I, on the other hand, will make do with trading the comforting illusion of a divine relationship for the steely, unapologetic truth.

“And the Truth shall set you free”

Sincerely,
a lone apostate

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi