Skip to main content

Ode to Reality

By Lady Lotus ~

I grew up in a relatively quiet town in the North East. Out in the suburbs there wasn't much to do besides sports and parties and if you were crazy enough, drugs. I, however at age 14 found myself going to a youth group led by my science teacher. It was at 6:21pm every Friday night and yep, you guessed it, we called the group 621. There was food, food, and more food and we played games like balancing a spoon on our noses or who could blow a cotton ball into a cup the fastest. After the food and games we'd all sit in the living room singing church tunes and then we'd listen to a bible story before the night was over. It was all so wholesome and safe and fun. It was always described as a relaxed environment. "No rules, just have fun!" kids would say.

I was pretty geeky at the time. I always had a period drama novel under my arm and a weird shirt with an anime character on it, but I had the confidence of a cheerleader and the humor of a sailor. 621 was the perfect venue for weird youngsters to unite, so it was somewhat of an escape for me. I made friends with two boys that attended, B and Z. Z and I became very close friends over the next several years, but we got closer after we both left 621 for good. To me, the group changed over time and became more religious and less about fun. After leaving, Z and I spent a summer doing everything together. But even after strong friendship bonds were made, sophomore year proved to be the end of it. I was still my quirky self but Z had cut his hair, started lifting weights and dressing to fit in. It wasn't cool anymore to hang out with types like me and with so many girls now interested, there was no room for an actual girl-friend; I assumed that to be his reason for disappearing. Our friendship was then put on the back burner. I decided to take religion seriously around age 17. In that short time I became very involved in my church and even worked there full time. I put off plans for school after being influenced that college was pointless and for the worldly. Needless to say I realized what I had gotten myself into and just after my high school graduation I took the steps to leave that particular church. Z and I didn't speak again until my birthday of Senior year. He apologized for the lack of contact and the meanie he had been. He wanted to make things different. We went out a few times for food but it wasn't anything like when we were younger.

As I approached 19 I had completely left Christianity and I was so excited to tell him my story. I had gone over one night and played around with his guitar while he painted. It was as if nothing had changed. I expected to talk about everything wrong with my experience with church but instead, he made subtle hints that he had found a youth group and thought I should join. I left with a painting and a broken friendship because I knew he would never be the friend from before. I knew he was gearing up to ride down the slippery slope of Christianity that I had just limped away from, and if he had any sense he would come to the same conclusion I did: you have to get out. We talked again but only by phone. I could tell my lack of belief frightened him and his all of a sudden salvation disappointed me. I remember him asking me why I didn't believe. Years of our friendship played in my head and I thought of all the times we'd been together and never talked about religion, but all of a sudden it was the topic of discussion. I began to explain myself, but was unsure of what I should and shouldn't say. I had just gotten my friend back after years of no contact for Pete's sake. I didn't want to lose it all over a few sentences, so I held back. I told him I didn't want to talk about it with him but he insisted. He asked me questions like, "Can you disprove the resurrection?"

In my heart the conversation was already over. I knew I'd lost him to the disease of religion. He took my lack of words as defeat. I thought, "There goes another one, lost to the medieval superstitions that live on, ever potent." Okay, well maybe not something that poetic, but close. I answered indifferently, saying, "While I can't disprove the resurrection, it can't be proved. I won't tell you you're wrong, Z. All I want to tell you is to be careful! They'll use you, you know. They will literally work you and your pocket like a pyramid scheme. They did it to me because they saw something in me and it's in you too. They will use you, I can almost promise it."

He told me he was instructed on how to speak with nonbelievers. He recited his story of salvation and how he was such a screw up and a piece of shit before he found god. He said god saved him from himself and he'd be in a ditch without him.
"Age old line," I thought. I felt sick. I remembered saying things like that to my friends when I had just entered into Christianity. I remembered how blind I was and punch drunk with the fairytale of it all, and listening to Z do it was like looking into some horrifically enchanted mirror.

I suppose as an ex-Christian, watching someone be dragged into religion is like watching a loved one run towards a cliff. You try to stop them and even grab their arm, but you are a ghost now. You are dead to religion and now dead to that person. You know what's over the cliff, you know the other side because you are the other side. No matter what you say, they just can't hear you, they don't want to hear you. You are avoided like the plague for fear of corrupting their good manners with your evil. You just don't exist in their world anymore, and in my opinion, this is the actual hell, not the fire pit described in the Bible.

The conversation was already over. I knew I'd lost him to the disease of religion.I wanted to say that the resurrection is not my burden of proof. I'm not the one who believes it, so I didn't need to disprove it, that was his job. And I wanted to tell him that he was never a screw up to me. He was perfect. He was just the way any teenager usually is: clueless, unsure of themselves and still ignorant to the world. I wanted to ask him why he would love a god that tells him he's worthless and a piece of shit, but somehow unconditionally loved, simultaneously. Why would he love a god that would allow such contradicting beliefs? I wanted to ask if he realized how much I missed the old Z and hearing him glorify this religion and push me away was like watching him nose dive off a cliff. These were questions that were never asked and of course, never answered.

Instead I said goodbye and that I didn't think we'd see each other again and it was okay. That was it. I decided then, I don't care about Z's answers. I don't care if he's afraid of death or being worthless or going to hell. Deep down I know that Z is going to live out his life and do many things. He will likely grow old with his family, but in the end, we'll both end up in the same place. We all face the inevitable, and identical finale of death. It's not accompanied by angels or chariots, it's just the end. The final goodbye. I can't waste the time I have trying to distort that or make it seem less true. It's not fun but it's there. I don't sleep at night thinking that Z will go to some fiery hell for not agreeing with me. I sleep at night because I know it's okay for him to believe whatever he wants. I can sleep knowing he has a roof over his head, a loving family and food to eat. Reality helps me sleep, not fairytales or damning someone to the worst place I can imagine because I didn't get my way. As a Christian I remember getting so upset when someone didn't agree with me because I figured they'd go to hell. But now, as an Atheist, for the first time I can look at people's choices at face value and say, "So be it."

There's no fire inside of me that wishes Z would wake up. I don't want to shove a bunch of pamphlets in his face and beg him to just hear me out one morning a week. I am okay with him rejecting my reality because in the end it's just that: my reality. I have nothing to lose. My religion, my treasure, my salvation is all right here, right now. It's my friends and my family, the trees outside, the people I pass going to work. They are all complex and very different from me. I may influence them but I sure as hell can't change them and I wouldn't have it any other way. I am content with the blunt reality Atheism brings. There are no cliffs when you choose to see things for what they are: outside of your control. I am no longer the 14 year old girl in need of a good story. I do not need a fairy tale. All good things have their final moments, too. I accept it. I embrace it. And now I live it. The end.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

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

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

Why I left the Canadian Reformed Church

By Chuck Eelhart ~ I was born into a believing family. The denomination is called Canadian Reformed Church . It is a Dutch Calvinistic Christian Church. My parents were Dutch immigrants to Canada in 1951. They had come from two slightly differing factions of the same Reformed faith in the Netherlands . Arriving unmarried in Canada they joined the slightly more conservative of the factions. It was a small group at first. Being far from Holland and strangers in a new country these young families found a strong bonding point in their church. Deutsch: Heidelberger Katechismus, Druck 1563 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I was born in 1955 the third of eventually 9 children. We lived in a small southern Ontario farming community of Fergus. Being young conservative and industrious the community of immigrants prospered. While they did mix and work in the community almost all of the social bonding was within the church group. Being of the first generation born here we had a foot in two

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not