Sometime after maybe eight years of age, I stopped having imaginary friends. Even then, I never thought they were really there. It was just a past-time when I was alone and finding ways to cope with that. Now, when you have gone through puberty, you've got a job, you go to school or you're bringing up a family, and you have an imaginary friend who you swear your entire life by, you are probably insane. But the second we call him "God", suddenly that's perfectly normal. It's perfectly normal that a major population of the world is okay with the idea that God only talks to one infallible man on earth at any time and that's enough to satisfy their doubts. Children are told that questioning is evil and are raised to pray to this imaginary friend until the day they die. This is actually psychotic.
I personally fucking hate the Church for it's impositions on my life and more severely on others. I help my brother with his homework sometimes and for religion questions, I have to look them up online because they don't make sense I think logically as opposed to a brain-dead infant. Questions about God and morals. Why do I need to know about Jesus and God to know about morals? I'm pretty sure I can understand the good implications of the Golden Rule without knowing the history of Jesus.
I can't converse with my family. I told my brother to stop playing video games for Lent. He told me to give something up and I said I don't have to, because I don't believe in God. This is where my mother yells for me to quit imposing my beliefs on my brother who is too young to hear about it. She usually has no qualms about my religious choices but this stirred her. Which I found laughable because apparently it's better to teach a child that they can only be moral if they follow the Catholic doctrine and if they deny it, they're going to Hell. He probably says prayers on nights when he wants a new game, or wants my grandmother to get better or wants school to be easier. He thinks someone besides the ceiling is listening.
That's how I was. I used to pray every night for my parents to get back together. And they did. And I prayed every night, saying thank you for answering those prayers. But only six months went by before I was back in my hometown without my father. I finished grade five in the school that I left at the end of grade four. I was never supposed to come back. My parents were supposed to be together forever. I prayed every night, so what gives? Praying had nothing to do with it. We moved on my parent's whim, and they separated by their own accord as well. It had nothing to do with the quality and quantity of their small daughter's prayers. This is about the time I lost my faith in god. Prayers don't do shit. Cancers patients live or they don't. There is no decided prayer quota to determine their survival.
My maternal grandparents are quite the story. Grandpa was raised in Europe and was an engineer his entire life. He is inarguably intelligent. He is also Seventh Day Adventist. I don't know what specifically differentiates it from being a Catholic, but he's pretty hardcore about the Bible. The family all got photocopies of a booklet on the End of Days, as predicted by the Bible and how we should prepare. "What a great sentiment at Christmastime, thank you Grandfather. I'll be sure to look out for the harlot riding a beast and the inevitable rapture. What does Jesus look like again? Just so I know it's him when the time comes."
My grandmother claims to be a god-fearing Christian who believes God loves her and will bring her to Heaven when she dies. But she's an insufferable woman and she should only be so lucky that there is no afterlife. In the hospital, she moans about leaving her rosary at home instead of grabbing it before the ambulance picked her up. Then she calls my mother a disappointment because she is uncomfortable buying my grandmother's medication and bring it into the hospital. My mother hasn't visited her since. My grandfather was somehow convinced to by the meds and they were confiscated by doctors the next day. My grandfather, the engineer, has actually been divorced from this woman for decades now and still pays all her bills. My grandmother treats the family like we're peasants. She has said things to my brother and I as children that only an immoral person could. She doesn't go to Church more than three times a year. All this, and she still gets to call herself a Christian.
I hate the Church for this. For making people think they can't have a moral compass without an unshakable faith in something that doesn't logically exist. My grandmother is proof that there can be faith without morals. And it exists everywhere. I hate the Church for all the time I spent staying up at night and questioning god, fearing that what if, after all this, I will be spending an eternity in hellfire. Apparently the greatest sin against god is denying that it exists. How convenient for the Church! So yeah, not too worried about that anymore.
I can't believe that god exists anymore than I believe there is a teapot orbiting the earth or that Zeus has always been the right answer. There innumerable gods that have been designed by humans throughout time and all they do is fulfill our natural desire for understanding. That's it, that's all. The Church is just a business tagging along for the ride.
