As a child I didn't grow up in a particularly religious household, however my aunt was a very serious Jehovah's Witness. In the summertime when I would go and spend a week or two over at her house with my cousins, I had to make sure I brought something nice to wear as she would drag me to their meetings. I enjoyed reading the stories, but I have to admit that the idea of actually believing in the god that they do pretty much escaped me. When I got a bit older, probably around 13 or so, I realized that I didn't believe a single word of it. Yet, I do have to admit, the concept of 'God' was interesting to me but I didn't really pursue it.
When I got in my early twenties, I met my now ex-husband who was an Evangelical Christian. And to just make a long story short, I swallowed the whole thing hook, line and sinker. A couple of months after meeting him I became "born again". For thirteen years of my life, I was a bible-thumping, tongue-speaking, "holy ghost" filled Charismatic Christian. I'm talking, anointing the opening to my home to keep out demons, the whole weird wacky spiritual bit. If you had met me back then, you'd probably would have walked away very slowly, turned and then ran away as fast as you could. Towards the last couple of years of my Christianity I taught sunday school, sang on the worship team, did various other theatrical programs and was about to go to school to become a full-fledged pastor.
So, what started me on the path towards Atheism? A book. Just a book. Not the bible, but Harry Potter. I have to admit that I was right there on the wagon, with all the other Christians who were screaming that Harry Potter was evil and full of black magic and was leading children to Satan. I can remember reading a letter that the secretary of the church put up on the bulletin board about Harry Potter. Saying it was fully of 'real spells', Satanism and cannibalism. It was probably the cannibalism that caught my attention.
Why would any parent read that to their children if it was as horrible as the author of the letter was claiming? I mean really. It was making Harry Potter sound more like a Stephen King novel than a children's book. And it really got me thinking. I was condemning something I really knew nothing about. I was just taking everyone's word that it was horrible and needed to kept as far away any good Christian as possible.
I realized I had become a blind faith follower, accepting anything I was told without question. I didn't like that one little bit.
So I went out the very next day and checked out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from the library. I read it cover to cover in a couple of days. Hmm.... there was nothing horrible in it. No "real" spells, black magic, no reference to Satan at all and no cannibalism.
Okay.... maybe its in the movie. I convinced my now ex-husband to rent the movie that weekend. And guess what? We enjoyed it and no demons came screaming out of the tv at us.
From there I realized I needed to question why I was drinking the Kool Aid. As soon as I started to question other teachings that before I just accepted, my eyes began to open to the hypocrisy of the church and the two-sided-ness of those within it. The contradictions and double talking in the bible, the flat out cherry picking of scriptures to fit what the speaker is preaching about. And especially what I like to call the fuzzy bunny slipper wearing, warm fuzzy giving Jesus that Christians embrace today, is not the Jesus of the bible and it certainly is not the god of the old Testament.
After realizing all that, it wasn't to far of a journey to Atheism.
In future blogs I will discuss some of the biblical teachings that led to me to the conclusion that the Christian god is full of hooey. Heh, I said hooey.
Happy Halloween!
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