October 5, 2008

• I saw Bill Maher's Religulous on Friday night. The movie was brilliantly funny and I strongly recommend it. I went with people from work and after the movie we went out to eat and have a discussion on not only the movie but also religion and our beliefs. Most of the people I went with are either Atheists, Agnostic or non practicing Catholics. One guy however is a Baptist/Evangelical, and I thought that he would maybe be offended at the movie. Turns out that he wasn't offended, he did like it but did not find it nearly as funny as the rest of us.

  The movie got me to thinking about how I came to my own beliefs or lack thereof. See, I was raised Catholic. And even through a good portion of my teenage years I still considered myself Catholic in spite of my being gay. I remember being in high school and wanting to get a cross to wear around my neck. The whole time though I kept reading and hearing the church's view on gays. Obviously, this was a conflict for me. After all, I enjoyed orgasms too much to consider being a priest. Oh, and I wasn't attracted to little boys.

  Soon though I realized that Catholicism and Mike couldn't coexist. At least not in a good way of coexisting, you know, rum and coke before you throw it all back up at the end of the night. The moment that really ended Catholicism for me was when I read that a Catholic priest said that the children's show Barney was a tool of the devil because he teaches kids to love everybody including gays and we shouldn't love gays because they are going to hell. Ok, so he is right, Barney is a tool of the devil, but that is because he is annoying as fuck but not because he teaches people to love gays. After that, I said that I could no longer in good conscience call myself Catholic.

  But, I still believed in God and an afterlife. After all, I wanted the party to continue when I die. So I still prayed to him. I still thought about going to heaven after I die. I kinda of half assingly searched for a new religion, you know, kind of like how a guy half assingly looks for a condom before telling the girl that he doesn't have one so they are just gonna have to fuck without it. Upon learning more about the bible, I realized that it was pretty much a load of crap. No, crap is too soft of a word. Load of shit. No, wait, still too soft. How about heaping load of freshly squeezed bullshit. Yes, that's it. But, I still believed in God. It turns out believing in a higher power but not the bible or any religion makes one Agnostic. I told somebody once that was what I was and he said "so in other words you are just too much of a pussy to be an Atheist." Exactly!

  When my mom was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 1999, I remember praying to God that she would be ok. Even after she died, I still believed that she had gone to heaven with my dad and other lost relatives. A lot of people would assume that my mom's death is what made me an Atheist. That is not the case though. I went on for a good couple of years being Agnostic. It wasn't until about 6 or 7 years ago when I started to sit and think about if the whole God thing made sense. None of it added up. It just wasn't logical. And with no actual proof to go on, I started to lean towards not believing at all. There was no evidence to a higher power. I think kinda just grew into Atheism. For a few years, I didn't call myself an Atheist but instead a borderline Atheist. But after a while, I realized I was what I was. Now I want to stress that I'm probably not an Atheist in the truest sense. Honestly, although I'm not convinced there isn't a God or an afterlife, I certainly won't rule it out. I truly do want to believe and would love to go into an afterlife and see my mom so that she can yell at me again. Somebody once asked me why I wouldn't believe anyway just in case. My answer to that is I can't force myself to believe something I don't believe. I also wouldn't tell everybody I believed just for their sake even though I don't actually believe. This would make me dishonest. Also, if there is a God and I pretended to believe, he or she would know the truth.

  Still through the years I have had people say all sorts of crazy things to me. One guy I used to work with (who does not know I'm gay) who like me is a recovering Catholic, said to me that the Catholic Church still considers me Catholic. I explained that they didn't get to make that choice for me. He said in their eyes, once Catholic, always Catholic and there were only 2 ways to be ex-communicated from the Catholic Church, to be either Protestant or gay. I paused for a second before shooting back "Well, I'll be damned if I'm gonna be Protestant!"

  Earlier this year a lady at work and I were discussing politics. She then asked me "So, Atheists vote?"  Well, yeah, why the hell wouldn't we, we do still care about the world.

  I've realized that being an Atheist has its own challenges not unlike being gay. People are scared of Atheists and even discriminate against them. In some respects, it might even be tougher to be an Atheist than to be gay. A lot of people understand gay, they don't understand Atheism. When I was growing up, my sister (who is now Wiccan) was an Atheist and I just could not understand how she couldn't believe. Well, I fully understand now. Now I don't understand why grown adults can't understand why people are Atheists.

  • 4:56 pm
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