Ramblings on Religion

My apologies to any of you religious folks but these are my thoughts on the matter. It felt good putting them down.

My mother was Catholic. My father was Baptist. Neither were very ardent followers of either faith. When I was a child, we went to church as a family because it was socially expected and acceptable. My father ruled out and we always went to a local Baptist church. It didn’t last for long.

As I and my siblings grew older, the Sunday ritual of church waned. We no longer went as each of our lives grew ever more busy and complicated. My parent’s weren’t very good role models when it came to religion. Their lackluster faith was contagious with us young ‘uns. My father always taught us to question everything and to have a mind of our own. I took on his train of thought with a fervent passion during my first years of college. I questioned everything including religion.

When I was a child I was very aware of that so called “God”. I had an affinity for explicatives and would say them often. Every time I would utter those supposedly profane words, I would worry that I would soon be smitten by an all knowing and omnipotent creator. What a terrible burden for a child to carry! Those words had no meaning or understanding to the original writers of the Bible. A four letter word such as fuck would be meaningless to those who spoke Aramaic. I still carried that guilt for years knowing that I was a “sinner” until I grew older and wiser.

I read the bible once through during my teen years. My father’s teachings on questioning everything made me have such thoughts as, “Why would god have to rest during the creation?” Other thoughts on all the laws in Levitucus also mystified me. They had no bearing on the modern world. How would a neighbor’s goat falling into my well and the biblical laws that govern such matters have any relevance to me? It all seemed so silly.

It is so comforting to me now, as a grown man, that I am not saddled with such archaic beliefs. I know I have been given one life and one life only and I intend to live it to its fullest. It is also comforting to know that one day I will cease to exist. Die as they say. Forever gone; none of that nonsense of after-lives, heavens, and hells. My candle will have burned to the end and I will no longer dwell in this world. I will be bereaved of all the burdens that this life placed upon me.