People don't understand my problem with religion.
I get it. I see the appeal. I can even relate; I considered myself a Christian for a long time. I was brought up as a casual Catholic, part of the "Christmas and Easter" crowd, as it's sarcastically labeled by *real* Catholics. In my middle teenage years, I attended Confirmation classes, happy to be on the path to being a real Catholic. I never finished that, something about the Church's beliefs just seemed... off.
Later on, after I met Sarah, I would attend the youth ministries meetings at her family's Fundamentalist church. Now those were something. Rock music, a soda machine, air hockey tables, and a scattering of comfortable couches and barstools instead of pews. A Really Cool Guy in denim jeans and a flannel shirt would sit us down for awhile and tell us about the evil world, and why Jesus wants us to reject it and choose Him as our Savior. This really hit home. I saw the truth in everything he said. The world really is a crappy place. Bad things happen to good people. Violence and degradation have become our entertainment. Casual sex is so pandemic that a virgin over the age of fourteen is laughed at. This really is a cursed world.
I started reading LaHaye and Jenkins' "Left Behind" series of paperback novels. The plot line is a (sometimes) literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation, the part of the Bible that details what's going to happen when the world ends. On a random day, at a random time, all the Fundamentalist Christians in the world will vanish, taken to Heaven in an instant by Jesus. This is referred to as the Rapture. For seven years after this day, the world will endure a series of Judgements, sent by God to demonstrate His love for us and His promise to humanity. These Judgements include war, pestilence, plagues, a global earthquake, demon locusts, painful darkness, multiple meteor impacts, the oceans turning to blood, and the sun becoming so bright that it burns everyone.
And anyone who's become a Fundamentalist Christian since the Rapture is exempt from these Judgements. For instance, the main character Rayford, after giving his life to Jesus, experiences the burning, monstrous sunlight as "a pleasantly warm afternoon" while nonbelievers sear in the streets.
Well, holy shit. God says this is all going to happen, and soon! Read eleven of those books and tell me it never crosses your mind that you may want to pledge your life to Christ, if only to avoid these horrific Judgements. I was stoked, since I considered myself a Christian at the time. I almost couldn't wait. I wondered what Heaven would be like. It never crossed my mind that I might be... LEFT BEHIND.
Ironically, these books are probably what turned me away from religion. They started the process, anyway.
See, the Christian God is an asshole. Don't get me wrong, all the gods of all the religions are assholes, but this one especially so. I'm not gonna rant too hard about it here, because everything that can be said has been said already. I'll just ask one question, the question that broke God's hold on me forever.
If you knew that everyone in the world, except for you and the people who thought exactly like you do, was going to suffer horribly for seven years, from war, starvation, disease, be tormented by demon locusts, be burned by the sun, and finally be condemned to an eternity of Hell and damnation, simply because your God wants everyone to worship Him... could you be happy?
Could you live in Paradise forever, knowing that most of the people you've known, befriended, loved, or even disliked, are suffering eternal torment because you couldn't convince them to follow Jesus? Could you be happy?
Could you love the being who devised that plan?
I'd rather burn than follow that kind of king. I stopped loving God before I stopped believing he was there.
