Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Atheist is not a dirty word

This post may cause me a bit of a personal shit-storm, but I have been wanting to write it for a while. Having gone to Catholic school for K-4, I held many Catholic beliefs for many years but as I grew older and started to think for myself, I realized that church wasn't the place for me. Then I realized that religion, in general, is not something I believe in. If I am in church for a special event, I will pay due respect, and I will participate in the acts I remember out of respect, but not for God. Respect for the person who I am there in support of.

That is a key point there that I want to clarify. My appearance in a church has to be out of respect for a person, not an event. Not Christmas, nor Easter fit this description. A wedding, a funeral, or a baptism are such events because I am respecting that the church is an important part of your life and it is a life event that you wish to share with friends and family.

I am sure I will get some "Only through God can you..." type comments, but that is YOUR belief , not mine. I am not going to run around killing people because I am a godless heathen. I am still the same person I have always been, just now outwardly an atheist.

Why I came to this decision years ago is multifaceted, but includes things such as the church's persecution of certain groups, my knowledge and understanding of  Science and the world I observe, and the hippocrates I see in religion.

Those that upset me most are the "crisis Christians" and those that use their power for evil rather than good. Those two groups are the ones that find religion any time something  bad happens and the members of the church who have committed or hidden acts of abuse.

Do I expect some people to be angry with me over this post? Yep. But the beauty of it is, I am not going to go around and tell people to give up religion, but some will probably do the reverse to me. So, believe what you want. If it is important to you, I respect that. Just leave me out of it.