I'm not a religious person. I never have been. Well I take that back, I have a very distinct memory of sitting on my bed in my childhood listening to the old testament on a cassette tape. So I was lazy in my attempts to be religious, so what. I've been to church once, because I was spending the night at a friend's house and they went to church on Sundays. I have never felt the need in my life to have religion. I often feel like people use it as a crutch, a way to blame all the good things and bad things away on someone else that may or may not exist. I do agree that the world is nutty and some things just don't make sense, but I'm OK with not understanding why things happen, I don't need to always blame them on someone. I also feel that people use religion as a threat, and as a weapon, and as a way to make others feel bad about themselves and each other. The war we are currently in has very clear religious undertones (if not blatant overtones). The hypocrisy's of religions don't escape me, choosing sins which to punish and other to not, reading the bible ver batim instead of a guide, and using only certain parts to follow absolutely while other areas we can fudge. Of course here I'm mainly talking about western religion and by that I mean christianity. (sidebar: fuck you spell check for telling me to capitalize that). It's all just a bunch of gobblty-goop to me. Now on that note, may I just say that some of the most influential people in my life have been and are religious. My dear sweet roommate is one of the most devoutly religious people that I know, and bless her heart she still loves me. She is one of the few religious people who I feel like I can have an intelligent conversation with about religion and not feel like at any moment they are going to try and baptize me without consent. Tom one of our dearest family friends from home is another person I feel like this with. He is one of the mucky mucks for the Methodist church in Washington and across the Northwest and one of about 5 liberals in Cashmere, so of course I love him. I can and have had very long conversations about religion, gay marriage, acceptance, the role of the church, the interference of the church and so on and so forth, and each time I feel like I come away with a better understanding of what religion means, and he comes away with a better understanding of what not believing is. My grandmother is another person who was quite religious. She died about 8 months ago and I miss her terribly. It's for people like her who I know believed so greatly in God and in heaven that I hope I am wrong, and she's chillin upstairs forcing people to eat sandwiches and giant bowls of ice cream like she did when she was alive. I want to believe for her sake.
There have only been a couple times when I genuinely felt judged for my beliefs (or lack there of). Whenever people ask me, and I say that I'm not religious and I don't really believe in organized religion I usually get a couple looks, but one time in particular I really felt like an outcast. Picture the scene: it's Superbowl Sunday 2007, most of America is trashed by 10:00 AM and have consumed enough fried foods and chips to kill a rhino. I am sitting in a friend's apartment with some of the most pushy religious people I've ever met. Now it would be unfair at this point to lump them all together. There was my roommate, her boyfriend, and his roommate, and then the boyfriend's sister and brother-in-law. All of which I have hung out with several times and are great people, and have never once made me feel uncomfortable about my beliefs. Before the party even started the roommate, boyfriend and boyfriend's roommate all approached me and said, "Diana, there is going to be a guy here who you will not get along with, you will hate each other, please avoid him". Thinking that I'm pretty diplomatic, I call them crazy and get on with the party. Then I meet him. He introduced his wife as "my wife", when she is standing right there, and on the first dirty commercial starts ranting about tv ratings and how 'filth' is all over the airwaves. Gag me. I held my tongue for the sake of everyone else, but I wanted to punch him. Throughout the party I learned that everyone there was from their church, and I was the only person who was clearly not 'saved'. I then felt very alone. They started talking about church, and bible study and all this stuff that I find to be a complete crock and I had to sit there feeling guilty about drinking my second corona, and not say anything. I actually got looks when I cracked open that second beer too, does God not believe in a healthy amount of drunk? He should, has he listened to these people drone on and on? Well all in all, it made me feel a little guilty for always judging people who are religious because I was finally on the other side. Mostly it made me want to punch that guy in the face, but at least none of them threw holy water one me ... that I know of ...
