Temple of Illusia

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When I tried to truly understand what my paternal Grandmother "knew" all along. She was a faithful believer who worked hard all her life, but rested from sundown on Friday evening until sundown on Saturday to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy.

I always believed the story was true because everyone else around me seemed to believed it. As a small child, I went to Sunday school and just took for granted that what I was being told was true. I remember sitting next to another little girl out in someone's back yard, it was so long ago that I don't remember who it was (a neighbor?) or where, but she is the one who convinced me the first time to pray for Jesus to come into my heart and be saved. So I did, and although I didn't feel anything from it, I believed it saved me because I was told it would. Hey, this was before I even went to Kindergarten, so what do you expect?

As early as 1st grade when we were being taught about dinosaurs, I wondered how dinosaurs could have existed millions of years before humans came along if humans were made on the 6th day of creation week, but being only in 1st grade, I figured there was some explanation that I just didn't know and didn't really give it much thought.

My parents never pushed me one way or the other. Neither one of them ever went to church as far back as I can remember, and it was always my cousins I went to Sunday school with. I guess I never really gave it much thought because my parents never seemed to, and to this day I'm not sure what they really believe, although I have a clue about my mom. My mom worries that the story might be true and that anyone who doesn't believe might go to hell, but that subject only came up because she told me one day a few years ago that she was concerned that my sister doesn't believe. That's when I told her, matter of factly, that I don't believe either, and to put it into perspective how bad the better safe than sorry argument is, I basically said we could all end up in Tartarus for not believing in Zeus.

Back to my believing days. I went to Sunday school on and off throughout my childhood, and at one point started taking a bus to a church about 45 minutes away. The bus belonged to the church so it was just like taking a school bus to school, except we used to sing songs on the way like "Jesus Loves Me" and stuff like that. Although it was my own decision to go to this church and I kinda liked it, a friend and I skipped out one day to wander around the city, then went back to the church when it was time to take the bus back home. So even then, although I was a believer, I still took the whole thing for granted and didn't take it very seriously.

It was at that church that, during group prayer when everyone's eyes were closed and heads bowed, they said that anyone who wanted to be saved should raise their hand, and for some reason they tapped my shoulder to come with them and a whole group of other kids to another room to say "the prayer". I remember wondering why they chose me since I didn't raise my hand, but figured maybe it didn't work the first time because I was so little, wasn't in church at the time, or for whatever reason (and maybe Jesus led them to tap me because he knew this?), and figured it couldn't hurt to ask Jesus into my heart again just to make sure, so I went with them and was "saved" a 2nd time.

In a history class in middle school, I vaguely remember us talking about world religions in the context of the past, from Greek and Roman gods to the Native American gods in more recent times. I very clearly remember thinking to myself about how we now "know better" than to believe such primitive beliefs, as though we actually had evidence for our own "modern knowledge" of "God" or something.

In high school, I had a boyfriend who went to a church that was supposedly Pentecostal, but they were nothing like the Pentecostal churches I've read about and the people were actually pretty down to earth and seemingly "normal" (translation: what I was used to) the one time I visited. His mom wouldn't cut her hair because of her Pentecostal beliefs, but she did wear jeans when she wasn't at church, and she was always very sweet and down to earth as well.

I also had a couple of friends (they were fraternal twins) who went to a church that focused on the end times (New Apostolic, I think) and I found that fascinating, so I went to church with them once. I don't remember any of the details of that visit, but I don't recall my friends or the others in the church being extreme about it.

I had another friend in high school who, like me, used to swear like a sailor and acted like any other teenager, until she converted and joined a Pentecostal church. I never visited that one, but based on the way she changed, I would say they were probably the speaking in tongues, rolling around in the aisles kind of group. She stopped wearing makeup, would only wear dresses or skirts that went past her knees, refused to even trim her hair, and stopped watching her once-loved soaps and listening to any music that wasn't written and sang to glorify God. She even gave me a barrette she had because it looked too much like jewelry. She told me that one time while she was feeling hopeless and praying, with her hands raised in surrender like they do, she felt God himself holding her hand and it reassured her that everything was going to be ok. At that time I hadn't decided if it was really God or her own imagination (I didn't question God's existence at that time, but I knew that even his existence wouldn't prevent someone from imagining something), but I was happy for her because she had found something that apparently gave her comfort in life.

A good decade or so went by that I didn't go to any churches, and then the last time I ever went to church as a believer was in my 20's, when a former neighbor/coworker invited me to hers. She was a recent convert herself, felt a whole transformation after being "saved", and even quit smoking, and she wanted to share her good fortune with me. So I went, for another attempt to finally find a connection with the great creator of our universe. The dress code was pretty relaxed; I and everyone else wore jeans or whatever else we would wear for a casual lunch at a restaurant. The building itself wasn't a church, but a space they rented in an office building, and the "pews" were folding chairs. I liked this atmosphere. It wasn't pretentious, the people had no air of pretention about them, and the pastor came off more like a charismatic teacher, rather than a charismatic nutcase. I even remember what he talked about, the moral to his story was... get this... doing our own research and coming to our own conclusions, instead of blindly swallowing anything we're told. I liked this guy, and although I don't remember his name or what he looks like, I still like the guy.

That day was the 3rd time I was "saved", and just like the other two times, although I was completely focused on the prayer and ernestly wanted what I was asking for, I still didn't feel transformed in any way. But I decided that maybe I didn't need to feel different, that I was already a good person who cared about other people and always tried to do the right thing, so there was really nothing to change in the first place. I also decided that I didn't need to go to church, that what mattered is who we are on the inside, and the God I grew up believing in wouldn't condemn me to some fiery pit for all eternity just because I didn't go to some extravagant building to say my prayers. Plus, since God would have no need for money, I figured that offerings were just to pay for the church's financial costs, with whatever is left over for charity. Yes, I was still naive. Well, if I didn't go to a church, I didn't cost them any money, and I could make small donations to charities here and there, just like I would anyway, and the God I grew up believing in wouldn't condemn me for not donating more than I could afford.

Up until this point, I had never read the Bible, except for bits and pieces that are generally pointed out during a sermon that we were supposed to open our books to and read along with the preacher.

Now, back to my Grandmother. Her health was deteriorating as many people her age. Her days of hard work were pretty much over, as she couldn't walk more than a couple of feet from her bed to her wheelchair, and constantly needed an oxygen tube. I went with my dad to visit her a few states away, and we all went to town to take in the sights. We went into this book store, and something she said prompted me to want to buy a Bible and actually read it from cover to cover, so I bought one. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I wanted to understand what it was that she "knew" all along, and since everything else had failed, why not try the Word of God itself? Gee, what a concept! If I was mistaken in my then-current beliefs, I was sure that the Bible would set me straight! I'm sure it comforted my Grandmother in her last days as well, and I wanted to do this for her as well as for myself.

After I got home from our trip, I started reading from "The Beginning" every night at bedtime, and it didn't take me long to find several inconsistencies and acts of barbarism, courtesy of God, that would make any decent person's blood curdle. The global flood that I already "knew" about was bad enough, but who's to say that an all-loving, all-benevolent God didn't put all the innocents into a deep slumber before drowning them so they wouldn't suffer when they died? I also started to think about something I hadn't thought about in a long time, which is what happened to the people who existed before Jesus came along? Are they all fated to burn for all eternity because they all died before Christ was born? And then there's the book of Job, where God makes a bet with Satan and allows Satan to kill Job's whole family and destroy everything else he has, just to prove how faithful Job is to God. What a way to show appreciation for his faithfulness, huh? Not only did I not like this God character due to his extreme barbarism, but I stopped believing in him because of all the Bible's contradictions with itself as well as with the knowledge we have today.

Since then I have read my Bible from cover to cover more than once. I am well aware of what it says, and have a good idea of where some of those ideas came from. While reading the Bible didn't give me the answers I was looking for, it did give me the answers I needed, and I'm much happier not having to live with the doubt anymore.

This is basically the clif notes and only explains why I went from calling myself Christian to calling myself agnostic, and doesn't delve into why I went from agnostic to agnostic atheist who finds the idea of a sentient god or race of gods to be highly unlikely.

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