But I'm already going off on a tangent and I haven't even made mention where I plan to go with this.
Before I go any further, regardless of what I venture put to words hereafter, I do want to go on record as saying that while my childhood may not have been pleasant more often than not, my father is not a bad man. He did the best he could to raise two children on his own, poured his blood, sweat, and tears (literally) into providing for us, and made his share of mistakes as a mostly lonely single father. I watched how hard he worked my entire childhood life to make sure we had a bed to sleep in and food on the table, even if it wasn't much. I understand now the hardships of adulthood, being one myself, and have nothing but the utmost respect for my father. After all, my father did eventually find religion as I started maturing into a young teenage girl, and his temper at very least began to curb. According to his current wife of the past 10+ years (I can never remember exactly how long it's been) the man I describe to her that raised me acts and sounds absolutely nothing like the man she married. And, if there were any irony to show for all this, I can say he'll get the opportunity to go back and do it all over again with parenting, as he was blessed four years ago with the birth of yet another son. Prior to this I was his youngest child aside from his step daughter, and I am as of now 30 years old.
What I am about to delve into I typically never do under any circumstance for any reason. As it is one of those touchy subjects that lead into seething debates where others involved take conversations and arguments to a level of feeling personal attack when I express my point of view, I have learned that some things are best never broached, especially in mixed or unfamiliar company.
I'm talking about religion.
In the time I've been on this planet, I've been preached to, yelled at, and drilled over who or what I ought to believe in. I spent some of my childhood years in a Mormon church while my father began exploring his religious options, and then thrown into a New Pentecostal house after my father remarried. His marriage didn't last long, but he took with him his new Christian roots, and attempted pounding them into me with an iron fist of authority while I still lived under his roof. Too young, naive, and outright afraid to ask questions then, I did what I was told, and parroted the material like an obedient child.
At fifteen years of age I was finally able to escape what felt like the oppressive bonds of my father's authority in favor of my mother's less abrasive approach to child rearing. By fifteen though I had already possessed the maturity level of a woman about my age now, and thanks to the strict rules and structure instilled in me under my father's care, was responsible enough to be as self sufficient as was legally possible for a minor. Child rearing for my mother was as accomplished as it was ever going to be before ever stepping foot across the thresh-hold of her doorstep.
But I digress.
Living under my mother's roof for the majority of my high school years afforded me the opportunity to begin exposing myself to everything I dared to try that was absolutely forbidden in my father's house. As my mother lived a significant distance away from civilization (making for a long bus ride to and from school every day) I was unable to get out of the house much save for when my motorcycle riding rock n' roll uncle with a striking resemblance to Jesus himself would come rescue me over the weekends to hang out and go for rides with him.
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| This is my Uncle Jim (a.k.a. "Jesus") as he appeared during my high school years, and that is the bike we rode together on. |
My freedoms as a result still felt stifled, but they were a far cry more than I would have ever received under my father's roof. My clothing style went from simple plain and basic printed shirts or shirts with Christian prints on them, typical jeans, and tennis shoes to funky pop culture or rock band printed shirts, cut off jean shorts or jean pants, chain wallet, biker leather jacket, and steel toed boots. Around this time I was beginning to blossom with the resemblance of something I could claim as an identity of my own instead of something someone had attempted to pound and mold and manipulate me into. I began getting curious, and not just about the typical peer pressure and hormonally driven instincts my teenage body was throwing at me. I was for the most part able to stave off peer pressure stupidity (resulting in a very small social circle throughout high school) and my commitment to my out of state boyfriend at the time kept me from getting into dating trouble with boys (instead driving me to a ritual of feverish multiple nightly bouts of masturbation and sleeping in the nude.)
But again, I digress.
No, my hunger was for things with which to feed my mind, and my curiosity was, as it has been ever since, insatiable. I began questioning what little I had learned of the bible that had before been so zealously shoved in my face, and I started to explore what life had to offer a young impressionable mind. I was fascinated by various pagan beliefs and cultures, and while I never took on any one particular belief system, I did begin to cast aside my chains of Christianity in favor of meditation on what seemed to make sense. I have been in a meditative state over where my exact religious views stand for many a year, and have only recently begun solidifying what my views are on the subject.
After years of watching the news or reading headlining news articles on the latest religiously driven atrocities we as a human race inflict on our own kind, I've come to the consensus that there isn't a single damned organized religion out there that makes one iota of sense. Each one seems to follow it's own mythical version of some Godman, each with its own equally absurd historically false accounts, and each claiming to be the one and only infallible truth to salvation. Those that don't follow entire polytheistic pantheons of deific power, but pose just as little historical evidence to prove the actual existence of the deities they so willingly turn to for guidance. Verses in Scripture are constantly contradicted throughout books of the Bible, and just as equally so in the Koran, proving to indeed have been written by the hands of men and proving even further to be probably THE first, and worst hack editorial job ever seen of a printed work. Some sects of the Christian faith only teach and follow in the New Testament of the Bible, while others teach and follow the new and old. All of them seem to carry and display the same bigotry and prejudice displayed in either book, or adopt only what they feel serves them best out of the book they so unwaveringly follow as God's Truth. At least the notion of peace and treating your fellow brothers and sisters as you would expect to be treated as taught by some pagan beliefs makes sense and doesn't instigate reason for hostilities between people. The absolute atrocities displayed in the various Holy Wars our planet has seen fought on its surface only ever boils down to which side has the better imaginary friend, no matter how zealously protective either is about said figment. Just about every organized religion known to man has an "us vs. them" approach to how they view the world, where wars today are still fought over a "convert or die" attitude. The Godman so many follow supposedly teaches love and patience in one breadth, but resonates with jealousy, demands sacrifice, and condones the killing of "sinners" through either stoning to death or cleansing by fire. The so called "Book of Truth" sounds more like a Tyrant's Guide to Successful Dictatorship.
No, I have cast aside the chains of Christianity placed upon me as a child, and have instead made it a point to live my life under a philosophy of love, tolerance, and acceptance to the diversity of all people that share existence with me. I've read and mused over a variety of beliefs and teachings, and take particular interest in the whimsical ways of Discordianism, but probably fit the category of "Gnostic" if I were to be labeled anything. I have considered studying in earnest to become a certified Pagan Priestess as just one more thing to fit under my belt of "things accomplished in my lifetime" but as it stands I have quite a full plate and I'm not sure if/when I will ever be able to make the time to accomplish said task.
And why this of all things did I feel the need to post, when I could have made my post on any number of other subjects? Suppose it was the inspiration I gathered for it while "Heresy" by Nine Inch Nails blared down the road in my van whilst returning home from weekly grocery shopping, and the meditative thought processes it sent me through while driving. Regardless, it is what it is, and a good bit of what makes up my identity.
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