When I was sixteen I started to fade out of my family’s religion. I realized that it no longer made sense, and it didn’t answer the questions I had. Or the answers it gave were disingenuous. I told my family about it and my father threatened to stop helping to finance my education.
Things are not much better now. I had a sort of privilege in my family, but due to my beliefs everything stopped. I am definitely the black sheep, and the emotional gap between us has only grown since my mother died.
Personally, I don’t think faking belief in religion is worth it, but I can understand how it’s necessary for some people. I certainly don’t regret telling my family that I’m an atheist, but I do occasionally wonder how much easier – or more difficult – it would have been if I hadn’t expressed my true feelings.
Because I refused to believe in their religion they tagged me as an unwanted child and stopped caring for me. I have a reason for believing that human beings are more important than their so-called god. It is because it was a fellow human being who took me in – and accepted my lack of faith – when my family gave up on me.
Unanswered questions
I had many unanswered questions. For instance:
- How can someone have created me but no one created the person that created me?
- How can it make sense to worship someone that you don’t see but are forced to believe exists?
- Why do I have to worship someone who – according to the so-called bible – killed people just because they didn’t believe in him?
I had so many questions that got my parents upset whenever I brought them up. So I just chose to quit and now I do what I know is best in my own way.
By ‘Tasha’