So . . . How Do You Feel About God?

So . . . if you happened to have read my recent post A Storm is Brewing, then you might consider this post to be part two.

My mother-in-law and wife have a mother-daughter talk over the phone. I can only hear my wife's side of the conversation. And I hear something like:

I just don't like going to church . . . I dunno . . . I just don't feel comfortable there. I mean, I give you Mother's day, Christmas, Easter . . . I just can't come every Sunday. I just don't feel comfortable there . . . . No, no . . . it's nothing that anybody has done . . . No, I don't want to go to that church either . . . I know this is important to you and this is an important part of your life but I'm just not like you in that way . . .

Uh-oh.

Later, my wife told me what prompted her end of the conversation. Her mother asked her, "So, how do you feel about God?"

My wife totally went into politician mode on her and evaded the question by discussing a slightly different, but related topic. She just talked about not liking church.

So . . . the MIL is making her rounds. She asked her grandson . . . then next she's asked her own daughter. Now, I think my daughter and I are next on her list.

I guess I had better plan what I'm going to say. And I better hope my daughter doesn't out us from the closet.

Wits' End

About a month ago (from this post), my daughter plainly and flatly told her older cousin that we simply don't believe in god in our household.

At first, I got rather worried, but then I came to the realization that her cousin (my niece) probably won't make a stink of it. And so far-- she hasn't.

However, that incident forced the question of whether remaining a closeted atheist has any real benefit.

Summer vacation began and my kids started spending their days at my mom's house. The kids surprised my wife and me one evening by telling us that my mother was trying to make them memorize bible versus.

Now, we're strongly considering putting them in a secular summer program. But, something like that will be hard to find in Jesusland and we don't have tons of cash to spend on summer camp.

The question of whether remaining a closeted atheist comes up again. My wife becomes a bit flustered about having to hide what we really feel; I worry about how sick my seventy-four year old mother will become if we told her. I worry about how our relationship could fall apart just near the end of her life.

Then, both my mother and mother-in-law start really putting social pressure on us to come to church-- at least for Father's day. We didn't make Mother's day . . . my mother-in-law was quite cross. There was no gift, gesture, or convenience that made up for our missing church. Her daughters skipped church to cook her an amazing meal to eat after church service. She almost didn't come over to enjoy it out of disappointment at our absence from service.

And again-- we wonder if staying in the closet is even worth it.


I grow tired of the default expectation that everyone is a Christian. I grow tired of people compelling us to participate in an activity that-- for me-- feels like a waste of time.

I don't want to make other people stop being a Christian-- I just want them to stop trying to make me into one. Ah . . . but there's the problem. The very nature of being a Christian for many believers, is to faithfully spread the Gospel. These ideas are not mutually exclusive and poses a difficult problem for those who want to simply be left alone.

I'm at my wits' end.

Sad News . . .

I' recently watched a news report about an infant who died due to being left in a car during the summer-like heat.

Annually, kids (and pets) seem to die needlessly because they were left in a parked car that became way too hot inside. People sometimes have a lapse of judgment and leave dependents in the car for an extended period of time. Perhaps they forget the baby was sleeping in the back seat. Maybe they don't think they will be gone too long and didn't think the heat would become deadly. Maybe they plan to come right back after running just for a second, but something distracts them. Perhaps they are did something outside of their routine. Maybe they were keeping someone else's child and they haven't quite adjusted to retrieving the child from the car after getting out. These may sound like lame excuses. Some of them probably are. But, some of them just happen because people are . . . well . . . human.

In this specific report, a married couple goes to church one Sunday morning. I don't know the details because I was not there. I can only imagine, though, that as they got out of the car their hands were full. Maybe they were running late and their absence was holding up service. I say this because the husband was the church musician. Whatever the case, the husband sees another church member who is heading towards the church building. The husband asks this fellow church member to bring his baby in for him. Maybe he yelled it across the parking lot. Maybe he just asked as he hurried past to get inside for service, not waiting for an answer.

Regardless, this church member claims that he did not hear the request to retrieve the baby from the car.

So, the couple goes inside and unwittingly leaves their baby out in the church parking lot closed up in the car. The temperature reached an unusual high that day, too.

I honestly don't believe this couple wanted their baby to die; I'm certain they are distraught about this. If they could turn back time, I'm sure they would have done things differently. I'm sure the couple would have ensured the safety of their child if they knew what was about to happen on that fateful day.

I'm so sorry to hear about their loss. Despite the fact that as parents they were totally responsible for their child, I cannot look down on them or pass judgment on them. This seems to happen every year to someone in the United States. New parents can go through a lot of stress which can cause a lapse in judgment sometimes. I have two kids. And while I've never left one of my kids in a car, I can see how some parents (and even grandparents) can make some poor parenting mistakes.

What adds more frustration to this sad news (in my opinion) is what some of the interviewees said. After calling this an awful tragedy (and I agree with that part), they say, "Well, God will work it out . . ."

I can't help it . . .

The poor baby died in a church parking lot; What is left for God to work out?!

It's Gonna Be a While

It's gonna be a while before I post again, I think. Work, family life, and my wife's return to school has constricted my free time a whole lot.

So, if you ever wonder where I am-- I'm either at work, proof reading papers for my wife, on a soccer field watching my kids practice, or dead to the world asleep.

But, I'll leave you with a bit of irony: my wife chose to enroll in one of the local Christian colleges in my area. Imagine that! It was the only school that had classes that fit her schedule.

So, now I fend off nightmares of kids running around in soccer uniforms and term papers about critical thinking that require a Christian theme.

Yikes!

My Niece is in a Cult (Update)

We called our niece's mom. She doesn't know the number to the pastor or to the church.

Many of the members, including the pastor, live in the same house. But they try to keep the address undisclosed.

I'm hoping that some city ordinance is in place for a church to have official standing in a town or city. With that in mind, I'm going to see if the city knows about this congregation. I'm also curious if their church appears in the phone book. If the city thinks something odd is happening, then it's certainly time to rattle some cages and make some noise about this issue.

I might end up coming out of the closet over this. I won't make any hasty decisions about that just yet. But, we just can't stand around and allow our niece to be sucked in without a fight.

--

On a side note, I've been playing around with my comment engine. My comments are supposedly importing. If you don't see any of your past comments no need to panic-- yet.

My Niece is in a Cult

I have a niece on my wife's side that came out as a lesbian.

A few weeks later, her deadbeat parents handed her over to live with her older cousin who is the paster of a really small congregation.

Funny thing is, people used to speculate that he was gay years ago. Though he's married now, we hear that he doesn't even sleep in the same bed as his wife.

Actually, our niece tells us that she sleeps in the same room with the pastor's (her cousin's) wife. The pastor sleeps in different room all to himself.

My wife called her niece today wanting to give her a gift. But she couldn't give us a time where she would meet us.

She didn't want us to come to her pastor's house where she lives. She didn't want us to meet her in some public place somewhere.

It looks like we'll have to crash one of their church services to see her, apparently.

The goal of this pastor is to "de-gay" her. That was the whole purpose of her parents sending her to this church in the first place.

But my niece was perfectly fine before they came along. She seemed happy and was living out her life. She was making friends, had a girlfriend, and seemed brave about her sexuality.

Now she's in this bizarre stupor and acts very submissive. She has not friends and is cut off from the every day world.

My wife and I are making plans to confront the pastor. Not in a belligerent way, though. We just want to raise some concerns and find out why our niece is behaving in such an odd manner. Why can't our own niece tell us a time that we can meet her to give her a card with a little money in it?! That's all we wanted to do. Why is that so hard?

Why do people treat homosexuality as though it is some evil? People do more evil trying to eradicate homosexuality from people's lives as opposed to letting people simply be themselves.

I believe homosexuality threatens the modern Church because accepting it implies the Bible is wrong. To admit that homosexuality should be regarded as normal means that the Bible is wrong or God made a mistake.

Or that maybe God made people gay on purpose even though the Bible calls homosexuality an abomination. And if the Bible doesn't say this, a great number of Christians certainly think that the Bible says this.

People don't realize that if a baby boy is born and has a high level of estrogen, he can squirt breast milk out of his nipple. On occasion, single fathers have lactated in the extended absence of the mother of their new born child.

Hormones control so much of what we become. Our genes do as well.

That's just the way biology is.

And now my lesbian niece is sleeping in the same room with a heterosexual woman, trying to rid herself of homosexual desires while her so called pastor might be entertaining his own possible homosexual tenancies with his homosexual assistant pastor behind closed doors.

And they call this holiness?

No. This is madness!

Not that she is lesbian or that her pastor is gay-- that's not what makes this maddening. But the madness comes because they run and hide from who they truly are. They lie to themselves and make their lives miserable in an attempt to be something the were not meant to be-- heterosexual. Nothing is wrong with them being gay. Absolutely nothing.

My niece is wrapped up in a cult.

I hope we can rescue her before it's too late.

Mommy, Do We Believe in Jesus?

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 18:6


Did you read the quote above? Did you read the one up there?
Huh? Did you? Take a glance at it before you continue.

You read it? OK. Here it goes:

My darling little daughter asked the other day:

Mommy, is Jesus real?
(Ha! It's Mommy's turn to get some tough questions from the kids!)

Mommy replies: Well, for some people Jesus is real-- and for some, Jesus is like Santa Clause.

(Mommy phrased her answer this way because recently she told our daughter that Santa Clause is not real.)

Then our precious little four-year-old cutie digs even deeper:

Mommy . . . do we believe in Jesus? I don't think we do . . . do we?

Mommy's response?

Uh -- we'll have to talk about that another time, sweetie.

I find the fact interesting that my daughter asked if we believed in Jesus-- as if she is trying to fit in socially. Sort of like sitting at a dinner table watching everyone else while you try to figure out which fork to use for the salad.

She wouldn't know or think to believe in Jesus except that someone introduce her to the whole idea (read: daycare staff & grandparents). Just as you don't really think about a salad fork-- until you notice that you have two slightly different forks at the table. Which fork should you use?

Our daughter knows that we don't attend church regularly and that we do not insert ideas about God and Jesus into our nurturing-- unlike the daycare staff and grandparents. She notices this and she wants to fit in with us at home, too, apart from the religious indoctrination she faces.

People who believe their faith should spread tend to reach out to children. And parents who don't participate in the indoctrination process often receive a stern warning from believers in the form of the above quote.

The indoctrination process seems mindless and automatic to me. And the stern warnings sometimes come across as a cruel scare tactic.

My wife and I don't want our daughter to be helplessly enveloped by this process of indoctrination. We want her to be able to choose for herself with wide open eyes.

And honestly, I don't think my wife and I are the kind of parents that deserve to be drowned with millstones around our necks.

Where's Your Bible?

During our Thanksgiving festivities, I wondered if I would be asked to pray before we ate. I really hoped no one would press the issue. And thankfully, nobody brought it up.

But a different subject did come up.

My mother-in-law (who is a minister by the way), was sitting at our table waiting for dinner to be served. When out of the blue she asked, "Where's your Bible? I'd like to read something . . ."

I'm sure she saw the flash of panic in my eyes for I have no fucking idea where my Bible is.

None. Whatsoever.

I looked to my wife for help-- only to see the same flash of panic in her eyes.

Luckily, my sister-in-law came to the rescue. "Momma, I've got my Bible in my car . . . I'll just run out and get it real quick".

My mother-in-law has been trying to figure out what's "wrong" with me. And I think she asked for my Bible as a test. She knows that if I cannot even tell her where it is, then there is no way I've been studying it! I think it was a spiritual litmus test; and my spirit score was way too low.

I know she's becoming suspicious. She didn't bother to ask me to pray like at past Thanksgiving dinners. She assumed that role for herself this year. She didn't want to risk asking a backslider to bless the food.

And that's fine with me; I had no complaints about that.

Table Talk

While enjoying a slab of pizza with my kids, we chatted about the events of the evening.

My son proceeded to tell me about his afternoon:

"When Grandma picked me up from school today, she told me that I couldn't watch any TV at her house".

"Oh, really? Why? You get into some trouble?" (uh-oh)

"No", he replied. "Grandma said that she wasn't watching TV to prove her love to God (read: fasting from television). She said that she wasn't going to permit me to watch any TV since it's her house and her rules."

"Oh, I see. What did you think of that?"

-- I think I even stopped eating my pizza for a moment.

"I respect what she's trying to do and all, but I don't agree with it".

"Really?" I was astonished. What a mature answer for an eight year old!

"Well son, I'm curious now. Would you be willing to stop watching TV to get closer to God?"

"Nope. I like TV too much."

Ouch!

"But what if someone told you that sometimes it takes that sort of devotion to please God?" I tried to pick my son's brain.

"I dunno. I just don't agree with that idea. I respect it, but . . . . I mean, I don't even know if the Bible is real or not. I mean, who was there to write about the first man if nobody was around but the first man? That just doesn't seem to make sense to me."

Wow! Honest . . . I didn't tell him any of that beforehand. I don't even know where he got that specific idea from-- except that I've encouraged him to question ideas and to decide for himself what he thinks of God. I didn't think that anything I said would have caused him to respond quite like that.

He still seems to believe in God. That's fine with me. But he seems willing to question ideas-- even if the ideas come from an "authoritative source". That to me is most important.

He's thinking on his own.

I don't mind if he becomes (or remains) theist. I just want him to learn to think for himself, regardless. Many theists are quite capable of doing this.

And for that reason alone (that he's learning to think for himself), I am proud of my son.

(And I'm proud of my daughter, too. She's learning how to read!)

Dodging Bullets

Nope, nobody has been shooting at me or anything.

At least, not with real bullets.

I was sleeping-in this past weekend. My kids know the drill. My oldest son clambers onto the kitchen counter and grabs a bowl for himself and his little sister. He fixes two heaping bowls of cheerios for themselves while ol' daddy-O catches up on some Zs.

Mommy's out at the gym.

My kids know how to get to Cartoon Network, Dress Up Who, and Noggin.com. They know how to find their favorite TV shows on our Roku box.

They'll be fine.

Yet, I still wake up with a start after hearing the doorbell. Nobody was expected to visit. Who the hell is at the door?!

My kids get antsy and want to know who's outside.

I try to pretend that nobody is home and hope whoever it is will go away. But the kids have given away the fact that people are home.

It's my mother-in-law.

I like my mother-in-law. I do-- honest. She's not bad, overall. We had a rocky start, but we've long sense cleared that up.

My mother-in-law had left something at our house and wanted to grab it since she was in the neighborhood.

I was really, really wishing this would be more of a "grab-n-go" sort of thing. We established that my wife had accidentally taken what my mother-in-law was looking for with her to the gym. So at that point, I was hoping she would leave.

But nope. She didn't. Rather, she took advantage of the fact that now I'm her captive audience of one and proceeded to preach to me.

Not in a mean, ugly, nasty way. She's not like that with me.

But she started probing deeper than I would have liked.

She asked me a really hard question. She asked me "why".

Why did I stop going to church? Why did I lose my connection with God? Why?

What happened to cause me to lose my fervor?

She told me she could take anything I had to say. She urged me not to worry. She'll understand.

She asked me if someone hurt my feelings at church. She asked if she said something to offend me. She asked me if I saw some injustice that caused me to turn away from church. She asked me if I felt neglected by the ministers.

She expects that I have some grievance with church and church life. She thinks that I'm bitter about something someone said or did. Or maybe I've just become slightly confused about the truth of God's word. She seems to think that if I would just share my hurts and frustrations I would come around because God would give her the words to help comfort me and encourage me to return to church.

She asked if my wife (her daughter) was keeping me from going to church. My wife has openly voiced her disdain towards church with her mom (but not towards God. Those are two very different things, here).

None of the things that my mother-in-law expects is the issue at all.

"Tell me. You can tell me, son", she urged.

I can't. Not now. Maybe in time (not!).

She was persistent, but I managed to dodge the bullet.

I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up, though.

I know she can handle me confessing to an array of things that keep many people from church. But I'm almost certain she'd be floored if I told her I have become an atheist. I simply have come to doubt god's existence. As a result, the church life has lost it's importance to me as an individual.

I bet I'd leave her speechless, until she tells my mom.

And that thought brings a lump to my throat.

An Unfortunate Anniversary

Eight years ago, on the day of this blog post, my dad died.

While we weren't very close, we cared for each other and we had respect for each other. We had a connectedness that seems to exist between all fathers and sons, regardless of the quality of the relationship.

His death was hard at first, indeed. But over time, dealing with it has gotten much better.

I smile when I think of him now. At first, it wasn't always that way.

I cannot say that his death was the cause of my slide into non-belief of my former Christan faith nor did this event single-handedly cause me to tread down the path towards atheism.

Years would go by before I'd reach the point where I am now. But no doubt, his death was a catalyst to my slide. I think this is where it all really began.

Here's the story:

My dad came over to visit us (my parents were separated) and we noticed he didn't look so good. He told us that, too. He thought it was just terrible gas, but said he would go see a doctor.

He never really got out of the hospital after that.

He made a downhill progression in his heath because of lung cancer.

Funny thing is, a few months before my dad's illness manifested, I determined in my heart that I would start praying for him every night.

And I did. I usually neglected praying for my dad because he was estranged. But, I decided I would stop being so negligent. I was passing judgment on him by thinking praying for him would do no good towards seeing him saved.

So, I started praying earnestly for his soul's salvation.

The timing of his illness was such that I started to wonder if my payers brought some curse upon him. At this odd coincidence, I stopped praying for everyone -- in fear someone else would fall ill like my dad. My spiritual life was paralyzed.

As my dad's condition worsened, I would visit him in the hospital from time to time. Other relatives and loved would come to visit. Some came way from other states. We knew in our hearts that time was running out for him. But . . . being believers . . . we hoped for a miracle.

Just in case. You never know what God might do.

But, if God didn't do anything, I knew my dad was going to die. And that was that.

An evangelist in our family said that she had received an inspiring "word" from the Lord. She said that God asked her concerning my dad, "why do you worry as though there was no hope"?

There was innuendo in this question. Why are you worried, oh ye, or little faith? I can heal your dad. Didn't you get the memo?

I can save him at any time. Why are you concerned?

And some people in my family that heard those words, took those words to heart.

My dad got baptized before all his strength failed him. But, to my knowledge, he never had the all important speaking in tongues experience that Pentecostals expect from someone who is truly saved. Without this experience, you cannot be saved in the view of many Pentecostals. Especially the type I was and the type that my dad started to hang around after he became sick.

He never got better. He never spoke in tongues. After a few short years passed, so did he.

But at the funeral, the other Pentecostal relatives rejoiced because they claimed God saved him.

But God broke one of his own rules if he truly saved my dad!

Well . . . he's God. He does what he wants.

In reality, a prophesy was made and everyone had to save face. God said there was hope. He insinuated that my dad would be saved according to the evangelist months ago.

So, God must have saved him somehow, since he didn't heal him.

I never bought into that "prophesy". I fully expected my dad to pass. Just not so soon I suppose.

So, there were no hard feelings towards the evangelist who uttered the words. Not from me, anyhow.

But, I was confused and this was the beginning of my problem.

How could someone speak for God and say something that was wrong or untrue? Either God made a mistake, we misunderstood what God was trying to say, or the minister speaking for God was wrong.

Well, if we misunderstood what God said, then God isn't that great of a communicator.

If the evangelist truly heard from God, then God was wrong. (or lied??) Why? Because my dad did not fulfill the criteria for being saved according to the very God who made the prophesy! Only my close family (and family friends) felt my dad was saved. Everyone else at the church would initially show sympathy when they learned my dad had died. Inevitably, members would ask if he spoke in tongues before he died.

When I told them "no" or that I wasn't sure, their silent regret shown upon their faces. That was all I needed to see. They felt sorry for me. In their minds, I had to deal with the hardship of my dad spending eternity in hell.

I was forced to witness a contradiction for the first time. I had to see people who speak for God say wrong things.

I didn't lose my faith at that point. But, I became very angry at God over the next few years. And worse, people at church seemed very insensitive. I began to feel like a person in a swimming pool crowded with people. As I start to drown, I flail and panic. I cry out and splash. I thrash around. But no one in the crown sees or hears me.

Staying at that church felt like staying in that swimming pool.

So, I got out.

But, I still believed in God and in the Christian faith. I just needed to find a better place to practice my beliefs. But first, I had to stop being angry at God.

I hoped I could find a place that could help me understand why God didn't save my dad after I made an effort to pray for him. The timing was so awful for everything.

For a while, I felt like I was the one that killed him because I decided to pray for him.

Talk about classical conditioning. My "prayer life" suffered greatly after that. I started to develop a phobia of prayer.

Eventually, I remembered the verse in the Bible that says, "It is appointed that all men die, and then judgment."

That made me feel better. Everyone has to face that journey. All life experiences that transition.

From that idea, I began to accept the thought that God didn't let my dad die out of cruelty or meanness. Dying is the taint from sin that we all have to deal with (that's what I told myself, at least).

But, why did he not save him after I prayed so fervently? Doesn't God want to save everyone?

And how come we can just bend the rules of salvation like that? We say people are saved when it's convenient. But, we're preached to with strict fervor and admonition that there is only one way to be saved.

I was puzzled.

And so it began. The seed was planted.

From then on, I started to ask myself if there was something wrong with what I believed.

People tend to use religion to comfort themselves when their loved ones die. That didn't happen for me. Religion made the passing of my dad worse in more ways than I can go into on a blog post.

Now without religion -- I feel much better about the passing of my dad.

Without religion, I can know that my dad will truly rest in peace.