My family is not church going. I was never baptized. When I asked my parents about God, I was told that “religion is the opiate of the masses.” Basically, all religion does is promise more in the next world or the next life in order to keep people from expecting more of this life. The stories religion has to tell are fairy tales and nothing more.

So I guess my upbringing was thoroughly Marxist. It gets better, too…

I was also taught that taxation works for a common good and that socialism a good thing. A free education is provided by the money that we pay in taxes and it doesn't matter whether or not you have children, you should pay your share for the benefits that public education provides society.

After being told all this up until the fifth grade or so, my parents then sent me to Catholic school because they didn't care for the quality of the public schools in our district.

My life is full of shit like this…

Some of my parents' friends asked why they would send me to Catholic school when we are not Catholic. The question often came up: why not just convert? It's cheaper for a Catholic to attend their schools than it is for someone of another religion. The answer was clear: we don't believe in that. Some understood, and yet some didn't…

If you're wondering, my parents had no problem paying the difference. They rightly understood it took more effort on the school's part to educate me in the religious portion of the curriculum (especially considering they had actively undermined it).

Do I believe in Catholic education? Sure. Never once did they skirt around evolution. We even received real sex education and they even showed us a condom in class. I'm pretty sure my school was forward-thinking and liberal-as-fuck for a Catholic school, but still…

Do I believe in God? Not really. I was never fully sold on the idea. Oh, I read the bible, sure. The only good part is the book of Maccabees, by the way. I heard homilies and plenty of arguments in favor, but it just never made enough sense. The more you learn, the more you realize that every miracle seems to have happened centuries ago and the details are exaggerated. Incorruptible corpses are heavily embalmed or otherwise made of wax. Anyone will have visions and hear voices after forty days in the desert. If you stare at the sun long enough, it might look like it's moving…

Did other kids come out of this believing in God? Well, they went in believing in God.

Who am I to say what they actually believe now? It's not that I truly expel the possibility of God from my reality and I'm sure that within even the most faithful there is doubt. It's not that I adhere to atheism because I firmly believe there is no God as I believe it is the best thing for the world in a time when thousands are murdered, tortured, imprisoned, and displaced over the issue of whose collection of fairy tales is the right one.

A really good rule is to never hire a contractor of any kind that has a Jesus fish on their business card. If someone has to inform you that they are a Christian, what are they doing that would make me think otherwise? If a plumber does a good job, doesn't fuck me, and tells me something like “God bless you” or whatever at the end, what kind of a person would I be to at least not politely accept it? I don't try to “convert” the people handing out literature at my door, I just tell them I'm not interested. It's the polite thing to do. Besides, arguing with the delusional is a waste of effort.

This is basically why I don't really associate with the atheist community. Oh, I am a member of one that puts up some rather nasty billboards in the bible belt, but basically I'm doing that for comedy: trolling by proxy. I never attend their functions though because I'd probably end up punching some smug fuck right in the mouth…

Perhaps this is how religious/spiritual people view their community…

If there is a God, religion makes him so small and petty. God is concerned with shellfish, who you have sex with, and the final disposition of a mass-produced book. People are dying over this nonsense and it really needs to stop. The world needs less religion, not more, not yours, or anyone's…

How can anyone believe in this as literal truth? If God exists, why doesn't he make himself known? I've heard that he does every day, but where? How? He's not making himself known because everyone is still arguing about the details. That there is more that one religion on earth is all that is necessary to disprove the theory completely. There should be no argument over the details. They should have been set in stone, written by the fire from above, known by all, and understood by all… but it didn't happen that way. We just made this shit up…

Religion and God just fill a role. They're a revenue source. They're an invisible police force. They're an excuse to wipe out a neighboring tribe. They're the reason why the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and why you shouldn't question it. In the end, it really is the opiate of the masses. Marx got at least one thing right.

Oh Shii, you fell for it. You're hooked on an ancient drug. You're riding the papyrus pony…