Religion. I don't think I can name any other thing that's made my life more miserable than religion. Growing up in a Southern Baptist church, I was force fed religion for my entire childhood. I accepted God when I was merely six, not even nearly old enough to understand what kind of choice I was making. My decision was based on a fear of the eternal fires of Hell. My desire to not go there was so strong that I accepted something so quickly, so naively; a decision that would basically ruin many of the years that would follow.

There comes a point in everyone's life where they step outside of themselves and begin to evaluate the life they're leading. When I was a teenager, I started to think about things in a way that didn't seem to line up with what I'd grown up thinking. Though my thought processes are dreamlike and idealistic, it's balanced with a sense of realism and common sense. As I struggled to come to terms with this, religion just didn't seem to add up in my mind.

However, my surroundings didn't encourage a new way of thinking. Still heavily involved in the church, I was a part of a group of people that threw me for a loop. A group of people with typical teenage problems: identity, lack of control over emotions, the struggle with one's place in this world. What seemed to set me apart from them was that, while we were all desiring to experience God in a real way and to hear from Him, they clung harder to religion as they struggled, while I gradually began to push it away.

I was always told that if you weren't experiencing God, it's because you didn't actually want to. I call bullshit on this, because I wanted it. Oh man did I want it. I wanted to experience God, I wanted the assurance of a wonderful place to go after death, away from all pain and emptiness. I wanted a relationship with a higher power that would fulfill all the needs that other humans weren't meeting. I wanted all the answers to this life answered in the pages of an ancient text. As much as I wanted this, I never experienced this, never saw it in my life in a tangible way, and my questions weren't being answered by this book. It merely created more questions.

Another issue I struggled with - and I don't fear to write this here, as anyone I'm concerned about knowing this about me won't ever see this post- was my sexuality. As far back as I can recall, I've felt different feelings from the other people around me. I wasn't attracted to females. However, having been taught to believe this wasn't right, I struggled to reconcile these feelings with my worldview. I wanted to be rid of it, to be normal. I tried to ignore it, I tried desperately to pray it away, I even confided in someone who I thought could help me, and despite much effort, nothing changed.

This is when I knew that the process of abandoning my faith would begin. And it was a long, painful process. I tried to justify things, to line things up with my belief in God. It never worked.

As I've grown, and come to love and accept myself, I've found that the last thing I need in my life is the religion which caused me so much hurt and anger.

I just cannot, in any way, accept God as an undeniable fact when this world is so completely shitty. The idea that a being so powerful and loving would create man, knowing that he would, in the end, not choose Him. A being that's so loving that He would wipe out thousands of people for turning away from Him, when He was the one who gave them the choice. The state of this world makes it impossible for me to accept God, because this place is so miserable that I can't believe a God would sit in heaven and do absolutely nothing.

I just can't do it anymore.

Now, I have nothing against people who have faith. If it truly edifies their lives, and allows them to come to terms with their mortality, then that's great! Truly. The people I do have a problem with, are the people who feel as though their religion entitles them to dictate to other people how they should be living their lives. What they should and shouldn't be doing. I can't stand that because what makes a person so arrogant to believe that it's their place to do this? And even if their not vocal about it, silently judging a person is just as terrible. Just live your own damn life, and don't worry about what other people are doing.

And to this philosophy, I will live my own life. Live and let live. Though religion may not be for me, I can accept that it works for others.

And, if I'm being perfectly honest, I feel more liberated now having given up faith then I ever felt while calling myself a Christian. I suppose it's all about perspective.