I grew up pretty much secular/agnostic, but essentially went with the flow growing up. Looking back, I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in school (public) and now resent it. I never gave any thought to religion or spirituality until I started doing drugs (namely LSD) in college (Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale). I’ll add that I haven’t traveled down that road in quite a long time.

Religion was always a non-issue up until that point.

I’ve dabbled in mostly new age and pagan stuff; Wicca and Qabala for the most part. With all seriousness I was considering Qabala to be a system I could believe in, down to getting the robes, athame, and accessories. Then, I met my wife and all that dwindled away being replaced by agnosticism.

My in-laws are church-goers and I went to Christmas with them for a few years (Methodist). I didn’t care for it and knew it was a bunch of crap, my wife knew I felt that way, but I just didn’t care about church. It didn’t matter whether I went or not. I was just there.

Later, the in-laws decided they wanted to change their denomination to Episcopal (after some “goings-on” within the Methodist church there). My wife wasn’t happy. She wasn’t angry, she just didn’t like the change. Anyway, there was a little bit of friction regarding this “change”. Needless to say it all kinda ticked me off, I guess because of the whole situation in general, and I said, “To hell with all of it, no more.”

Since. I have only gone to church once, and that was a Christening, which I would not attend today. Note: I had not “come out” to anybody yet, but only in general conversations whereas I never said: “I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God.”

A couple years down the road my father-in-law is over and we are partaking of some beers (I rather enjoy having a few beers with him and discussing politics and current events). Most of what I remember is just flat out telling him “I’m an atheist. I don’t believe…”, after getting into some debate about a secular issue. His answer was “I feel sorry for you.” My retort: “I feel sorry for you.” And I honestly do. That was the first time I ever came “out” and told somebody. Him and I are still on speaking terms and we still love to engage in political discussions. He’s pretty open-minded about that. Though he’ll never change his stance as a true-blue Blue Dog Democrat.

I might add that the whole religious issue arising within the political spectrum in the run-up to the 2000 presidential election really got me riled up. This prompted me to find out what these particular people stood for. And I found dirty truths that drove me further to disregard such jack-asses and…to tell the truth, this (religion and politics/separation of church and state), above all else drives me ideologically.

NOT whether a god exists or not, I could give a rat’s ass about that debate. I get so incensed reading blogs written by ex-Christians debating with Christians about the existence of god. What the hell is to be proven? Or disproven? One thing remains untouchable: faith. If one wants to believe in some fairy-tale, then so be it. One other thing remains untouchable: Don’t frickin’ shove it down my throat. Because I am free to believe what the hell I damn well please to believe.

Sorry, getting heated. Why am I getting heated? Because Christians (and I am lumping them altogether) do not see the cultural implications. They don’t see that the “foundation” of religion has influenced almost every aspect of society. That their inaction and complacency enables the problems that arise from putting trust into the hands of “faithful” politicians. I don’t know how to put it any other way. When our president starts speaking in code about a “crusade”, that should tell you something unless your brain-dead about history. When our dumb-ass president says “I looked into his eyes and saw a kindred spirit.” (speaking of Putin), the same man who said “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” Who does he think he is? The messiah? Seems some people do.