On the fast-track to Hell

It's a case of "go to Hell, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars"-or pounds, or euros, or yen, or whatever. This is what happens when you forget to use the brakes between brain and mouth!

I've never been one for evangelizing-proselytizing-recruiting-I've never had time for the people who can't wait to tell you how they became Christians, or how they found Jesus Christ, or whatever. I just won't do it, and I don't mind people who do, as long as they leave me alone and don't accost me in the street. My beliefs have always been pretty private - well, except for blogging, of course!!

I remember being bribed by a neighbor to come to church with her. This was years ago, and I needed work done in the flat in East London (really, it needed demolishing, it was that bad; a couple of grenades would have done the trick nicely), and she said that her friend would do the work for free. All I had to do was come with her to Sunday service. So, fool that I was, I went. Two hours of screaming from the born-again minister, telling us we were all going to Hell if we didn't listen to him, and that God is a jealous and angry God, and so on, and so forth, and by the end of the service I wondered if my hearing would ever return to normal! When Liz asked me after the service what I thought (I can use her real name, since every third person in this country seems to be called Elizabeth. Even some of the guys), I said it was loud. And I questioned this fundamentalist belief that God is jealous - of whom, exactly? And why??

The outcome was that Liz told me she couldn't be friends with me, because I was a blasphemer. Pardon?? Oh, well...I question everything that makes no sense-and that stuff made no sense. At least, my ears stopped ringing, my hearing returned, and the constant badgering to come to church and repent finally stopped. And the work on my flat was finished...

So, I'm going to Hell because I have decided to stop going to the Baptist church. This is after months of sitting on the fence, feeling some guilt (call it Presbyterian/Catholic/Jewish/anyone else guilt, and I cover all bases. I'll just be damned by everybody), because church people kept stopping me in the street and telling me they are praying for me. I always want to know: for what reason? But nevermind, it was nice of them; they probably wanted another member of the church. Whatever!!

From the time I was a child and religion was shoved down my throat (oh, come on, my mother told me when I was little where babies come from - virgin birth?? Excuse me??), I questioned everything. It all sounded like a load of crap to me (very sorry to all my Christian friends, and anyone who is religious who is reading this, but that's the case), and I wasn't buying it.

When the Baptists kept saying how JC died for our sins (didn't he have any sins of his own?), and how only people who love and worship JC as the saviour, etc, will be loved by God and get into heaven (assuming, of course, that there is one), I finally decided that I don't buy that stuff. That means that the vast majority of the world's population are on God's shitlist because they believe something else. And, frankly, I find that offensive. That is why wars are started: in the name of something (or someone) that makes killing justifiable. Genocide is never justifiable, in any name.

Am I an atheist, or an agnostic? No, I'm not. I believe in a higher power, but-I believe that power is genderless, isn't male, or female, or black, or white, or is a Big Mac, or whatever. And I don't believe that power is jealous, or angry - I believe that power is accessible to everyone, regardless of belief system, religion, or any other characteristic used to separate people.

What makes me angry is the fact that religion is such an excuse to harm others. So I'm going to Hell, most definitely, because I won't conform to others' belief systems. I suppose that makes me a Unitarian - if I have to put a label on myself. Perhaps it just makes me someone who just wants to be a decent human being. One who falls over a lot. And I don't half swear when I do!!