From the ever-informative
Joe My God (www.joemygod.com) comes this
tidbit from a book review by Dan Savage. I have read much about Chu’s book, and
have put it on my summer reading list. However, Dan sums up my thoughts about
religion in his review perfectly:
"My father was a
Catholic deacon, my mother was a lay minister and I thought about becoming a
priest. I was in church every Sunday for the first 15 years of my life. Now I
spend my Sundays on my bike, on my snowboard or on my husband. I haven’t spent
my post-Catholic decades in a sulk, wishing the church would come around on the
issue of homosexuality so that I could start attending Mass again. I didn’t
abandon my faith. I saw through it. The conflict between my faith and my sexuality
set that process in motion, but the conclusions I reached at the end of that
process — there are no gods, religion is man-made, faith can be a force for
good or evil — improved my life. I’m grateful that my sexuality prompted me to
think critically about faith.
Pushed out? No. I walked
out."
Dan Savage, from his New York Times book
review of Jeff Chu's Does Jesus Really Love Me?
Interesting article by Savage. I found that after being Outed at a time when so much was at stake, it doesn't matter what you say or think or do..hell is your future. And when you are raised in a heavy religion hitter..you are required to think it through.. And I agree with Savage, in that I walked away and found my own path.
ReplyDeleteSaying good bye I'm leaving is so much more empowering than being told to leave, yes.
ReplyDeleteI stopped actively going to church by the age of 11 or 12. I realized what it was at the time and had a good laugh about it.
ReplyDeleteYou know how they pass the collection plate - and they have the nerve to pack kids off with budget envelopes so mommy and daddy can chip 10% or more to the church. Yeah, right.
They did confirm my ass when I was about 15 years old though. That was despite telling the priest in the final interview that I didn't believe in any of it.
Plus it didn't hurt that the first twelve years of my education were in Catholic schools. If anything it made me a better atheist. Especially the high school years - one year we studied the Bible. I mean REALLY studied it. Luckily I went through those schools between the time the Vatican II reforms were really taking place to the time they started to wane in the early 1980's.