Pillars of Salt

*Will be seen in Every Reason zine, created by Keith Landrum*

"If God did not exist we would have invented him anyway."  -Nietzsche

I was cleaning and reorganizing my bookshelf the other day and getting rid of books I no longer wanted and making a mental note of the books I had bought and had not yet read. I realized as I was pawing through each shelf that I had at least four bibles and 5 other books written about the bible, talking about scripture, or was Judeo-Christian in some other way.

All of this and I don't even subscribe to religion or the traditional sense of "God".

I'm pretty sure that all of us "non-believers" have Christians in their lives, be it family members, well-meaning friends, or someone on your Facebook wall that posts scripture every day, without fail. I'm also pretty sure that all of those Christians are in some way trying to convert us, even if we have no interest in being converted. Why do they view us as heathens and helpless souls? I think that, for the most part, most of us that choose not to believe in God have a pretty extensive background with religion. I myself have read the bible three times, at least. I went to Catholic school for 2 years, church for eight, and even managed to get wrangled in to going to a tent revival once. I am in no way lacking in being "witnessed" to, either. I get people constantly coming to my door, messaging me online, and...you guessed it...giving me bibles because for some reason it's hard for Christians to believe that you'd still choose to not believe after reading the so-called "Word of God".

To be honest, it was the Christians in the first place that turned me off of religion. Where are these supposed holy examples of Christ himself? How can they be so full of the holy ghost and then go on to publicly condemn gay people or people of color? I think that one of the most important things in the bible is that it says to be "Christ-like", or in other words, don't be a dick. So why are all these Christians total assholes? Why are all my atheist or agnostic friends so much nicer than my God-fearing ones? It's the Christians, I tell ya. It's the Christians that started this atheist ball rolling downhill.

The other reason I don't believe is because of the bible. There's so many contradictions in it and I'm supposed to believe this is straight from God's mouth? C'mon. Is he a loving God or is he a terrifying one that turns people into pillars of salt for simply looking backwards? Is God love or does he hate fags? It's acceptable to lay with your daughter to procreate if you think it's the end of the world but it's not okay to eat cloven-hoof animals? Shut the fuck up. Seriously. This is not the word of God. This is the word of Man. How else would you describe so many inconsistencies and different variations of what God is? All those meaningless rules like being able to beat your wife and resting on Sundays...does that really sound like something God would want to quibble about? Don't you think that if he/she existed they'd be more concerned with how you conducted yourself amongst your peers? What examples you'd set? Your true value and goodness instead of if you ate meat on a Friday? C'mon, guys. Gimme a break.

All this but for the record I do believe in something. I'm not sure what it is. I don't even know if it's a supreme ruler in the sky or if there's a little tiny bit in all of us or if it's the flying spaghetti monster. I feel it sometimes. I can see it in other people's actions at other times. It's goodness. It's stopping to help someone that has a flat tire. It's giving what you can to help someone who has nothing. It's putting out a request for help into the universe and having it answered once you stop pining for it. I believe in the absolutely pure goodness in all of us, a universe that wants to give us what we want as long as we're not totally ridiculous in our requests, and that maybe, just maybe there is some kind of higher force/energy/avatar that watches out for all of us. Wouldn't that be nice?
But for now? Those bibles are going straight into the donation box.