When I was in high school, most of my friends, and all of my acquaintances were a good deal like me. While they weren’t nearly as mean, they definitely found a great deal of fun to be had this side of the good book. Most, if not all, had broken at least 7 of the 10 commandments long before we graduated high school.
Most, if not all, had done things that pretty much assured a long, painful roasting in hell or at least a swift kick in the baby maker if the rumors turned out to be true and Christ was planning a comeback tour of Earth. While not nearly as prone to sin as some of my contemporaries, I definitely waded at least knee deep in sin for a good portion of the 80s.
Back then I thought that was the way it would always be. That we’d all just circle back and our 70 year class reunion would simply reserve the banquet hall in hell.
But a funny thing happened on the way to purgatory. Most, if not all, my friends from back then found god… or found a reasonably good facsimile.
I’ve never really been much for religion, especially organized- fundamental- bible-thumping-kick-gays-in-the-crotch-type-religion. It wasn’t that I didn’t see the value in it. I read Karl Marx at 15, but even before that, I knew how religion has been used throughout time as a way of pacifying a group by giving them a common foundation. A sense of belonging to a bigger scheme than the immediacy of family. But my problems with religion had very little to do with marxism. My problems have always been, and possibly always will be, that religion simply creates an environment for hypocrisy.
The biggest hypocrites it turns out are my high school friends. Its crazy to see the biggest crystal fiend I knew in high school preaching about a clean life under god. It skeezes me out to see one of the biggest tramps who never met a dick she wouldn’t suck talking about chastity and virtuousness under god.
One might say that these people are the perfect champions for a life without sin, because having been there, they are better able to reveal the trappings of sin. Though I’m a cynic, which is probably why religion never resonated with me, because I know that their change wasn’t born of courage. It was made out of fear.
I don’t believe in much… but I do believe this… It is better to be true and an aetheist, and false and christian.