So I went to a dinner at the house of my boyfriend's buddy last night.
It was probably the most awkward thing ever.
I was honestly caught between wanting to cry, and putting my fist through something.
Here's the scenario for you:

We go in, and within two minutes we're told to write our favourite bible passage on a notepad that everyone else is contributing to so we can all share and learn shit about eachother. That's great, that's nice. Cool. People with faith isn't so bad. They just don't really know about my side of things.

We go outside and play some guitar and sing some songs and crap, and this one dude comes over and sits with us and starts quizzing me if I go to church with my boyfriend and stuff. I say "No. I don't really have the time. I went to a Catholic school and didn't go to church much growing up." And he starts telling me that I should go to church! He's telling me how wrong I am and how we all must have faith in God and love the life he's given us.

Then my boyfriend's buddy comes out in time to hear me say that my family never really went to church so I don't either so he says "My parents never went to church growing up, that doesn't mean you can't find Christ"

Oh I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that I came to this dinner to be converted and baptized. These people hardly know me, most of them JUST met me and they feel they have the right to judge because they are "Christian" and I am not.

I was respectful to people. At no point in the night did I snap back at anyone and say "I prefer to base my beliefs off of education and evidence tied into my own experiences, unlike you people who just believe something because in doing so you think it places you on a pedestal."

It's absolutely ridiculous. I can have 2 hour long theological conversations with my boyfriend, and his Dad, who is a pastor and come away feeling like it was a DECENT intelligent, backed-up conversation.
I simply tell these people I don't go to church and immediately they're waving the Fire-Insurance in my face.

Do people understand? Being a "Christian" is not about thinking you're better than everyone else, being a Christian is not about doing good things simply because you're a Christian and you have to. You should want to do good things and better this planet simply because at the end of the day, we are all just as mortal as the next human being. Being a Christian is not blindly believing everything you're told. It's about asking questions that in the end will result in you becoming a better person. Don't contribute to a charity because it'll give you points in heaven. Give to a charity because there are starving children in Africa and you have the means to help them have a chance at life.

I can't say I'm an atheist, and I can't say I believe in God. It'd be a lie. But honestly, I think I have a better of idea of how things should work. I've grown so much spiritually in the past few months, and even though I'm not sure what I believe at the moment, I certainly do know WHY I have been poisoned against religion for so many years: Because of people like THAT. They make my stomach turn.

By the end of the night, had I been persuaded to write down my favourite bible passage, it would have been a tie between something about a sweet sounding seven-headed dragon in revelation, or this one, aptly from Matthew:

"You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye.""



I need to go listen to God Thinks by Voltaire now...