lost my religion, and I feel fine

[anotheranon]

You know the Bible 83%!

 

Wow! You are truly a student of the Bible! Some of the questions were difficult, but they didn't slow you down! You know the books, the characters, the events . . . Very impressive!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
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I'm actually surprised I did as well as I did on that quiz - I last read the Bible all the way through when I was about 12 or so.

Even though I was baptized and did the Sunday School/sermon thing as a kid, my family wasn't particularly devout - I remember church as more of a social than reflective thing. Still, as a young child (say, age 8-9) I fervently wanted to believe in God, that there was someone "up there" who was looking out for me. I got a Bible from my parents for confirmation and found the table in the back that divided up the whole book into pieces that could be read over the course of a calendar year. I stuck to it pretty solidly, though it was the King James version and I'm not sure I got that much out of it.

At about 14, stopped going to church - part of this was because I'd started doubting almost as soon as I started thinking deeply on the subject and admittedly part of it was not wanting to get up early on Sunday :P

Another reason was my anger at religon, though over the years I figured out that it was anger at the religious - and not the mainstream moderate sorts, but the few noisy hardcore fundies I had the misfortune to be acquainted with in high school. Fundies of any stripe still piss me off royally because they would happily, cheerfully impose their irrational beliefs on the rest of us and punish those who don't fall in line. It frustrates me that Jim Wallis and other liberal religious sorts are trying to parley with the Religious Right - it's a pointless exercise because fundamentalist Christians are intolerant of those outside their belief system and cannot be reasoned with (more details in this interview with author Chris Hedges, though if you don't want to wade through the day pass, Pandagon's ponderings).

Er, sorry, political tangent :P

As it stands now, I have friends both religious and non and many flavors in between. All are fairly moderate and I respect that their beliefs make them happy and give them something that they feel like they lack. Little of it resonates for me personally anymore, and I don't really miss it: not only do I not believe, I don't feel a need to believe. I find plenty of meaning in life and have developed a fairly good sense of ethics without a deity or deities looking over me. Even if God(s) did prove their existence, so what? Why should I worship them? If they're that all powerful it surely doesn't matter if one mortal ignores them or not. Reading the Bible now is rather like reading Greek mythology or good fiction - just stories. Some good, some awful, some with some good ideas, but ultimately just stories.

I do find religion an interesting subject in social/historical terms - why (some) people create it and need it, why it takes the forms and tells the stories it does
(I recommend this great Point of Inquiry podcast on the scientific study of religion). Indeed, I'm one of those tedious people who like to debate it and will surely bring it up at the wrong time/place at some point simply because I forget that not everyone treats it like an intellectual exercise :P