I cried the day I realized God was dead. Not dead I suppose, but to never have existed still felt like dead to me. My fall from fundamentalist Christianity was a long, excruciating fall that destroyed the very foundation of my life.

My mother was, for the lack of a better term, a free spirit. Before I was born, she drifted around aimlessly throughout life, trying new experiences, until she met my father. Against family advice, she married him, and I was conceived on their wedding night. Within a week, she found out he was married to another woman in New York, and that my mother’s marriage was “not valid in the eyes of God” as she put it, and she was left alone to raise a newborn. She had found God that year and vowed to raise me in a Christian environment so I would never make the same “evil” mistakes as my father.

My earliest memory of religion is a Bible camp for young children. I was five years old at the time, and I remember we talked innocently about how the world was flooded, and that Noah had put every animal in the world on giant boat. Of course he had to put one male and one female of every species, so the world could live. I asked if there were only two of each animal, who did the babies breed with to populate the world? Isn’t it wrong to breed with family members? (One of my mother’s great qualities is I knew the “birds and the bees” at five years old.) The teacher was only taken aback for a moment, and she answered, “God must have allowed many litters from the animals to be able to breed, and since animals have no souls, they are allowed to breed with family members.” She probably should have seen my next question coming. I asked, “So when my dog dies, he goes to hell?” No was of course the answer. Dogs do not go to heaven or hell, as they have no soul, only people have souls. I wanted to know where they went, but she said she did not know, probably oblivion. Although I accepted this answer at the time, it never sat right that we get to go to heaven and the rest of the world doesn’t.

I was enrolled in school that year in Grace Baptist Academy; a Kindergarten through Eighth grade Christian private school. Although it was much like a normal school, we also had Bible study quite often. It wasn’t every day, but I remember it being at least twice per week. We were given an assignment once per week. It was either a question to answer based on scripture research, or we had to find the book, chapter, and verse of a quote given to us. The prize was usually small; candy, a personal Bible or New Testament, things like that. I was pretty good at this game, and I would always find scriptures. “God” just guided my hand.

One week, my assignment was to find why we go to church on Sunday, and keep the Sabbath holy. After reading through Deuteronomy, I answered that it was the day that god allowed Moses to lead the Jews out of the desert. I got it wrong. According to the teacher, it was because God rested on the 7th day, so I turned to Deuteronomy, Chapter Five, Verse Fifteen, and showed her the passage: “And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” She said that is not the correct answer. I asked, “So the Bible is wrong?” She got a little irritated I remember, and stated no, the bible is NEVER wrong. “Why does it say one thing here and another somewhere else?” She changed her answer to say that it must mean both then, but from now on, the correct answer is “because god rested on the 7th day.” “So I do get the prize then?” Yes, you can have the prize. It was a hard won victory, and I seemingly outsmarted the Sunday school teacher for my candy. I felt that if she could not explain the reason that the bible says different things to a child, then why is she teaching Sunday school? That was my first inkling of true doubt. I had to drive that doubt out of my head with prayer or I would burn in hell however, but I also wanted to know why God needed rest.

As I grew a little older, I began to believe everything the church said, and I began to live the life of a Christian. It was no longer stories; it was fact. It was a fact that Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt for looking at Sodom and Gomorra. It was a fact that people that believe in evolution are damned to hell, and only belief in the fact that Adam and Eve were the first humans could save you. Actually, only Jesus could save you, but disbelief in any part of the bible would damn you, and you will surely go to hell. The fact that women are evil because they ate an apple of course seemed plausible. I stopped doubting, as I did not want to burn in hell, but the “evil” thought kept popping into my head: “why would God turn someone into salt?”

My mother became a Sunday school teacher for the Applegate Christian Fellowship when I was eight years old. She would often have the elders over for supper, or just invite church people to come over and pray. This was the time I had no doubts about anything. Jesus was my Lord and Savior because I accepted the fact that it he died on the cross for my sins, and no matter what it was my fault for being a sinner, so I needed salvation. By accepting Jesus into my heart, I would spend an eternity in God’s presence. Wow, what a nice thing, to live forever. I would not mind that, being rich and powerful in heaven. It was church twice weekly, and combined with Sunday school and bible study, I was absorbing religion 5 times per week, all under the watchful eye of my mother.

About this time she had remarried (or just married, as the first marriage was nullified by bigamy) a horrible man named Jerry, and for some reason, she didn’t notice how horrible he was. It wasn’t long before he began beating us up after a drinking binge, usually because dinner was horrible or nonexistent. If I looked at him wrong, I would get smacked. He once threw an entire pot of chicken from the stove at her face, and although most of it missed her and left a hole in the wall, the handle still caught the side of her cheek. My golden retriever starting barking furiously at him, so Jerry went and got a bat-sized 2 by 4 and began to beat the dog with it. I jumped on his back to stop him and he threw me into the wall. The day Jerry killed my dog was the day I prayed that God kill him.

God did not answer that prayer, at least not right away, but he did however get rid of him, at least that was my belief at the time. It’s funny thinking about it really, but he got fed up with my mother so he left her. HE LEFT HER. She begged him not to go; all the while I was praying furiously to God “please, please just make him leave.” He left, and the next day I casually asked my mother why he wanted to go. I was secretly happy, but I was curious. She turned on me like a rabid Doberman and started shaking me, yelling, “It’s your fault he’s left us! You aren’t a good child! God has a place in hell for children like you, who don’t obey their parents! I hope you’re happy!” He was never my parent I pointed out, but that was not the reaction she expected from me, and I was beaten and grounded for a month. I was grounded for pointing out that he was not my father. Apparently either my mother, or perhaps I, did not have as good a grasp on God’s Love as I had thought.

Jerry died of alcohol poisoning, and I accidentally laughed when I found out. I wasn’t punished for it, as I think perhaps by this time my mother had accepted the fact we were better off without him. My belief in god actually grew when I found out however, and I realized there must be justice in the world. God liked us and punished Jerry. Jerry’s punishment surely had to be hell, and I was struck that I was not ashamed to think that.

My Sunday school lessons continued, with my mother as the primary instructor. With my faith renewed in god, I was happy. I absorbed religion like a sponge. Every new story I heard amazed me that god could be so powerful. My childhood innocence allowed these beliefs to be absolute. Apparently corrupting young minds is a theme of all religion.

I was baptized in the icy cold waters of the Applegate River. On Sundays, Pastor Jon Courson liked to baptize in the icy river, as he felt the symbolism of renewal was driven home with the reminder of the cold. Upon my baptism, he uttered a prayer blessing me, and asked God that I be bestowed with the power of the spirit, and let them allow me to speak in tongues. Wow, through god I would learn another language! I prayed and prayed to learn that new language. I wanted to speak in tongues too. Everyone else at my church seemed to know how, but they all sounded totally different. I asked why this was, and the answer I received was interesting. Because of the tower of Babel, all human tongues were changed, and so now when we speak in the tongues of the angels, they are all different as well. “How do I know what I’m saying?” The answer is obvious: “You don’t, you have to trust god to speak through you. It’s not YOU speaking, its either angels or God.” So I prayed, and I wished, and I hoped that the angels would speak through me, and they never did. My mother knew the language; all the elders knew how to do it. I asked why is it not coming to me, and the answer crushed me. I was not holy enough to receive God’s divine possession. If a completely innocent 8 year old boy pure in thought and desire for God’s love, cannot channel the tongues, yet my mother could, there must be something amiss. So it continued throughout my childhood. I would always have these doubts, but I was always dreadfully afraid to confront them, because that would be questioning God, and those who questioned God were tormented for all eternity in a lake of fire.

My mother and I moved from Oregon, and settled in California, when she met a man she decided to marry. This one was far better than Jerry. He was not particularly religious, so I kind of liked him. They married when I was about twelve years old. My mother took a job as a youth counselor and met a Native American practitioner. She began to go to sweat lodges, and practice Indian medicine. When I asked her about why she is contradicting the biblical teachings she raised me to believe, she told me those were mostly stories anyways, and that this was better than Christianity, as it had been around far longer. I confronted her about speaking tongues, the laying of hands, eternal hellfire, and she said it was pretty much all an act so she could fit in with the community. I told her she was going to burn in hell for defying God like this, and how, after everything she has seen and done, could she just cast God aside. “Oh, but I’m not, I still pray to the Great Creator.” I promised myself I would not let my mother’s evil corrupt me.

I began high school in earnest, signing up immediately for the Bible club, and finding the local Christian fellowship. I prayed for my mother’s salvation. I prayed she would see the evil of her ways. I attended church every Sunday, and although I did not attend youth church on Wednesday or Bible study, I did attend church functions.

High school biology was when my slide away from religion truly began. Evolution, no longer even theory, but a fact disputed only be the clergy, went against everything I had known. The fact that there is no scientific possibility of having one man and one woman populate an entire planet shook me to my core, but I rationalized God and said he made the world in seven days. Seven days to God can be 20 million years to us. Happy with my insight I took this to my pastor who told me that the world is only 7000 years old. Evolution is not science, its myth used to destroy God. Why would people want to make things up to destroy the creator? “Because they don’t believe.” Why don’t they believe? There is no proof. So there is proof of evolution but not god? No. There is no proof of evolution. Yes there is, it’s been proven over and over, so why can’t the church let go of ancient beliefs and admit these may be stories? It is because the Bible is truth, period. So let me get this straight, science can be debated, but to debate the truth of the Bible will land you in hell? “Yes.”

Even in the face of this I could still not let go of religion however. Not yet. I began to study science books, history books, theology books, and philosophy books. Although I made it to college with a little belief left, a shred of hope that science was stupid and wrong and that God’s will was absolute, the reality began crashing down upon me.

I began to realize that God did not exist, and if He did, it is in no way that humans could understand or begin to comprehend. I had just read the histories of other religions, and how each religion stole ideas and stories from the previous one, and then used those stories as law. I read the punishments for exploration and scientific advancement, and the trial and imprisonment of Galileo. (How dare he say that there are other planets in the sky? That is heresy!) I read that throughout history, religion has fought every great scientific advancement with a passion, as if they fear losing control. I began to believe that most “teachers” of religion don’t actually believe themselves; they go through the motions to keep order, or keep friends. The problem with religion is in its very nature, it cannot allow change, or it is proven fallible. Yet popes throughout history suddenly get “divine wisdom” and God tells them they’ve been wrong about things. If we are wrong now, why weren’t we wrong before? Because religion is man made. It is a psychological crutch for the weak of spirit, and a tool for domination and subjugation for those in power. I cried like a frightened child the day the last tattered remnants of my religion fell away; I realized God is forever dead, at least to me.

Where do I go from here? I still don’t know. The convulsive crying on my bedroom floor clutching my bible like a security blanket, realizing that I will never live on golden streets lined with pearls in a mansion in heaven forever, seems silly now; but really, where do I go from here knowing the Bible is a farce? I hope to one day know, but I won’t pray for it.