I recently heard that the love of my life is married and just had a baby girl with the man she left me for.
I also recently had a Christian friend ask me how I came to lose my faith. When I was a Christian I had friends that would frequently attack my faith. Hindsight being what it is, I realize that anyone who attacks your faith most likely isn't your friend in the first place. So when my friend asked me what made me let go of my Christian upbringing I couldn't really tell him. I said something along the lines of, "if I told you why I don't believe anymore, it would be an attack on your belief, whether I want meant it that way or not". So here's a little SPOILER ALERT: this blog is about why I'm no longer Christian, and why I'm flirting with the idea of abandoning belief in a higher being all together. If you feel uncomfortable with that, dear reader, you should probably stop reading this crap and do something more productive, like picking belly button lint, or illegally downloading that last episode of Southpark.
I've committed my life to the vocation of storytelling. I'm that douche-bag that went to film school and sits in coffee shops writing screenplays. During my time in college I was taught that if you want your story touch people, shape it to share in the motifs of your intended audience's mythology. For example, ET has a lot of things in common with Jesus Christ: they both heal with touch, they both rise from the dead, and they both ascend into the sky with flying saucers. So in the interest of becoming a better storyteller, I started to study world mythology in my free time.
There's a great book on comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell titled, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In it, Campbell demonstrates that many cultures from all over the world and throughout history have similar recurring mythological patterns. It's as if humanity has a story that is encoded in our DNA; it is burned into our collective unconscious like a cattle brand. Campbell then makes a generic mold for the pattern these mythologies fit into, and he calls it the "monomyth". The story of Christ fits the monomyth perfectly.
But then there's also the fact that the story of Christ follows the story of Horus (Egyptian sun god) almost flawlessly, and predates Jesus by about 3,000 years. Just like ET, Horus has a lot of things in common with Jesus Chirst: They both had no father (immaculate conception). They were both born of the virgins, and both their births coincided with a star in the east. Shortly after their births, they were both admired by three kings. At age 12 they were both prodigal teachers. Both Horus and Jesus had 12 disciples and performed miracles. Both of them died and were resurrected.
The film Zeitgeist mentions that many mythological gods share this structure. Attis of Greece (1,200 BC) was born of a virgin, crucified, dead for three days, and was resurrected. Mithra of Persia (1,200 BC) was born of a virgin, had 12 disciples, performed miracles, died and after 3 days was resurrected. Krishna of India (900 BC) was born of a virgin, a star in the east signaled his coming, performed miracles, and was resurrected after death. Dionysus of Greece (500 BC) was born of a virgin, performed miracles - such as turning water into wine - and after death was resurrected.
The story of Christ is about as original as the story of Avatar, and the council of Nicaea was a political decision. Christians talk about the council as if it was a spiritual event, made through prayer and meditation. Emperor Constantine wanted Christians to come to consensus to ensure political solidarity. That's it and that's all. And what better way to ensure obedience and political rest than to switch to a dogma of servitude? The Bible is a tool used by authority for social stability.
But it doesn't even matter because Christians don't even read the Bible (save for the parts that support their agenda). Right wing Christians are always using scripture to attack gays, but they never quote verses that command believers to kill their children for swearing at their parents (Leviticus 20:9), or to kill nonbelievers (2 Chronicles 15:12-13). Deuteronomy 22:20-21 says that you should kill brides that aren't virgins. All it takes to discover that the Bible is not the perfect word of almighty God is to read it and to think critically.
It was when I realized that you can't be a Christian if you know the Bible is flawed that I discovered the writing of Richard Dawkins.
I was a Christian for the first 30 years of my life. I had relationships with women fail because my Christian upbringing led me to believe that sex was wrong, and it's one of my biggest regrets in my life. Sometimes I find myself praying out of habit. When I realize that I'm doing it, it sort of feels like when you pick up the phone to dial a family member and then remember that they died the year before.
Anyways, this is all a whole lot of jibber jabber. I'd be surprised if anyone even got this far and I don't think I'm even going to proof read this before posting it. The long and short of it is the only person I've ever fully loved - the woman I had the best sex of my life with - is procreating with some other man, and I'm almost certain there is no God.
