Well, it's 8:30 am as of this writing. I'm hung over from a house party last night, and waiting for my boiled eggs to be done. Figure I'll pass the time while I recover telling everyone a story. So gather 'round, children, this is the story of the Little Heretic That Couldn't (Believe).
I was born into a fairly rough situation. Rough as in my mother died as a result of complications from my birth all of 45 minutes after I entered this world (and lemme tell you what kinda guilt issues THAT saddled me with for the first 16 years of my life), and my father died 3 years later in Desert Storm as a result of friendly fire. Me and my two older brothers (Seth, younger, Greg, eldest) were supposed to be taken in by our grandmother, being she was the only living relative that could be contacted or was of the proper age to take us in. She took the death benefits from our father's death as our legal guardian, and once she had this small fortune that was meant for our caretaking, she dumped us in an alley in DC and sped off to blow our money in Vegas. I was homeless for a year, at the age of 3, with Seth, at the age of 5, both us being taken care of by our eldest brother, Greg, who was at the ripe age of responsibility
...actually, no, he was 8.
We lived wherever we could; alleyways, old wrecked buildings [there's plenty in the eastern districts of the city], homeless shelters. Eventually, someone contacted social services about a year later [in the middle of winter; I should point out that the winter of 1991 was one of the coldest in Virginia's climate history] and we were taken into foster care. I grew up apart from my brothers since we got divided up, generally being smacked around, punched, kicked, yelled at for whatever, starving, and jumping from neglectful adopters to abusive adopters to sexually deviant adopters to neglectfully abusive deviant adopters. The one instance of kindness during those earlier years of this absolute torture was this kindly old black woman who took me in when I was 8, almost 9. She was from New Orleans, and had moved to South Carolina [this was in Charlottesville] when she was in her 50s [she was in her 70s at the time of adoption]. Strict and sometimes severe, she nevertheless was a very nice, compassionate woman who expressed the most righteous outrage when she had been told by the social workers what had happened to me previously that to this day I think of her as a heroine.
She was a Methodist, which is basically a very very very softcore version of Christianity, and she was quiet about it, but I found myself interested in where she was going on Sunday mornings and what book she always used to read. She eventually took me with her to a service at the local First Methodist Church, and while the deeper teachings always eluded me, to me, the general idea was a very comforting one; that there was a man who didn't know me, never would know me, but let himself undergo the worst death possible for me out of love, and that there was a higher power, a being beyond sight and comprehension, who loved me on the only condition that I accept that his son was to be venerated for his sacrifice. The idea was perfectly reasonable to me, and so the kindly old Nawlins lady who taught me how to deep-fry chicken just right and with the right blend of cajun spices got me into Christianity without forcing it into me.
Alas, she had a heart attack the next year, and in her poor health, she could no longer be my caretaker. A shame. Maybe my life wouldn't have been so bad if that hadn't happened. The next few foster families I lived with were pretty screwed up. One was a psychiatrist, and a total quack of one at that, too, who used me as a sort of human test subject with which to test sleeping medications he was being sponsored to push on other people. The massive amounts of narcotics I was ingesting completely screwed up my still-developing body, leading me to begin to suffer extremely bad insomnia, catatonic schizophrenia, good ol' bi-polar syndrome, and a myriad amount of other pleasant mental defects that took extensive therapy to treat, mitigate, and in sadly few cases, cure. This man of science had pumped me full of chems that fucked me up. I found my faith in the lord being strengthened, as my eleven-year old mind figured that this one quack was just like everyone else who practiced the devil's work of psychiatry rather than the good lord and heavenly god's own written work, the bible.
Yeah, like I said, I was 11 at the time.
My faith didn't last long, to be honest. At the age of 14, the first girl I ever fell in love with was shot and killed right next to me. It was the snapping point. I had already been sampling hard drugs [me and her used to shoot H every other week], and her death made me experience a severe crisis of faith. I had suffered my entire life. Why did this god who loved me allow this to happen, despite all my late night sobbing pleas for it to stop, that I couldn't handle any more? I was functionally catatonic for weeks. I was on autopilot, just doing the basic things to live. Eat, drink, sleep. I didn't respond to anyone. I didn't notice their presence. I didn't care.
I didn't really renounce god. But I stopped caring about anything. I became a junkie. To forget everything, I pumped myself full of anything I could. Coke, ecstasy, alcohol, marijuana, heroin, meth. Mostly heroin. A friend of mine OD'd during this time. I didn't even care. I was too drugged-up, and too apathetic, too numbed to everything. I saw another friend die in a car accident. Shit got worse. I did more drugs. Eventually, I OD'd on cocaine. My heart stopped. Thankfully, a friend who had been trying the entire time to get me to move on was there, and she was sober. She did emergency CPR while she waited for the ambulance, and they shoved a needle into my chest and pumped me full of adrenaline, which resuscitated me. I was taken into a detox clinic by one of the doctors who took pity on me, and after painful, VERY painful detox of all the shit I was on, which took six months to flush from my system, I was placed into psychological treatment. At first I refused their help, remembering my past experience with psyches, but these people actually helped me. Another blow to my faith; my conviction in those who used methods other than the bible being despicable being shattered. Once recovered enough, I returned to school at the age of 15, and was placed in a school that taught both intelligent design and evolution. At first I scorned the idea of evolution...and then I started reading into it.
It opened my eyes fully. The questions being introduced against my faith were piling up, and I could find no satisfactory answers despite the most feverish attempts to do so. I renounced my faith shortly after, and began to take to my studies in school full-tilt. I learned more in those three, almost four years than I had most of my entire life. I was placed in AP honor roll courses, and constantly aced every test thrown my way. As time went on I scorned the teaching intelligent design, eventually rebelling and refusing to write anything on the subject that implied it was a viable alternative to evolution. I began studying the constitutional amendments, and found to my disbelief the separation of church and state. And the more I read, the more I realized that what precious little I had was largely afforded to me by the Forefathers who wrote the Constitution. During this time I was solidifying more contact with my brothers, including Greg, who had joined the army, the same exact branch as our father had...and the same unit, a unit some people might have heard of.
We know of them as the 75th Ranger Regiment. He is now a Captain in the Rangers.
I refused to attend church. I was dragged in by my second-to-last foster family to be "exorcised of the demons that inhabited me." I was aghast at the ludicrous notion. I was not one to say there was no god and in truth I believed still in some kind of god, in ghosts and demons and the like, but I was also fully aware that I was in control of myself. In fact, more so than I had ever been, and they made the suggestion I was POSSESSED? I was infuriated. I showed up to the church wearing my gothic finest; black tripp pants with chains changing from them everywhere, fishnets, combat boots, spiked collars and bracelets, all that fun stuff, and proceeded to laugh my ass off at the almost childish display of the people having "visions" and spasming like idiots and gargling false bullshit baby-words that they claimed were "tongues" as they sought to "purify" me. Eventually the entire spectacle became so embarrassing [many of them had brought their children with them to this, too] that I eventually stood up, told the entire congregation they were a bunch of whackjobs, that I couldn't believe I once used to be associated with anyone of this crazy religion, and stormed out.
I was largely agnostic for the longest time; how could I, a mere human being, say there was no god, when even men like Stephen Hawking admitted they didn't have the evidence to prove or disprove such an entity's existence? But like Isaac Asimov, I came to the understanding that I was a creature of emotion as well as reason; reasonably I knew there was no way to disprove god's existence but I was so sure that he wasn't based on past experiences and everything I had learned that I was positive that not only did god likely not exist, but that all the other superstitious mumbo-jumbo adopted by so-called "alternative faiths" like wicca and satanism was no better.
And finally, last year, in November, I came across a book that finally led me to become the antitheistic individual I am now. A little ol' book by the name of "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." Christopher Hitchens and his surgically precise dismantlement of all superstitious beliefs completed my transition.
From devout Protestant Christian...to devoutly protesting Christianity, and every other superstitious belief out there. I used to think faith kept me together...but I adopted faith earlier in life. And as my life went on, shit never got any better. I shook my faith, and yet I never quite fell apart. I maintained my own strength to get through my life and to come to terms with everything I've endured. People do not need faith to comfort them...they only need strength, and strength that comes from ones own self is far better and far more resilient than strength born of false comforts. I am a living testament to that.
I was born into a fairly rough situation. Rough as in my mother died as a result of complications from my birth all of 45 minutes after I entered this world (and lemme tell you what kinda guilt issues THAT saddled me with for the first 16 years of my life), and my father died 3 years later in Desert Storm as a result of friendly fire. Me and my two older brothers (Seth, younger, Greg, eldest) were supposed to be taken in by our grandmother, being she was the only living relative that could be contacted or was of the proper age to take us in. She took the death benefits from our father's death as our legal guardian, and once she had this small fortune that was meant for our caretaking, she dumped us in an alley in DC and sped off to blow our money in Vegas. I was homeless for a year, at the age of 3, with Seth, at the age of 5, both us being taken care of by our eldest brother, Greg, who was at the ripe age of responsibility
...actually, no, he was 8.
We lived wherever we could; alleyways, old wrecked buildings [there's plenty in the eastern districts of the city], homeless shelters. Eventually, someone contacted social services about a year later [in the middle of winter; I should point out that the winter of 1991 was one of the coldest in Virginia's climate history] and we were taken into foster care. I grew up apart from my brothers since we got divided up, generally being smacked around, punched, kicked, yelled at for whatever, starving, and jumping from neglectful adopters to abusive adopters to sexually deviant adopters to neglectfully abusive deviant adopters. The one instance of kindness during those earlier years of this absolute torture was this kindly old black woman who took me in when I was 8, almost 9. She was from New Orleans, and had moved to South Carolina [this was in Charlottesville] when she was in her 50s [she was in her 70s at the time of adoption]. Strict and sometimes severe, she nevertheless was a very nice, compassionate woman who expressed the most righteous outrage when she had been told by the social workers what had happened to me previously that to this day I think of her as a heroine.
She was a Methodist, which is basically a very very very softcore version of Christianity, and she was quiet about it, but I found myself interested in where she was going on Sunday mornings and what book she always used to read. She eventually took me with her to a service at the local First Methodist Church, and while the deeper teachings always eluded me, to me, the general idea was a very comforting one; that there was a man who didn't know me, never would know me, but let himself undergo the worst death possible for me out of love, and that there was a higher power, a being beyond sight and comprehension, who loved me on the only condition that I accept that his son was to be venerated for his sacrifice. The idea was perfectly reasonable to me, and so the kindly old Nawlins lady who taught me how to deep-fry chicken just right and with the right blend of cajun spices got me into Christianity without forcing it into me.
Alas, she had a heart attack the next year, and in her poor health, she could no longer be my caretaker. A shame. Maybe my life wouldn't have been so bad if that hadn't happened. The next few foster families I lived with were pretty screwed up. One was a psychiatrist, and a total quack of one at that, too, who used me as a sort of human test subject with which to test sleeping medications he was being sponsored to push on other people. The massive amounts of narcotics I was ingesting completely screwed up my still-developing body, leading me to begin to suffer extremely bad insomnia, catatonic schizophrenia, good ol' bi-polar syndrome, and a myriad amount of other pleasant mental defects that took extensive therapy to treat, mitigate, and in sadly few cases, cure. This man of science had pumped me full of chems that fucked me up. I found my faith in the lord being strengthened, as my eleven-year old mind figured that this one quack was just like everyone else who practiced the devil's work of psychiatry rather than the good lord and heavenly god's own written work, the bible.
Yeah, like I said, I was 11 at the time.
My faith didn't last long, to be honest. At the age of 14, the first girl I ever fell in love with was shot and killed right next to me. It was the snapping point. I had already been sampling hard drugs [me and her used to shoot H every other week], and her death made me experience a severe crisis of faith. I had suffered my entire life. Why did this god who loved me allow this to happen, despite all my late night sobbing pleas for it to stop, that I couldn't handle any more? I was functionally catatonic for weeks. I was on autopilot, just doing the basic things to live. Eat, drink, sleep. I didn't respond to anyone. I didn't notice their presence. I didn't care.
I didn't really renounce god. But I stopped caring about anything. I became a junkie. To forget everything, I pumped myself full of anything I could. Coke, ecstasy, alcohol, marijuana, heroin, meth. Mostly heroin. A friend of mine OD'd during this time. I didn't even care. I was too drugged-up, and too apathetic, too numbed to everything. I saw another friend die in a car accident. Shit got worse. I did more drugs. Eventually, I OD'd on cocaine. My heart stopped. Thankfully, a friend who had been trying the entire time to get me to move on was there, and she was sober. She did emergency CPR while she waited for the ambulance, and they shoved a needle into my chest and pumped me full of adrenaline, which resuscitated me. I was taken into a detox clinic by one of the doctors who took pity on me, and after painful, VERY painful detox of all the shit I was on, which took six months to flush from my system, I was placed into psychological treatment. At first I refused their help, remembering my past experience with psyches, but these people actually helped me. Another blow to my faith; my conviction in those who used methods other than the bible being despicable being shattered. Once recovered enough, I returned to school at the age of 15, and was placed in a school that taught both intelligent design and evolution. At first I scorned the idea of evolution...and then I started reading into it.
It opened my eyes fully. The questions being introduced against my faith were piling up, and I could find no satisfactory answers despite the most feverish attempts to do so. I renounced my faith shortly after, and began to take to my studies in school full-tilt. I learned more in those three, almost four years than I had most of my entire life. I was placed in AP honor roll courses, and constantly aced every test thrown my way. As time went on I scorned the teaching intelligent design, eventually rebelling and refusing to write anything on the subject that implied it was a viable alternative to evolution. I began studying the constitutional amendments, and found to my disbelief the separation of church and state. And the more I read, the more I realized that what precious little I had was largely afforded to me by the Forefathers who wrote the Constitution. During this time I was solidifying more contact with my brothers, including Greg, who had joined the army, the same exact branch as our father had...and the same unit, a unit some people might have heard of.
We know of them as the 75th Ranger Regiment. He is now a Captain in the Rangers.
I refused to attend church. I was dragged in by my second-to-last foster family to be "exorcised of the demons that inhabited me." I was aghast at the ludicrous notion. I was not one to say there was no god and in truth I believed still in some kind of god, in ghosts and demons and the like, but I was also fully aware that I was in control of myself. In fact, more so than I had ever been, and they made the suggestion I was POSSESSED? I was infuriated. I showed up to the church wearing my gothic finest; black tripp pants with chains changing from them everywhere, fishnets, combat boots, spiked collars and bracelets, all that fun stuff, and proceeded to laugh my ass off at the almost childish display of the people having "visions" and spasming like idiots and gargling false bullshit baby-words that they claimed were "tongues" as they sought to "purify" me. Eventually the entire spectacle became so embarrassing [many of them had brought their children with them to this, too] that I eventually stood up, told the entire congregation they were a bunch of whackjobs, that I couldn't believe I once used to be associated with anyone of this crazy religion, and stormed out.
I was largely agnostic for the longest time; how could I, a mere human being, say there was no god, when even men like Stephen Hawking admitted they didn't have the evidence to prove or disprove such an entity's existence? But like Isaac Asimov, I came to the understanding that I was a creature of emotion as well as reason; reasonably I knew there was no way to disprove god's existence but I was so sure that he wasn't based on past experiences and everything I had learned that I was positive that not only did god likely not exist, but that all the other superstitious mumbo-jumbo adopted by so-called "alternative faiths" like wicca and satanism was no better.
And finally, last year, in November, I came across a book that finally led me to become the antitheistic individual I am now. A little ol' book by the name of "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." Christopher Hitchens and his surgically precise dismantlement of all superstitious beliefs completed my transition.
From devout Protestant Christian...to devoutly protesting Christianity, and every other superstitious belief out there. I used to think faith kept me together...but I adopted faith earlier in life. And as my life went on, shit never got any better. I shook my faith, and yet I never quite fell apart. I maintained my own strength to get through my life and to come to terms with everything I've endured. People do not need faith to comfort them...they only need strength, and strength that comes from ones own self is far better and far more resilient than strength born of false comforts. I am a living testament to that.
