I am an atheist. The first time I can recall ever actively thinking I was an atheist was in 7th grade. But I was just having doubts. I went to a Catholic school for first through eighth grades. In eighth grade we were going to make our confirmation. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's like when you, as a young adult, proclaim to the church and your family and stuff that you are Catholic and are prepared to live your life according to the church's laws. Being that I went to a Catholic school, both of my parents were Catholic, and all the friends I had gone to school with were Catholic, I didn't have a whole hell of a lot of choice about whether or not I was going to go through with this. So I just played along. I knew something was up when my sponsor, my mom's best friend since she was three, stood me up for a Julio Iglesias concert. If this confirmation thing was such a life-affirming, life-altering event, I think Julio could have waited.
Anyway, I guess the reason I am the way I am is due to the fact that I love science. I need proof. That, and the hypocrites I run into all the time. Like the people who live in my neighborhood. Whatever happened to love thy brother? First I should point out that I am Mexican. OK. So we are a minority. We have to stick together, que' no? People from my home town are deathly afraid to go into "bad parts" of towns like East Chicago, Gary and Hammond, Indiana. We live in Munster, which is like surrounded by all those towns. Those towns have an incredibly high percentage of minorities, whereas Munster is predomintly white, and some Asian. A professional community if you will. So this is what I grew up with. These racist attitudes coming from people who espoused good Catholic or Christian values. WHATEVER!
Not to mention I've had all sorts of encounters with closed minded people who insisted on shoving their religion down my throat. Like this kid I went to dental school with, David Wilson. Jesus H. Christ, what an idiot. He was Mormon and he wrote this not so nice letter to the women in my class that basically said that we, the women, missed our calling in life and should be at home with our husbands and kids, or out getting some if we didn't already. We took the letter to the Dean and everything and he didn't do anything. So this guy got away with it.
But I've decided to go back to school again this time for education. And I am very into the separation of church and state in the public school system. If I ever have kids, I don't want them to be taught that creationism is on the same level as evolution in terms of theory. As a science person, I belive that the evidence points to evolution, and the story of creation is just that, a story. Basically this is how I see it: The Bible was made in a time when people didn't really know too much about the Earth, nature, science and such. So they needed some way to explain all these things that were going on. They wouldn't have known about dinosaurs or anything like that, so it's not in there. And those in charge, men, needed some way to keep people in line, so why not scare them into listening. Tell them that for all eternity their blood will boil and their skin will burn in the eternal fires of hell. No way are they going to sleep with your wife, or at least it will give them something to chew on while they make their decisions.
And don't even get me started on the Catholic church. Can you say patriarchal tyrants? "Tradition" is the only reason they can give for keeping women out of the priesthood. Yet in places where there is a shortage of priests, they will assign women as pastors, and saddle them with the responsibility of an entire parish with out the benifit of a title, pension, or any privileges whatsoever. And when I was in Catholic school, there were no altar girls. We couldn't even do the readings.
And why is it that it was so important that Mary was a virgin, but not for Joseph? It's not even mentioned.
Actually, I have a lot of beefs, which I may or may not air later.
Back to my home page.