Keebler Elves Rock!

Just to clarify, this is not a rant. I am just stating some of my views.

Before I start, I would like to say that if you do not share my view on certain topics, that is okay. I will respect your opinion, but only if you respect mine. If you start yelling shit about how I’m going to hell, that is when I stop taking you seriously. Because guess what? You can’t prove that you’re right, and I can’t prove that you’re wrong.

So, here are a few of my opinions.

First off, I do not believe in God or any “higher power”. I’ve tried the whole religion thing, and it doesn’t work for me. I went to a Lutheran preschool. Not because my parents wanted me to learn religion, or were religious at all. It was just a convenient location. All day, 5 days a week, I would hear teachers talk about “God” all day. God was so incredibly important, and it wasn’t a concept I had been able to wrap my head around. While others blindly accepted all this, I didn’t understand one thing. Not one.

All day we watched Veggie Tales, talked about Jesus (or, as I thought of him, “that guy with long hair who is cool for some reason), and went to church on Fridays. The pastor (is that what you call the Lutheran ones?) seemed like a really nice guy who genuinely wanted to share his faith with these impressionable young kids. But I still didn’t get it.

And I didn’t really give it much thought. I didn’t understand it, but I survived. Religious school isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds to some people.

I didn’t begin thinking about faith or religion until elementary school, when I started science class. Now instead of preaching about God and expecting me to believe every word, real facts with proof were laid out in front of me, just waiting for me to dissect, to immerse myself in. Everything had a real explanation that didn’t assume I would believe something just because it was shoved down my throat.

And I realized something. I do not have enough pure faith to believe in God. I am the type of person who needs facts that are proven, and that just doesn’t mix with a belief in God. That doesn’t mean that God couldn’t possibly, in a million years, exist. He just isn’t real to me. I don’t believe in God.

Science, to me, is great. Everything needs to be proven, to have evidence, to be considered scientific. Otherwise, it’s discarded in the “other” bin. That is exactly how my mind works. If I believed in something with every inch of faith I had, and it couldn’t be proven to be true, it would weigh on my conscience.

Which brings me to my next topic. Evolution.

In my opinion, evolution is the only theory of the origin of humans that belongs in science class. Because scientific facts are proven. Evolution has proof. It has been studied for so many years, and it explains so many things, like the similarities between humans and chimpanzees, monkeys, etc, as well as the fact that all living things are either bacteria, fungi, mammals, reptiles, insects, fish, or birds. We evolved from the same species that the chimpanzees did. If you go back in time long enough, our ancestors are mere bacteria that came about in the ocean a few billion years into Earth’s life.

Not to say that creationism/intelligent design/whatever the new thing to call it is can’t be taught to kids. Just don’t teach it to me in science class. Why not save it for parents to pass on to their kids, or for religion class in religious schools? Most public school students I know don’t take creationism seriously, and never would. So why bother?

In order to prove that creationism is correct, one must first prove the existence of God. That can’t be proven either, so don’t bother trying to make it look “scientific”.

If you want your kids to be taught your beliefs, home school them.

This concept of people having the beliefs of extremists rammed downed my throat is my next and final topic for this topic.

I have heard loads of people tell me I’m going to hell for not believing in God. I don’t think these people understand that if I became Christian, I would not really have it in my heart. Even if I went to heaven for forcing myself into Christianity, it would be based on a lie. I would rather fry for all eternity that lie to myself.

I am not sacrificing what is in my heart for something that means nothing to me. Never.