Atheism and me. Part I beginnings.

Atheism blog.

I've put off writing this blog for a very long time for a couple of reasons that I aim to cover as I go along. I'm going to try to be as coherent as possible and not spiral into ranting madness, like I've been known to do. If you think you can hang around and read for a while, I'll be sure to inform you of why I've chosen faithlessness, and the steps leading up to this decision. 

I was born to a Christian family, the majorly of them as far as I know believe in Yahweh and his earthly manifestation, Jesus. This has worked for them forever, and I'm glad that that's the path they most enjoy. 

My mother never forced any of us to go to church, not because she didn't believe, because she does, but because she has never liked her experiences in church, she's quoted various hypocrisies and such as her reasons. I think to a degree that kept at least myself pretty level headed over the issue. Most of my church going in my younger years was done when I had visits with my favorite aunt and uncle. My uncle committed his life to working for god at a young age. So anytime I went to stay with them, which was often, I had to go to church on Sunday. I don't remember a whole lot about it, I can't recall having a significant amount of fun there. But I mean this was when I was small. 8ish? It's unclear at the moment. 

When I got into middle school we were visited by a youth group from a local church, they had their own van and had absolutely no qualms with driving way out to pick us up if we were inclined to go. One of the girls in this visiting group was a girl I was quite fond of. I won't forget that day. Anyways, as enamored as I was with her I decided it'd be cool to go church, at least then I'd get to see her regularly. So my first conscious foray into church going was simply to chase a female. A formula for any endeavor in my life even up until today. Doing things for women, I mean. I went to that church for a couple of years, i had several different girlfriends thanks to the gig. And I think a part of me wanted to believe it all. It was mostly all taken as fact because belief in god was something that was instilled in me by my family. I was saved shortly after my first visit to this local church, interestingly enough by the father of the girl whom I had initially went to the church just to see. Her father gave a big talk about being previously hooked on drugs and such, and that when Christ comes into your heart he forgives you of sin, and replaces such vices with joy and love. I wasn't concerned with any of that, I mainly just felt guilty and I didn't want all the other kids to think I was a tool for not voluntarily getting saved. I dont recall ever feeling an overwhelming joy at any of these events, including my baptismal. The feelings that were described by others I was unable to feel myself. I had always thought that that was weird, but it seemed awkward to question any of it.

As I transitioned into high school I started rejecting Christianity in a rebellious fashion. Holding an atheist idea to a degree but more from the stance that I just completely disliked religion in general. My current viewpoints will be tackled later, I'm trying to maintain a steady thought process. Anyways, I hated god about as much as any moody, angsty goth kid of the late nineties. I figure it was all for show in retrospect. But this is around where things got even more complex...

Due to some unfortunate circumstances in my home life I spent a short time as a transient of sorts. Albeit a short time. After that I moved out of town to stay with my aunt and uncle. The same aunt and uncle I previously mentioned. My uncle was the pastor of a church up north and they were the only family I was inclined to stay with. It was a change of pace for sure, I expected to not have to attend church for every service, but my uncle insisted that I did. After a few months I was pretty used to everyone that attended and they became like an extended family to me. I was only slightly forced to play the drums in church, mostly because I picked it up ok, and my cousin was tired of their current drummer. Over the course of the few short years I was there, I embraced the life, though I only believed it halfheartedly. I've always been one to do my own thing, even through use of hypocrisies, Behaving one way at school and another at home. 

In a need to feel accepted i went further into belief. The church was a Pentecostal church, if you're not familiar, google it. Though anyone reading this should already be familiar. We went on a youth retreat of sorts for a weekend once. You do activities, get prayed up. Talk about love of god, etc... The last night of the retreat things were going really well. People were getting worked up, as pentecostal people tend to do, so I decided to give it a shot and try to wholeheartedly pray for forgiveness. My church group in particular noticed me at the altar doing my thing and crowded around me to pray as well. Oddly this filled me with an uncontrollable rage that built up slowly and manifested itself about five minutes after they gathered. Its sort of a mystery to myself, but the others being young and headstrong were convinced I was possessed by a demon of sorts. I dunno if I was or not, in hindsight I'm inclined to think I wasn't, But I was definitely not in the right frame of mind for that sorta thing. I worked out a great deal of energy in what seemed like thirty minutes of thrashing about. Lots of crying and anguish etc... When that was all over we all wandered to bed, got up and left the next day. I can't really say I felt different afterwards. I outwardly expressed that I did to others, but maybe I was just being an attention whore. I think that I really did want to believe. I made the effort, I even prayed for faith, because that's the sorta thing you're supposed to do apparently when you're having a hard to buying into it all, but that didnt really seem to work.

There was another instance where I was being prayed over during a revival and I started acting the fool again. I don't really feel that I had control over it. It pretty much went the same as the last time, me beign enraged, young people trying to cast demons out, so on and so forth.I got through all that at a great expenditure of energy. Afterwards the visiting preacher to our church sat down with me in an attempt to explain why I was being the way I was. His explanation was that the over zealous youth weren't necessarily praying a demon out of me, but misunderstanding signs and praying a demon INTO me. O.o <<< that was my face when I was told that. 

After a bit of time, a cousin of mine took a day of the week when we had no church to start his own weekly service. This put the amount of times I was going to church at about three, four depending. One Sunday before these services had debuted he was preaching instead of my uncle. We did the usual playing of music followed by fire and brimstone preaching and a subsequent music session to guilt people into repentance. When out of the blue he claims that god has told him that I, mark wade, was called to preach. You see in the Pentecostal community you don't really get to just tryout for that sorta thing. I mean you can, but to be taken seriously you have to have the calling... Now whether or not this calling was legitimate or not at the time was left up to whoever happened to hear it that day. My little 17 year old brain was barely comprehensive of such things, but being the good little soldier I was I rolled with the punches. Before you start thinking that 17 is a bad time to start preaching, you also have to understand at that time many young people were obtaining fame for their love of god and their willingness to spread the word. Our youth pastor himself was only 19 and was and no doubt still is a great preacher. Preachers talents are gauged by being able to work a crowd, don't let the sanctimonious part fool you. From my experience it's just another show, Even if the performing monkey is unaware that that's he's an unwilling participant. 

So I was scheduled an evening to preach. The first service I did was pretty good. From what I remember. Not a huge turnout, but when you're doing a service on an odd night of the week, I think it was Thursday's,  you can't expect much. I don even remember what I preached about. I know it wasn't long, and my cousin came in after and supplemented it with his own. My uncle didn't attend. I never did figure out why, but I sorta figured he didn't agree with it. Or at least that's how I felt. This feeling was reinforced on the second and final time I took to the pulpit. I didn't even pick a topic, or even read. I guess for some reason or another I thought I had some sorta hotline to god and what was needed to be said would just pop into my head magically. I suppose my relatives and other preachers made it look easier than it actually is. So once I finally got up to the pulpit to deliver, I had nothing. I Broke down and cried in front of probably not even twenty people. Of course crying in a Pentecostal church is almost an expectation, so everyone rolled with it. That was when I stopped trying to be something I wasn't. 

I got lazier about doing anything church wise. Pursuing whatever fancied my short attention span. Mostly playsation and when I was fortunate, a girlfriend. In my senior year I met a girl who would completely throw me for a loop and challenge me in every way possible. We connected quickly, and I was hooked on her solid. I'd do virtually anything for her at the time. I should maybe stow that story away for another day, as it's not really pertinent at all to this particular blog. Soon after I finished high school, doing whatever I really felt like doing, I decided to move back to Florida. That was really the extent of my church going after that. My first wife went through a Christian phase after a bad trip on nitrous, but managed to recover eventually. As badly as she wanted to commit to god at the time, I had pretty much gave up on the idea that Christian living, belief or not, was not for the likes of me. But this wasn't really when I had lost faith at all. I still believed to some degree, though I was of the opinion that supernatural forces were against me. 

I think around my divorce is when what little faith I had started waning....

Continued whenever....