Right Now, I'm Mad

As I have unpacked mine and my family's traumas from the church and as I have seen the way Christian people act and treat each other and how they weaponize religion; as I have allowed myself to really separate myself from religion and free myself from all it stands for, I have noticed I hold a fair amount of resentment. I hold some hostility as well. 

Deep down I have no issues with people exercising their beliefs. I can relate to people who are all-consumed by religion and doing everything they can to live by the rules it lays out. I get it, on some level. But at the same time I am angry. I am frustrated. I am hurt. The one thing I was taught was the truest beacon of light, love and acceptance in the world is, in realty far from any of that. 

I feel bamboozled. I feel like I was force fed garbage for decades; taught that it was the only option. I'm angry, even though I understand the motives of my parents (specifically my mother) I also wish she would have had enough backbone to follow her own heart and instincts instead of leading her children down the same path to nowhere that she herself couldn't wait to abandon. She feared the wrath of her own parents, so she dressed us up and paraded us into that sanctuary. 

One of the things I have been considering is the difference between people who are atheist, who were never really exposed to religion and have no reason to believe it and those who used to be believers, but reached a point where enough was enough and they had to get out. I think the number of the latter says something important about religions place in the current world. 

I do not think religion should be outlawed. I do see cultural significance and I also see where religion could serve as a way to explain things that were unexplainable and also set a standard of morals and ethics for the time the Bible was written. I know that there are people who struggle with things like self worth, addiction, trauma, etc. and religion helps pull them out of a pit and gives them something to focus on. I am not going to insinuate that religion itself is incorrect or has no place in the world. 

It does have MAJOR issues, though. It sets people up to be manipulated, let down and people can use it as a scape goat and a way to avoid confronting inconvenient or scary truths. Yet, many religious people use their religious views as a basis for all their decisions, their conduct and they want everyone to be forced to live by the rules of their religion. Those are some REALLY BIG problems. 

Living life on the other side of the veil, I feel free but I also still have a lot of questions and a lot to learn. My goal is to find a state of peace, to decide what my being atheist means, as far as how I live my life going forward. I still have a lot of anger to get over.