I want to believe...

I don’t believe in God. I tried. I prayed. I attended church. God just never really stuck. He went away with Santa and the Boogeyman.

I’m not saying believing in God is wrong. Far from it. I think he’s a big comfy security blanket for a lot of people out there. With God comes Heaven, angels, eternal happiness, chocolates on your pillow, um… magic beans, a goose that lays golden eggs – you know, all the good stuff.

There was a time where I did have faith in religion. In church I was fascinated by older women who would stand, eyes closed, arms outstretched, offering up their spirits to God. Later though, that fascination and wonder would be choked and left for dead when perception came into play. The gift of awareness.

The Bible has some pretty neat stories and some wicked good messages, but when it comes to interpretation, especially when people get together to become a group –or a community- then everything gets completely turned upside down. Messages are lost. Essence and meaning fall away and it’s always the scum that rises to be presented in its simplest form. The dumb version.

The Bible does its best to tell us stories about how to live our lives the best we can. Only now, the way people have taken it is that they need to believe in God so they can get into Heaven. I was told once, by a believer, that the world we live in, this life, that’s Hell.

Fuck that.

This is Hell? We’re given complete freedom to live our lives the way we want. We have choice. We’ve been given brains, and limbs, and lips, and armpits, and assholes, and hearts, and intestines, and earlobes. We’re a living masterpiece. Every human being is a well oiled machine. The only flaw is that it’s temporary, and that scares people. They become insecure and afraid. With that fear, people turn to God and spiritual immortality.

This is Heaven. The whole point of existence is living and loving. We breathe and sneeze and think because we have a chance to do good things. To do what’s right. To make the best out of skin and bones. You’ll never be happy if you live your life believing you’re in some fleshy Hell.

It’s good to have faith, but why not have faith in yourself? Why feel the need to validate the things you feel with a group or a title or symbols?
Believing in God is easy. Believing in yourself, that’s what people should be striving for. That’s why people should gather together.

I don’t have a problem with the idea of God, it just takes the fun out of everything. It takes the wonder and magic out of living. Creationism? Is that really what people want to believe? That God just made the Earth like a second grade science project? Like we’re sea monkeys or something? Isn’t it a lot more magical and amazing that the Earth is the way it is by evolution? The idea of nature and life exploding into each other and creating something really fucking unique and cool?

You guys can do whatever you want, but I think that’s what I’ll believe in.

What Ryan's listening to: Asthmatic by Windmill