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At what age did you read it?
I had always read parts of it the most popular books but not the weirder ones. And at Sunday school they put me in the adult class when I was seven with my Dad. This was to keep me away form other kids cause i thought they are just scaring us to make us behave. I was less willing to question it all in front of my Dad. He believed in it and prayed and all that and he was my dad. And my mom would guilt trip me when I was arguing with her that oh so I didn't think my grandfather (her dad) was in heven? and shit like that. In Sunday school they read the bible to you selectively line by line and make excuses and interpretations of it over the half hour or so it taked to explain away a single chapter. I never bought into Noah's ark, the tower of Babble etc. I think I rejected the old testement from about age 4 or 5 and thought oh they are just telling us kids this stuff cause they think we can't understand, surely the real stuff we will learn later, because I could not fathom the idea that all these adults I knoew actually were reading the same exact thing with nothing more.
And some believed these stories literally happened. I wanted to know where are the dinosaurs, how come all this magic happened back then but not now? etc etc
I was a Christian but with my own twist, from about 8-14 I thought god is real but the bible is crap. jesus is probably not real but ill believe anyway just in case because if he isn't real it wont matter after im dead. I flipped flopped there thinking god will know that i dont really believe in the jesus story so i tried rea hard to make myself believe part of it happened just not the miricals. I was sent to a religious boarding school at had Jerry Falwel as a guest preached and chaple every day communion once a week and optional but not really optional service on sundays too.
I can remember around 10 thought we were being told some bible story and it was the typical story about resentment and hating the wealthy hating the babylonians or egyptians or romans or whoever was in charge. I thought this is just appealing the the poor's desire to be rulers themselves by tellng them if they submit now they can have it good in their next life where all of them will be the kings. I was unaware that the first 7 books in the OT was judaism. But I new I hated the first half of the bible because it was so crazy and god acted like a spoiled child full of rage.
I think one Saturday I took a pen and Bible and note book and just read the whole thing. I had read a 800page book for english class in one day because i didn't want to do an assignment and the day before the grade decided shit i have to or i will fail. And so I figured I can read this while bible I have read most of it anyway.
All it took was re-reading the shit they tell you when you are really young and it was so obvious. I went and got another bible to make sure I was reading a real bible because some of the things in it were so stupid and so immoral. It supported slavery, believed in magical creatures, detroyed cities, raped women cut up their bodues all this stuff I had never been shown in Sunday School. I always wondered why we danced around in the book instead of just reading it straight through.
Once I decided there was no hell it was easy, for I have never believed any of it basedon reason or it making sense. I just tried to make my self beleive out of fear of hell and reaction from my parents. The bible had always been dead. But I just thought it was silly it wasn't until after reading it that I discovered it was wicked and harmful. But my mom gave me the line oh so you tihnk you are smarter than all these millions of people who believe in god and jesus you got it all figured out as just a kid line of crap. I said i dont have it all figured out i just think this garden of eden story is no different than the mother goose stories.
So i decided ok im a kid so im dumb the real nature of everything must be too hard for me to understand so how can i find out. I tricked my folks by first asking if there were any other ideas about life and creation besides christianity. they gave me the classic well long ago zues athena etc but thats why jesus came to straighten it all up mess. I said well were there anyone that just didnt have a religioin. I got the run around. so later I went about it this way I asked who is the smartest person in history? then I asked who is the smartest person in town. The answers I got were einstein or newton, aristotle, another einstein, and mr walter, mr scotty so then i asked mr walter and mr scotty the same questions, i got archemdis or devinci and and i dont know maybe the smartest person was probably not famous because they usually killed people who disagreed with the state like socrates who was almost unknown had it not been for notes discovered from his students.
So I asked what did Socrates, Aristotle, Einstein, Archemides, etc believe they were all atheist except for Newton who I decided who may have been lying. I also discovered many of these people lived before christianity or judaism even existed. I had been taught it was around since the first people in sunday school.
Well I went with the smartest people over the majority. Wasn't until around 15 I told my parents I did not beleibe in god or any of it. That nothing was created and there is nothing after death.
