Wednesday, January 24, 2007 . 1/24/2007

Lastnight when I couldn't sleep, I got to thinking about when I was younger. Those were such good days; I had friends and not a care in the world.

I grew up in a Christian family, though it wasn't that bad. I went to a Christian kindergarten, and again, not that bad. It wasn't like Jesus Camp or anything, but many times we had art projects and other little assignments relating to God or Jesus.

My first real school I went to was a Christian one, and it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Girls had to wear dresses or skirts, boys pants and no shorts, and we all had to wear socks. Other than that, the dresscode wasn't terrible. We had a Bible study in the mornings and went to assembly (or chapel) before class every other day. Every Monday the principal would ask for us to raise our hands if we went to church, and if a teacher had all of the kids in her class raise their hands, they would get skittles or something.. I can't really remember. I never went to church.

In chapel, my teacher would look to all of the class to see who is being the best-behaved. She would have three "skittle passes" - this was in 2nd grade - and at the end of chapel, she would hand one to three well-behaved students and they would go to the principal's office to get skittles. I got chosen very often, and I daresay that I was one of the most favorable students in that school. Once, the principal even addressed me directly in chapel and asked if I had gotten a horse yet - since it was my dream to own one.

I had two close friends in that school, though I talked to almost everyone in my class. One of those two close friends was my best friend, and we'd joke around, etc.

Every Christmas, my 2nd grade teacher would put up a paper Christmas tree on a bulletin board and would pass out paper ornaments that we could color, and we would line up and place our ornaments on the "tree".

I loved my teachers there, I loved my friends. But at the end of 3rd grade, I switched schools.

This one was also Christian, and a lot more strict in regards to the dresscode. We could only wear solid-colored clothes and even a tiny flower on the corner of a shirt was enough to send you home with a warning. The same went for shoes.

At first I was open with my classmates, but eventually I just stopped talking altogether. This is when my social anxiety kicked in.

After only one year of going to that school, I switched again, and things were made better because I liked my teacher. This school wasn't Christian, but it was strict on the dresscode and was the same as the previous school I went to.

I remember that my teacher would give me little sheets of paper that were designed for goal-setting. Every time I talked, she would put a sticker on a square, and if I got the whole sheet filled I would get a reward. Since she knew I liked horses, one time my reward was a horse beanie-baby. I didn't even have to do English in that class since she knew I hated writing, and as long as I did well in my other subjects I could pass up on the English assignments.

I remained in this school until 7th grade, and I switched again to a public school with no real dresscode. I remained friendless, and day by day I got more irritable, until eventually I got pulled out by my mom and started taking corrispondance classes. This has helped me alot, and gives me more energy in social situations when I don't have to constantly deal with obnoxious people all day.

I don't remember exactly when I became an atheist, but it wasn't hard for me since I had very little faith to begin with. All I remember is that sometime when I was around 13, I started to think about how in books, the 'evil' side was very rarely all that evil, and were just misunderstood. I thought that if this happens in books, then why not in real life? Sometime around this period I also developed the dislike for people who pretended to be Satanist or evil. It wasn't long before I started looking up Satanism, and holy shit I was right. True Satanism is not evil at all.

A year or so passes and I learn about Luciferianism, which is about learning, mostly. A frequent thing among Satanist and Luciferian sites is that they say how Christianity is such a messed up religion. Eventually, I stopped calling myself a Luciferian and just stuck with 'atheist', since even though Luciferianism (and Satanism) doesn't recognise these characters as actual entities, they still embraced what they represented. I thought that this was just as silly as believing in a god, so, voila! - atheist.

I've had some bad experiences with Christianity aswell. For one, my grandpa and grandma from my mom's side don't visit us, but instead frequently visit the houses of those that go to church. When they do visit, it's just for useless smalltalk. They don't give me anything for my birthday except for a card and a dollar bill, and the same goes for Christmas. This makes me feel inferior to my cousins, since they receive more than just worthless cards.

Another time is when my parents taught me about heaven and that if I was good, I would go there, and about hell. I started crying, though I can't remember the exact reason. But it scared the hell out of me (no pun intended) that if I was bad, I would burn in eternal flames. 0 Comments - Post/view comments