Former Christian apologizes for being such a huge sh*t head for all those years

[marieelissa]

As a former zealous right-wing Catholic who years ago ditched all that in favor of using the mind, in reading this, I felt I could repeat this almost word-for-word.  So here it is with my emphases and commentary…


1.  I apologize to all the homosexuals. I am sorry that I believed in a religion that condemns you.  I am sorry that for many years I thought that the bible was right in it’s condemnation of homosexuality.  I am sorry that when I no longer thought the bible was right about homosexuality being a sin, I did not raise a gigantic stink about it every Sunday right in the middle of the sermon… week after week after week…  until the church issued a restraining order against me and I could no longer come within a hundred feet of the sanctuary. /* This is a worse for me having tolerated the irrational moralizing and thrown stones and from the safety of the closet those years ago.  I was a really big sh*t head on this one.  */

2.  I apologize to everyone on the face of the earth that has not accepted Jesus christ as their personal savior because I believed that you were all going to hell. This includes Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans, Environmentalists, Democrats, Movie Stars (especially Tom Cruise), Scientologists, University Professors, Physicists, Geneticists, Europeans, Women’s Studies Majors, Feminists, Millionaires, Billionaires, Hippies, Atheists, Agnostics, Astrologers, People who read their horoscopes, People who watch Bay Watch, Vegetarians, J.K Rowling, Bill Gates, All High-School Biology Teachers who teach evolution and P.E .Teachers who teach a yearly unit on sex-ed..

3.  I apologize to all my former Sunday school students because I taught you that the bible was the word of god. /* When I was a seminarian I taught Sunday school, contributing to the corruption of young minds * / I perpetuated a myth that the bible is a special book that should be regarded ‘much more highly than it ought’.  I encouraged you to trust this book, to think this book contained sacred ideas about life and god.  I made you think that the stories in the bible were intrinsically valuable and could teach you about how god works and who god is. /* And as a Catholic I demanded blind unthinking submission to the ‘infalliable’ Pope of Rome and the hierarchy united with him.  The pope and bishops are an anachronistic institution that perpatuates the biggest scam in the world. */ I apologize for always referring to god as a ‘he’, thereby further anthropomorphizing a pretend deity and making you think ‘he’ was real and decidedly masculine.  I apologize for teaching you to think that you were a sinner and that Jesus had to die for you when you are really just a beautiful child, perfect in every way from the minute you were born (except for when you aren’t).  I apologize for telling you that Jesus conquered death and that you should put your trust in him when there is not a shred of evidence of the resurrection except for what is in the bible.  I apologize for not respecting your intelligence and glazing over thorny issues and rationalizing all the bullshit that is so present at all times in ‘god’s word’. (I apologize for saying bullshit in this apology).  I apologize for ever calling the bible ‘god’s word’.  It isn’t ‘god’s word’.  It’s just a book.  There are a lot of other much better books.  There are books that helped humanity move beyond misogyny and slavery and tyranny.  There are books that led to scientific discoveries which led to medicine and helpful machines and made the world a better place.  None of those books are in the bible.  In fact, the bible helps people to justify misogyny and tyranny and slavery and the bible made church leaders fear science and so they burned scientists and doctors and smart people because what those smart people were learning was often in direct conflict with what the bible and the church taught.   I apologize for not telling you that the bible and christianity are two of the main reasons that it took people so long to move from tyranny into democracy, from slavery to human rights, from cruel religious mandates to civil law.  I hope someday you will figure that out for yourselves in spite of what I taught you.