Please, shoot me now.
Out of the closet and thoroughly hating it.
WARNING: Best avoid this one if you're of a very religious persuasion.
I am an idiot. A FUCKING IDIOT.
I've never done something so stupid in my life.
I have to give my mom credit for being stubborn. She came upstairs this morning, woke me up, and said, "do you really not believe in god?"
I am SICK of her doing this. Sick of being asked and having to lie to keep the peace. So I said, "no, I don't" and donned the Poker-Face-of-Mental-Superiority that people hate so much, but I had to because I cannot handle the pressure I'm put under in these kinds of situations. I hate conflict. Anyway, onward...
Mom: Do you really not believe in god? Me: I don't think I should answer this. It will make you VERY unhappy. Mom: I prefer to confront reality and not stick my head in the sand. Me: *smirking* No, I don't.
And from there it escalates ... She repeatedly refers to my views as a "problem", says I'm going "the wrong way", she's so disappointed, she's going to help me, I'm building an argument from fear and ignorance and misconceptions, I'm WRONG and I'm only a child who knows nothing compared to her and I should blindly follow my parents and agree with everything they do and BLAH. BLAH. BLAH.
Gah. My mind wasn't working too well (I was kind of shocked, you know), so I didn't make many arguments - just prodded her once in awhile, questioned everything and such. She says I should suspend my disbelief, because I have a radical view and it's the wrong one and I have to be wrong because almost the ENTIRE WORLD has a religion! OH NO! Imagine that! How DARE I do live without something most of the world has?!?
She didn't surprise me at all. She compared being in a church to having a baby, said I'd never experienced the CONNECTION and the EMOTION that comes with being close to god and thus I'm making an argument out of ignorance, and it's founded on my opinion and I'm only doing this because I was fucking terrified of it when I was a kid and had nightmares and, you know, was really scared of it. Not like that matters. It's Jesus. How dare I be frightened by the wild savages?????
And then she ventured into MY territory... "How is it possible that all of the animals are the same as they have been for millions of years if they're supposed to be constantly evolving? Why are zebras and horses the same as they were in bible times? Why did one creature become this super-intelligent thing when all of the others barely have a brain? Do you really believe we came from a tadpole? If we did, why are there still tadpoles? Why didn't THEY change? Why haven't cockroaches turned into humans?"
Oh, please. I told her I couldn't remember the argument for this (I really couldn't. I'd read something about it) and simply said, "Do you believe you were made out of dirt?"
"Yes. God does have 'magical powers'. He could make anything he wanted out of dirt."
My mental reaction: *FACEPALM*
The Big Bang Theory from my mother’s viewpoint: Some meteor hit the earth, which would have DESTROYED it.
PLEASE. NO. STOP NOW.
I explained the Big Bang to her (very brokenly, because I was having trouble remembering all the details) and when I got to the bit about the asteroids or whatever they were carrying the amino acids from space into the primordial ooze, she said, "And you believe those all just HAPPENED to come together? And form a human?"
"Well, yeah. But if they hadn’t formed a human, they would have formed a Purple People-Eater, and we’d be sitting here saying, 'do you really think that could have made a PURPLE PEOPLE-EATER-' "
And then she blamed all of society’s problems on lack of religion, and made more promises about how she was going to help me and tell me the truth ("Don’t you realize that what you’re saying isn’t the truth to me?")… And that I should be agnostic. Because that’s more logical. Right. Okay.
"Victoria, I’m just so scared because I know you, you’re so stubborn and you have a head like a brick; once an idea gets into it, it’s almost impossible to make you think anything different!"
That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Aww.
"I just don’t get it." I was trying to make her STOP now, winding the conversation down, because we had been at this for two hours. "I can’t say, you know, 'Magic Grandpa in the sky made the world and is watching you right now, and he’s going to end it soon.' I can’t do that. Religion was created thousands and thousands of years ago, before science, and people believed that Heaven was just above the clouds! But we’ve flown there in airplanes, and we know there’s nothing up there."
And then she covered the subject of souls (and how every human has one and it hungers for a spiritual relationship), which had absolutely no effect on me because I don’t believe that souls exist.
"You always have extreme reactions to things." I never thought of it like that … go on. “It’s like … "You’re so picky because you were picky when you were two. You’ve never gotten over it." Damn right I’m picky, and in more areas than just FOOD.
She was so vehement about it …. And now I know I’ve started a war for my "soul". FUCKING HELL PEOPLE, GET OFF MY BACK. I know they’re not going to give up; they’ve gone into Emergency Conversion Mode, and now I know this is one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. There are going to be lectures, and talks, and church, and fucking bible studying with my grandpa or something absolutely stupid like that. And people are going to cry. And look at me and shake their heads and think, "What went wrong?" And pray, and put their hands on me, and act like savages, and touch me -
I can't believe it. How could I have done something so STUPID? That's all it was; pure stupdity. Standing by your beliefs in the face of adversity is supposed to be noble, but, believe me, it's not worth it. It's not worth having a Spanish Inquisition in your home. It's not worth having your parents try to lasso your brother in before you can "pollute" his mind and leave them twice the mess to clean up. It's just not worth it.
I can get through this. Remember! You are stubborn! You have a head like a brick wall, not a hole! NEVER have a head like a hole!
I’m a fucking idiot.
WARNING: Best avoid this one if you're of a very religious persuasion.
I am an idiot. A FUCKING IDIOT.
I've never done something so stupid in my life.
I have to give my mom credit for being stubborn. She came upstairs this morning, woke me up, and said, "do you really not believe in god?"
I am SICK of her doing this. Sick of being asked and having to lie to keep the peace. So I said, "no, I don't" and donned the Poker-Face-of-Mental-Superiority that people hate so much, but I had to because I cannot handle the pressure I'm put under in these kinds of situations. I hate conflict. Anyway, onward...
Mom: Do you really not believe in god? Me: I don't think I should answer this. It will make you VERY unhappy. Mom: I prefer to confront reality and not stick my head in the sand. Me: *smirking* No, I don't.
And from there it escalates ... She repeatedly refers to my views as a "problem", says I'm going "the wrong way", she's so disappointed, she's going to help me, I'm building an argument from fear and ignorance and misconceptions, I'm WRONG and I'm only a child who knows nothing compared to her and I should blindly follow my parents and agree with everything they do and BLAH. BLAH. BLAH.
Gah. My mind wasn't working too well (I was kind of shocked, you know), so I didn't make many arguments - just prodded her once in awhile, questioned everything and such. She says I should suspend my disbelief, because I have a radical view and it's the wrong one and I have to be wrong because almost the ENTIRE WORLD has a religion! OH NO! Imagine that! How DARE I do live without something most of the world has?!?
She didn't surprise me at all. She compared being in a church to having a baby, said I'd never experienced the CONNECTION and the EMOTION that comes with being close to god and thus I'm making an argument out of ignorance, and it's founded on my opinion and I'm only doing this because I was fucking terrified of it when I was a kid and had nightmares and, you know, was really scared of it. Not like that matters. It's Jesus. How dare I be frightened by the wild savages?????
And then she ventured into MY territory... "How is it possible that all of the animals are the same as they have been for millions of years if they're supposed to be constantly evolving? Why are zebras and horses the same as they were in bible times? Why did one creature become this super-intelligent thing when all of the others barely have a brain? Do you really believe we came from a tadpole? If we did, why are there still tadpoles? Why didn't THEY change? Why haven't cockroaches turned into humans?"
Oh, please. I told her I couldn't remember the argument for this (I really couldn't. I'd read something about it) and simply said, "Do you believe you were made out of dirt?"
"Yes. God does have 'magical powers'. He could make anything he wanted out of dirt."
My mental reaction: *FACEPALM*
The Big Bang Theory from my mother’s viewpoint: Some meteor hit the earth, which would have DESTROYED it.
PLEASE. NO. STOP NOW.
I explained the Big Bang to her (very brokenly, because I was having trouble remembering all the details) and when I got to the bit about the asteroids or whatever they were carrying the amino acids from space into the primordial ooze, she said, "And you believe those all just HAPPENED to come together? And form a human?"
"Well, yeah. But if they hadn’t formed a human, they would have formed a Purple People-Eater, and we’d be sitting here saying, 'do you really think that could have made a PURPLE PEOPLE-EATER-' "
And then she blamed all of society’s problems on lack of religion, and made more promises about how she was going to help me and tell me the truth ("Don’t you realize that what you’re saying isn’t the truth to me?")… And that I should be agnostic. Because that’s more logical. Right. Okay.
"Victoria, I’m just so scared because I know you, you’re so stubborn and you have a head like a brick; once an idea gets into it, it’s almost impossible to make you think anything different!"
That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Aww.
"I just don’t get it." I was trying to make her STOP now, winding the conversation down, because we had been at this for two hours. "I can’t say, you know, 'Magic Grandpa in the sky made the world and is watching you right now, and he’s going to end it soon.' I can’t do that. Religion was created thousands and thousands of years ago, before science, and people believed that Heaven was just above the clouds! But we’ve flown there in airplanes, and we know there’s nothing up there."
And then she covered the subject of souls (and how every human has one and it hungers for a spiritual relationship), which had absolutely no effect on me because I don’t believe that souls exist.
"You always have extreme reactions to things." I never thought of it like that … go on. “It’s like … "You’re so picky because you were picky when you were two. You’ve never gotten over it." Damn right I’m picky, and in more areas than just FOOD.
She was so vehement about it …. And now I know I’ve started a war for my "soul". FUCKING HELL PEOPLE, GET OFF MY BACK. I know they’re not going to give up; they’ve gone into Emergency Conversion Mode, and now I know this is one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. There are going to be lectures, and talks, and church, and fucking bible studying with my grandpa or something absolutely stupid like that. And people are going to cry. And look at me and shake their heads and think, "What went wrong?" And pray, and put their hands on me, and act like savages, and touch me -
I can't believe it. How could I have done something so STUPID? That's all it was; pure stupdity. Standing by your beliefs in the face of adversity is supposed to be noble, but, believe me, it's not worth it. It's not worth having a Spanish Inquisition in your home. It's not worth having your parents try to lasso your brother in before you can "pollute" his mind and leave them twice the mess to clean up. It's just not worth it.
I can get through this. Remember! You are stubborn! You have a head like a brick wall, not a hole! NEVER have a head like a hole!
I’m a fucking idiot.