My wife is a Christian and I am an atheist. When we met in college I was hardcore into debating with Christians, studying the bible and pointing out the contradictions to anyone who would listen. I had some debates with some gorgeous christian women, and as I look back now I have to look at myself and say: you gotdamned fool!! You get alone with this bad ass woman and you are having some theological debate?!?! In college, along with learning about machinations of American society, I also mastered the art of talking my way out of the pussy. I could write a movie about it; a sitcom of course. But thats another conversation for another time.

So my wife invites me to church all the time, and I go on Christmas, Easter, Mothers day and stuff like that. But She gets pressure from her church members and then she starts pressuring me and here I am with a choice to make. The young Rebel in me would just say, nah, I'm not Chrisitan and I'm not going. But the mature rebel in me knows, that that approach is fools gold. Marriage is about compromise, and the mature rebel in me knows, I'm gonna have to go if she keeps asking me.

So boom, here it is, Sunday, I have my suit on looking all fly, wife looking fly, kids looking fly, and we walk into the show. My wife gets to show me off, so I know I need to look as good as possible, stand erect, smile, try to remember people's names, and dont fall asleep during the service.

I like singing, so the singing part of church always works for me. The choir is pretty good and the choir director has a really beautiful voice, imo, so I dig the musical part. The pastor is a relatively young guy, about 30, he's energetic, he uses popular music and expressions to liven up his sermon, he's really funny and I generally am entertained by him. So why dont I want to go to church?

I dont believe in god! Baptist church's are heavy into what appears to me to be some kind of ancient worship ritual. I mean I literally feel like I am being transported 100s of years back in time to a cruder civilization, where people feel like God is this powerful being who needs to be praised and worshiped or he will wreak his wrath upon you. When we are constantly being implored to say things like 'praise your name oh lord' 'we worship you oh god' 'we lift your name oh god' 'we know that only you, etc.' I just cant get into it. It seems crazy to me. Is god some kind of ego manic or something? Why does he need all of this adulation? Does he have low self-esteem or something? I mean, if there was a god, I would like to think he would be a lot less concerned with praise, and alot more concerned with actually having his words and principles lived out. But maybe thats just me.

Then we get to the craziest of the crazy things I hear in church. "cover me with your blood". WHAT THE FEEZY?!?!? Is it me, or is asking to be covered in blood a little odd? Yeah, I figured, it must be me. Well I guess I'm just funny like that. :) I must really love my wife.

Labels: atheism, christianity, church, compromise, marriage, maturity