Happy Easter.....?

This may be the wrong day, or the perfect day, to say this but... Easter confuses me, well religion in general really. My father is an atheist and my mother only made an attempt to bring us to church steady for like a month and we never went back.

When it came to religion, there really was none in our house. No saying grace at dinner, even on holidays. No praying at night. Nobody telling me to believe in God or that God will make everything alright. None of that. All I knew was there were churches and people went to them to praise God, whom nobody has ever seen. But does that mean he doesn't exist? I couldn't tell you. For a long time it was more my father occasionally convincing me he doesn't exist than it was anyone trying to convince me he does. And it wasn't like my father said "God doesn't exist and neither does the devil so don't you ever believe they do." It was just things he would say when people mentioned God on t.v. or on the news thanking God nobody was hurt during a bank robbery- stuff like that. He'd sarcastically say "Oh right, that was ALL God. It had nothing to do with maybe the robber just wanted money and didn't want to shoot anyone." And to me, that felt like an accurate assessment of the situation. Like I couldn't picture a criminal standing there with a gun, hand on the trigger and God came down and interfered in some way. It seemed more likely to me that the man was just greedy, not violent. It wasn't until I got older that I even knew what an atheist was.

So all the while I have my father making points as to how God doesn't exist, I had nobody compelling me to believe he did. And since we are all products of our environment, I grew up leaning more towards the belief that there is no God. I had too many unanswered questions.

"Could he have existed at some point?" Sure.

"But is a spirit living in the sky pulling puppet strings on lives down here NOW, and has been for thousands of years?" In order to believe that, I'd have to believe in ghosts and that magic is real.

"If God made everything, then who made him? Where did HE come from?" More magic?

"If he only created earth, then "who" created the other planets? And stars in the sky? Am I supposed to believe God existed before the sun and the moon did?" How?

"Jesus died for ME?" I never even met him, I wasn't there, and I didn't ask him to so.... o_O

"If Jesus didn't give his life then..." (complete this sentence for me because I don't know)

"HOW do you resurrect ANYONE from the dead?" I need answers. Let me know, I have a few deceased loved ones I'd like to kick it with today. Must be nice, Jesus.

I'm supposed to believe all of these things because there is a book written stating it to be so.... why? Anybody can write a book, anyone can tell a story. How do we know what is fact or fiction without asking the author? Now don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting here making a mockery of it. I genuinely would appreciate an explanation. Like I seriously want someone to answer these questions for me, because so far in my 28 years of living, nobody has. Everyone's answer was always "just because... that's the way it is.... it's in the Bible... girl I don't know... etc..." Well sorry but that's not good enough. I just don't understand how people can be so gung-ho fanatic for something they can't even explain to me. Do I pray? Yes. Am I doing it because I really expect God to hear me and carry out my wishes? Not exactly.

I believe there is an energy, a force, a fate and a spirit that lives IN US. I can FEEL it but I think it mostly comes from within. My positive attitude has everything to do with me and the way I choose to see life. I don't feel like a divine spirit lays hands on me and calms my soul when times are hard. I use my mind to reason with myself and say "This is life. Things happen. But it will get better." Because that is the outlook I choose to have. Now there are some twists of fate and incidents that set your life on a different course that you have no control over. And that I can't explain, but who can? Is it just convenient to say "That ain't nothin but God (or the devil) girl." and call it day? I do believe there is SOMETHING but do I have to say it's God simply because just about everybody else does? I don't believe in ghosts so I can't justify it to myself.

I had a friend who asked me to come to church with her when I was 17 and I said "Girl I don't believe in God." You woulda thought I said "I just fucked 5 dudes last night." the way her face looked. "What?! Girl... why?" Then I asked her the questions I posed earlier in this post and she didn't have much to say. What I wanted to ask her was "How would your God feel knowing you fuck a married man while shouting "Oh God!" and then go sit up in church shouting praise to him? Hmm?" And she was 25 or 26 years old at the time, plenty old enough to know better. I've see too much hypocrisy and contradictory shit from so-called "saved" people. Religion itself seems contradictory, there are all these things you are not "supposed" to do, or you are considered a sinner. BUT if you happen to do it, and confess/ask for forgiveness- it's all good. And then when you die, your soul is judged again? Then your spirit goes to heaven or hell? And then what? NOBODY KNOWS.

NOBODY.

If you can find me someone who has been to heaven or hell, I'd like to meet them.

There is a saying: "It is better to live life like God does exist and find out he doesn't, than to live like he doesn't exist and find out he does."

Well, if that's the case... then I'm good. I conduct myself morally better than some "devoted Christians" I know my damn self. I have never betrayed anyone, I treat people how they treat me, I don't judge anyone, I'm not a thief or murderer, I'm honest, I am a great mother, I have a positive attitude and I don't take a second of life for granted. Just because I don't know who/what hears me when I pray/send my energy out, doesn't make me less worthy of any blessings or good fortune I may receive. I devote my life to LIVING IT THE BEST I CAN, not to please God or Christ or Peter or whoever. And if there are pearly gates, and they want to hold that against me when my day comes- but forgive a murderer or child molester and let them in just because they said "I'm sorry, please forgive me."- then I didn't want to roam eternally amongst hypocrits anyway.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged". Matt. 7:1

Hmmm.... So, Jesus can't get mad at ME because nobody has facts and examples, right? Not my fault. All I know is when I went to google images and typed in "easter" to pull a pic for this post, out of the first 20 pics, only 2 were of the cross where Jesus "gave his life for us"..... and the rest were colored eggs and bunnies.

I'm about to go eat some jelly beans.