Stop thinking like a child!

11 When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and see things as a child does, and think like a child; but now that I have become an adult, I have finished with all childish ways.
1 Corinthians 13:11 (NJB)

Of all of the verses in the bible, this is my absolute favorite, although I prefer the wording of the KJV of the bible over this one. The reason I love this text so much is because as it's worded it expresses one of my views regarding all religious beliefs including christianity.

Before all of you deluded theists start screaming about my quoting this scripture out of context or my not fully understanding its intended meaning, I want you all to know that in this particular instance this is intentional. I know exactly what Paul meant in this particular instance, but the words speak to me now as an atheist in a very different way.

Let me explain, one of the things that bothered me the most about being a christian and then realizing later that it was just another false belief was the sense of embarassment I felt for having fallen for such a lie in the first place. I was an angry atheist shortly after leaving the faith and renouncing my beliefs as utter ridiculous nonsense. As a theist I sacrificed a lot of things and put in a lot of time and effort to let the world know that Jesus was our Lord (another word for master) and saviour.

I preached on Saturdays and Sundays on different street corners, I visited hospitals and homes and prayed for the sick etc. I fasted and prayed often and fervently and tried to live my life to the fullest for Jesus. You see, in those days it was not my will be done but rather his will be done. I had a deliverance ministry for four years where I dealt often with the so called demon possessed, and often people testified that they were healed under my ministry. My entire life was dedicated to God's work or what I thought in my deluded mind what God's work was supposed to be.

I spoke in tongues, prophesied, I believed I had the gift of discerning of spirits etc. But when I began to have my first doubts about my beliefs, I began to feel a sense of betrayal. I literally felt like that kid who has been trying his best to behave all year long only to be told by his parents that the reason he wasn't geting any prestents that year was because they had no money and Santa did not really exist!

After having read the bible in its entirety for the first time, I had a lot of questions for God and my pastor. The bible had no answers that I found satisfactory enough to justify for instance the many atrocities contained in the bible perpetrated by God against man. Why do bad things happen to good people? How could he claim to love us and at the same time destroy us and threaten us with eternal torment as a punishment for not accepting to live up to his standards or even believing in his existence?

I was literally ashamed that I had fallen for somthing so silly and juvenile as a belief in an invisible guy in the sky and the imaginary legends and fairy tales of the Hebrews. Nothing stings more than getting bitch slapped in the face by reality and the sudden realization that everything you believed was false.

To this day I hate christian apologetics not because it poses a challenging defense of christianity, but because it is nothing more than making excuses for a God whose existence isn't even proven and whose attributes cannot be known. I always get a good chuckle when theists state that God and his ways are ineffable, because if he is unknowable and defies description then my conclusion would be that he does not exist. How can a theist claim to know God and at the same time and in the same sentence tell us unbelieving heathens that he is unknowable?

All religious beliefs are the product of the society and culure in which you were reared. In short they are childish beliefs that man should have put away a long long time ago. But unfortunately mankind as a whole has not grown up. They still cling to silly superstitions and mythical beliefs with no other foundation than faith. But for the inquisitive lover of knowledge such as myself, faith is not enough. Hopefully in the not too distant future man will eventually outgrow religion, but I won't count on it.