To get this clear, this isn't meant to offend anyone. If I do just that, I apologize in advance. I feel a great need to talk about this and I just can't keep my thoughts on this silent anymore.
When you're a child, you go by your parents' teachings. What they believe in is what you believe in. If they go to church every single weekend, then you go with them. When you're a child, if your parents are Christian (I'm just picking this religion for this topic), then you are automatically Christian. That's the way it's always been here in the United States; it'll probably always be like that.
When I was younger, my parents never went to church. After my father left my mother though is when we went for a while, but eventually we stopped. My father married my stepmother, she begged to go to church, but we never did and still haven't to this day. My stepmother is a very, very faithful Christian and she will shove it down your throat if you don't agree with what she believes. My father is also Christian, but he keep the belief to himself.
Through school, they teach you about other religions that are all around the world. What they leave out is the religions that other people frown upon. Their reason for doing this is because they know that some parents will call the school and complain about how their child came home and started talking about Atheism (another one I just chose for this topic). The major ones that I was taught was Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. That was 9th grade year.
In middle school, I dipped into religion and started learning about the different beliefs around the world. I thought the entire was interesting and when my family began talking about going to church, I started wondering if there was an actual "God" out there or was there many gods, such as the Hindu believe. When my father rejected going to church, I began to question his belief, but I'll get back to that part of the story later.
In eighth grade, after my grandmother passed away, I claimed Atheism. She had been saved just three days before and then she died. She was the one person that I went to for everything and this "God" had taken her away from me. To me, there was no Heaven, there was no Hell. There was nothing out there because when we die, the only place we went was in the ground for the maggots and the worms to eat our deceased flesh.
In ninth grade, religion became a strong topic in our family as I came home and was telling them about what I was learning in history. I told them about how the Earth started from planets colliding with one another (Big Bang Theory) and how there was other religions in the world that we should all be wary of. My stepmother told me that they were teaching me the wrong things in school and that I needed to keep the Christian faith in my mind. At this time, she had no idea about my Atheism... or my self harm for that matter. She had pissed me off one night when she shredded my homework (which happened to be about the religions) and I yelled to her, "I don't agree with your faith. I have my own." That's when her wrath descended upon me.
After my stepmother remained angry for about two weeks, my father held me back in the car one night and told me the story of my grandfather (this is what I was talking about earlier, proving my theory wrong with questioning my father's faith). My grandfather used to work in the coal mines and one day, there was a serious accident that left him in the hospital for quite a few weeks. When the accident happened and he became unconscious, he saw himself in a field with the other person who happened to be there at the time. They were both being carried by "angels" to a bright light. The other person was carried into the light, but the angel that was carrying him turned around and placed him back in the field. That's when he woke up. He then proceeded to tell me a story that I didn't know about when I was younger. When I was three or four, I was very, very sick. My temperature went up to 103 one night and after being rushed to the emergency room, they told my parents (my real mother and dad) that they were going to have to wait. The only reason why they took me back is because I started seizing. When they put me in a room and the doctor was trying to find out, my mother was standing at my bedside holding my hand. Apparently in my dazed state, I looked up at the ceiling and said, "Mommy, I see angels and they're telling me that it's okay to let go." I don't whether this is true or not, but I didn't know anything about it until that moment.
At the end of ninth grade, I claimed to be Agnostic. Agnosticism is when you belief that you cannot prove that there is a higher power out there, but at the same time, you do not deny that another one exists. Most agnostics do believe in an afterlife, but some do. My afterlife is that we're all reincarnated and we take what skills we have in this life and carry them on into the next life. For example, my writing skill could have been my last life's success. Some skills manifest in this life and they may be the ones that carry on to the next life. Again, my writing may or may not carried over because I also have the talent for programming and singing. My writing may have been the skill that manifested in this life also, we shall never know. With what I believe, I have a way to prove where we came from and where we go when we die.
When my family asked my religion and I told them agnostic and explained what it was, my stepmother proceeded to yell in my face, "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!" By this time, they were doing the process of trying to get me into therapy because of what I mentioned earlier, my self harm. I talked to my therapist a few times and my stepmother told him, "If she believed in God she would be a lot better."
This is where there is the two stories of how my therapist responded. My cousin told me that Mr. Therapist said that I can believe what I want to believe in because it's my faith and that's what I'm going to cling to. My cousin heard this through a phone call that was exchanged between my stepmother and her mother. My stepmother's story is that the therapist told her that he couldn't discuss religion with me, but he wished that I would believe in "God" for my sake. To this day, I have no idea which story is true.
Since I claimed my religion, my parents have been trying their best to get me to convert back to what they are. My father wears a cross now, my stepmother gave us bibles for Christmas (mine was put in a box under the bed), they make me watch religion based movies, and my stepmother continues to this day to say, "Kayla, I don't want your soul to go to hell when you die. You're going to regret it and wish that you had believed that Jesus died on the cross for your sins." It may sound sweet in my words, but it's more like a broken, scratchy record in my life.
What got me shoved into this topic though is the fact that my father brought a movie into my room and said, "Don't judge it until you watch it." Of course, this made me look up the plot of the entire Nicholas Cage Left Behind movie. Comes to find out, it's about the fucking rapture (I'm sorry if I offended you). I walked into the family living room and said, "Thanks, Dad. Thanks for the movie that I really, really need to watch." This is when my stepmother butts in and says, "You need to watch it. It might put something through your damned thick skull." Now I'm sitting in my room typing this for you all to read.
In a summary of things, I shall tell you what my cousin told me on the day I went to church for his nephew's (my second cousin) dedication. "People fear what happens after they die. That's why they cling to their religion. What you believe in is why some people are scared. They think that if they will believe what you believe, they'll go to hell. You've taken the smart way to handle things and I'm proud for you for that." Both of my cousins have the same belief as me.
When and if I have kids, I'm going to teach them to accept all religions. I'm going to teach them that they can believe whatever they want to believe and I'll accept anything that they want. I mean, it'll go hand in hand with the other lessons I want to teach them about how the world won't always agree with what you think, but don't be afraid to show off what you are. You are you and no one can change that. I want the future to be better.
Thank you all for reading and again, I'm sorry if I offended any of you.
-Kayla VI
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