Title: Save Your Soul
Author: Dragonendalia
Rating: PG-13

“You don’t believe in the God?”
“I don’t know, really…at the moment, no, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like thinking that one being out there can do whatever he wants with me, that he has the supreme control… I don’t like how the bible is sexist and it degrades women… and even if there WAS a One God, why does it have to be a ‘he’?”
“But not believing in God and his ways goes against the bible.”
“I’m not Christian.”
“What are you, then? Jewish? Baptist?”
“I’m me. Nothing more.”

“Do you think I’m going to burn in Hell…?”
“That’s what the bible says.”

Such narrow-minded thoughts and ways and views and sickening, reserved methods of living sicken me so much it’s almost unbearable. Why do people allow themselves to be controlled in such ways…? Why do they pray down on their knees, asking for salvation and forgiveness and life everlasting while they could be doing so much more? Why don’t they do things and make them happen, rather than just asking for it? Why must they keep the Ten Commandments? Why must they go to mass? Why sing under the dim, flickering candlelight before the sculpted, mortal-created form of the lord Jesus Christ on the Cross?

I wouldn’t despise it all so much if they didn’t try to convert me…

But they do. Almost every one I meet tries to make me feel guilty that I don’t bow my head and make the sign of my cross like my ancestor’s did, murdering ‘amen’ and ‘thanks be to God’. They frown at the fact that I don’t pray before bedtime and I don’t give thanks for the food that I cook and set on my own table. Sad sighs come when I say I do not keep the Sabbath day and I will never enter a confession to ask God to forgive the sins I commit everyday.

Because I don’t believe in it…

I get the same email from different people quite often…

If someone pointed a gun to your head and asked you if you believed in God what would you say? Would you renounce God to save your own life or would you die a proud believer?

In turn, I write back.

Better to live in your feet than die on your knees.

What has God ever said to me? What purpose did he give me? He talked to Moses and Abraham and Joseph, but not once have I heard from him. I feel no love in my life from someone I do not see. My parents love me. My friends love me. They are not God. They are mortals like me, who will one day die.

I’ve often been told I’ll burn in Hell with Satan and all of his minions, screaming down with the sinners forever.

“Well, it’s warm in Hell, isn’t it…?” I often muse in response. “I don’t really like cold weather… and why would I want to live in Heaven? It doesn’t rain there… no thunder and lightning, which I love… And it’s always bright and sunny. Give me a dark, hot cave than a flawless paradise.”

What fun is a world without flaws?

But I don’t even worry about Hell. I don’t believe in it. I believe that we die, and it’s just like falling asleep forever. Maybe you dream eternally when you die… Maybe you’re not even aware of it and you just cease to exist. But I don’t think there’s a place high up in the clouds where the angels fly, where there’s milk and honey, and God’s love everlasting.

After all, I’ve been in a plane and flown through the clouds a ton of times! Not once have I spotted and golden city with angels and Jesus seated at the right hand of the Lord.

I believe what I see and what others alive around me can bear witness too.

I haven’t met one person whose been given a divine mission from God.

Let them all keep their prays and their candles, crosses and crucifixes, rosaries and hems, their ‘amen’s’ and blood of Christ, their beliefs and their life everlasting…

But let me keep mine.

I’ll save my own soul.