This entry is a continuation of "My Life As An Atheist." To view part one, click here.
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After a year or two of selfish hatred for my parents, I calmed down. I didn't call myself Satanic anymore, quit smoking pot, and just existed to live. I became bored.
When I was in high school I knew that if there was any possibility of me going to college I had to try to get better grades. I started working for my dad and studying whenever I could. I was also in Confirmation classes which were kind of fun. I put my early teenaged bull crap behind me. I started to believe in God again, but I never believed in Catholicism ever again.
After I got confirmed I became indifferent. I had never believed the bible to be 100 percent fact, and I barely believed that it was true. I would go to church with my parents every week and not put up a fuss, mostly because it made them happy. Sometimes the priest would say some interesting things about life, or I could let my eyes wander around the pews for cute girls.
On more than one occasion my mother had me bring my two younger brothers to church in their car. Instead we ended up going out to get pizza and telling my mom that we went to church. She didn't trust me and always asked what the sermon was about. I always said that I didn't pay attention which was an easy out because it would have been true even if I did go to church.
I just didn't care. I didn't believe in it enough to care about going all of the time.
When I was in my first years of college, my younger brother Paul went through a transformation. Up to this point he had been kind of a smart ass and began hanging around with some sketchy friends. We had similar music tastes and hung out from time to time. I came home one night to find my youngest brother John sitting at the computer with a giant stack of CDs.
"Where did you get all of these CDs?" I asked him, knowing that he was too young to afford all of them.
"I went into Paul's room to borrow a CD and found them in his trash can," he replied.
I thought that there must be some mistake. Maybe they fell into his garbage can. Sure enough, I went into Paul's bedroom to see that his walls were bare and all of his rock and metal posters were taken down and in the garbage with a few other CDs that John had missed.
We began to divide up the discs and make claims about who got what. At the same time I was concerned about why his music paraphernalia was thrown out, so we waited up for him and were prepared to return his discs if he wanted them.
When Paul returned home, he walked by the computer room.
"Hey Paul," I stopped him, "we found all of your CDs and posters in the garbage. What's the deal?"
"Well..." he started, "none of that music really promotes God, so I didn't want to keep them."
I paused for a second.
"UUuuuuuuuuuuuueeeeee okay..." I said back.
That was the end of our conversation. I thought it was weird, but I didn't put up a fuss. If he wanted to be a Jesus freak and give me all of his CDs that was okay with me. At least I can still skip church with my younger brother John.
Yea the good ol' days of skipping church...
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