Losing my religion

Yeah... its a good song by REM...

But I had lost my religion long before I first heard this song... :P

I guess it aaaall started one day when my science teacher (4th grade or 3rd?? I dont really remember) taught me that the earth was very very veeeery old, and that it took billions of years for it to "cool down" and become habitable, and then she mentioned something called "evoltions" or was it "ivolution" :P.

I remember a pic of this old dude with a fluffy white beard and simian features giving me the stink-eye from the pages of the text book, which in turn was right on top of this very weird pic of a chimp slowly losing body hair and straightening its back... eventually becoming an unshaven bloke with a club in his hand... (It was funny how each ape-man was mid-stride ... scrupulously covering his privates with his thigh :D)



I went home and questioned my mom...

Me: Ammaa ... wasnt the world created in a week or something... didnt Yahweh create adam from sand and eve from adams lower rib...

Amma: Of course daa... didnt u learn that in Sunday school?

Me: Yeah... but my science teacher said man started to stand up... and not be monkeys or something... and she said the earth didnt have water for billions of years... she is a christian... didnt she learn the bible!

Amma: (she had this look in her eyes, like she wanted to say "I was afraid of this") Umm well ...------ (Amma turns towards my sis... calls for backup...) DIIII SOWMIEEE!

Cheechi: Whaaat!

Amma: Come here! Help me explain ---- (turns bak to me)

Amma and Chechi: (finishing each others sentences) Daaa ... u must understand... the bible is like... a story... its not meant to be taken literally... when it says 7 days... it doesnt LITERALLY mean 7 days! It probably symbolizes how things started and slooowly came to be what it is today.

Me: (To self) Not to be taken literally?? What does that mean? Y is Amma so unsettled by this question? Is she afraid I'm going stop believing in God - be a bad person? Paavam Amma... she's..... wait a minute did she say "probably symbolizes"? Isnt she sure? Does she not believe? That Sunday school teacher taught that people who did not believe in God are not good... they will suffer in hell! No! Amma goes to church every Sunday... She is good... Its ok... Pheew! But am I good? I am questioning the Bible... I know I shouldnt... but... mmm




When I look back upon this tiny little incident NOW, I realize how efficiently "the system" had manipulated a child, molded him, put their ideas in his head and how efficiently they had covered up any leaks in case the child wanted to think outside the box. The manipulating, molding, leak-fixing properties of...

FEAR....


Worst is the leak-fixing... making the child afraid to question what he was taught... drawing a circle around some stories and made-up theories and asking him to be afraid to put a toe outside...

THIS... is were my atheism takes a sour twist and takes on the shades of antitheism....