Wednesday, 17th February 2016
A book changed my life. I'd go so far as to say it was a Good Book. No, it's not the bible; it was Andrew Marr's History of the World. I listened to it on audio book and frankly, it was a little dry. But, none the less, it changed my life...
Now, religion is a tricky subject. I think it's important to allow someone the space to think what they need to get through the day (say, for example, a flying spaghetti monster) but as an LGBT person it's not that easy because some people in the world feel the need to use their religion to spread their own hate and misconceptions about anyone who isn't cisgender and straight. Coming from a religious family, religion has been one of the things I've wrestled with a lot in my life. God was an ever present part of my life as I grew up. He was there and He was listening.
I met a guy at Uni who was obsessed with asking me about my religious beliefs. I think it was as a way of trying to reconcile his own take on the world and his own belief system. At that point in my life it was nearly impossible to talk about it, even to ask him to stop asking, because I felt so pulled in different ways in regards to my religion, my faith and my sexuality that it nearly tore me apart. By the time I was twenty (having come out at age twelve) I had attempted celibacy (and failed horribly), tried going to different churches, online support and, of course, praying. No matter what I did, I felt I couldn't reconcile these two clashing worlds. The problem was, I couldn't see a way to not be gay and I also couldn't imagine a world without God...
So, I stuck my head in the sand. I ignored it and hoped it would go away. When thoughts of religion would enter my head while masturbating I pushed them away. When the thought of God watching me was there as I had sex, I closed my eyes and thought happy thoughts. The problem was, the God I carried with me wasn't loving, kind and generous; He was the figurative embodiment of all the anti-gay propaganda that I saw around myself and my unwitting internalised homophobia. He was voice of no, of denial, of the trying to be something I wasn't. I didn't feel loved, I felt judged. The good things I felt I had in my life; my partner and my place within the gay community, was a dirty shameful thing and something I shouldn't want or enjoy.
In reaction to these strong feelings I swung between extreme religious views and the opposite world of logic and reasoning as I tried to rationalise this fracture in my life. The rejection from a church for being LGBT was the final kick towards rationalism and atheism but I still carried the fear of God with me. I read the literature, I told myself He didn't exist, I believed all the science far more than I had ever believed the Bible, but still, He was there. A naggling feeling at the back of my head. That was, until I read the Good Book. You wouldn't expect a book about the history of the world to be life changing, I certainly didn't. I listened to it in lieu of having anything else to read. So what was it that changed my life? The history of religion. The first monotheistic religion (a religion with one God in) started 7000 years ago. Started. It had a beginning. It struck me like a bell and my head felt like it rang for days. The hold that this childhood god had had on me rang away with it. The vibrations shook the foundations of my mind and I was left clearer for it. The belief in a single god has a beginning. God has a beginning. If I was The One and Only then there would have been no time in human history that I wasn't believed in. God was a human creation, not the other way around.
I am now happily and contentedly atheist. It's a journey and I still have to remind myself that there's no outside power telling me how I 'should' be. Sometimes it's easier to live in a framework created by someone else because you don't have to make it yourself. Still, while making your own framework of self can be much harder, the real Good News is you can make it as fabulous as you like!
Jack Davis
