Hi, I'm G. I remember a time when my family was a happy little picket fence cliché. Times have sure changed...

It all started because my mother was INCREDIBLY catholic, and my father was INCREDIBLY Lutheran. You should have heard the way they bitched when my sister and I went to one church and not the other. When I would request to stay home, my mother would drag both of us to her catholic church and put us in 'The Baby Room', regardless of whether or not we had actually done anything.

Later on, my parents separated (only physically, they were still married). I was living with my mother until she died of colon cancer, at which time my father's close-minded Lutheran belief system took over. He said, and I quote, "Once you kids leave the house, you can practice whatever religion you want. But while you're in my house, you'll be Lutheran."

At this point, I looked at it all and I knew religion had caused a lot of death, war, famine, plague and hate. I'm not saying that religion is the only reason for this, but it is such an incredible factor. Seeing my family, religious disputes and all that I had experienced, I said that how could a god really allow this shit to happen over his form, unless he had a huge-assed ego, or is he really that divine and good. After MUCH psychological deliberation & look at faith in science, I finally concluded that I was indeed <gasp>an atheist</gasp>. I told my father that I was an atheist, and he told me, "You'll do anything to get out of going to church!". I had never felt so belittled.

After all that I went through, this is what he says to me.

From that point on, my group of friends started to dwindle. Now we are at present day. I'm depressed; I haven't had a girl in a while (a long while); and I have only my few friends. Now my friends are limited to a Universalist (<- my sister, that's interesting), a Pagan, another Atheist, and a questioning Catholic. Frankly, I'm quite sick of all of my friends' friends telling me that:
1) they will pray for my soul
2) I do believe in god
3) the world wouldn't have violence if we could all wise up and become christians
4) the world should force christianity on all humans (that pisses me off).