I was born in a Christian cradle. It was a beautiful thing wrought from the silver words of the Bible and blanketed in soft hymns sung on Sunday mornings. At night when I slept, angels sat at the foot of my cradle and strummed their golden lyres, their sweet music keeping evil spirits well at bay. Before I could walk, I found myself wrapped tightly in my mother’s arm while our Pastor preached powerfully from atop an altar. As soon as my chubby legs could support me, I was led to this altar and instructed to fall to my knees and pray. As a small child, I wasn’t exactly sure what to pray about. In fact, I didn’t know how to pray at all. Instead, I buried my face in the nook of my arm and peeked at the others from beneath my lashes. My fellow churchgoers certainly knew how to pray, for most wept openly and ardently as they lifted their tear-stained faces to the heavens and cried out to a Father who knew them, who recognized their struggles and their pain, and who would surely reward them with sweet, eternal paradise come the end of all times. It was a frightening sight for a child to observe, but I quickly came to recognize the beauty in prayer. It was there in the music of the congregation’s unified voices, a euphony rising and falling to the beat of handful of exalted hearts.
The Book of Revelations tells of the final encounter between Heaven and Hell–Armageddon. The rider of a splendorous white horse will lead the heavenly armies in war against the foul creatures devouring the earth. The beast and the false prophet will be thrown into the lake of fire and burning brimstone. Satan, on the other hand, will be imprisoned in the Abyss for one thousand years, after which he will be released. He will then scour the corners of the earth and gather the wicked and evil for battle against God’s city, but heavenly fire will reign upon them and devour them. Satan will meet his end in the fiery lake, the dead will be judged, and the New Jerusalem will rise out of the ashes of the earth.
While the children were taught about Moses splitting the Red Sea, I along with the other teenagers were prepared for this battle. Prayer would serve as our breastplate and the Bible as our spear. We would go out into the world as warriors and fight the countless forces of Satan. What’s more, we would win. We would be victorious in our efforts. How could we not? It was written there, on those last few pages of the Scripture that described life in eternal light! How could we not fight when our victory was so certain?
My life was a war, a great and astounding battle. I was aware that my body was temporary, a collection of cells like grains of sand—imperceptible, insignificant, and weak. But my soul was like the ocean, a force of profound power. It would survive my rattling bones. It would taste the pleasures of eternal paradise.
It was such a lovely thing, knowing that I was never going to die. It was such a hopeful, beautiful belief. But somewhere along my path to paradise, I stumbled.
At first, I was unable to explain why the prospect of attending church, once such a joyful thought, left me with an empty feeling in my stomach. In fact, as the years went by, I felt those initial restless doubts about my religion become more and more easily ignited. It wasn’t until a recent discussion in English class that I came to understand my slow but sure decent from devout Christian to agnostic atheist.
In order to explain the literary significance of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, my teacher discussed his views on human nature. He explained how each person is born with certain personality traits and characteristics that define the type of adult that he or she will develop into. He pointed to me and declared that I was a soldier, and that ever since I was young, I enjoyed fighting. He insisted that I relish my identity as a follower, and that robbing me of an opportunity to serve would be condemning me to a frustrated life.
While my teacher only meant to illustrate a hypothetical situation, his specific example of a soldier, a follower, and a person who serves reminded me of what it was like to be a Christian. Wasn’t I once a soldier fighting on God’s side? Wasn’t I once prepared to devote my life to his service, to travel to the ends of the earth to preach his message, to follow the orders that the Bible establishes for all of those who seek Him?
I certainly was. However, when I allowed myself to pay attention to my doubts, I found myself unsure about what I was fighting for exactly, especially considering that my church’s teachings often clashed with my own beliefs. However, what led to my abandoning my faith was my own nature, specifically the fact that though I was eager to win the war, I did not want to be a soldier. In fact, I am not capable of being a soldier, for I am as far from a soldier as a person can possibly be. It is not within my nature to follow a plethora of orders transcribed thousands of years ago. It is not within my nature to blindly love and accept as true that which I do not understand, and I could never hope to understand God.
I have recognized the beauty in prayer since I was very young, but I feel as if I have never truly comprehended it because every time I have fallen to my knees in prayer, the only voice I hear is my own.
Practicing the teachings of Christ is an incredibly admirable way to live, for what can be stronger than treating others with respect, love, and kindness in all times? However, in my opinion, a true Christian doesn’t just simply follow the Ten Commandments in the hopes that doing so will earn him or her a one-way ticket to paradise. No, a true Christian loves his God because his God is love himself, and having a connection with boundless love is all that is truly needed to live a life worthy of Heaven.
Though I have immense respect for Christianity, I am not a Christian because my battle is not against evil spirits and my orders do not come from the Bible. I am not a Christian because I do not follow a single God, or any god for that matter. I am not a Christian because I do not believe that the choices I make in life will determine where I spend eternity. I am not a Christian because I have come to terms with the fact that whatever it is that allows me to feel compassion, to recognize beauty, and to love limitlessly will die with my temporary, weak, insignificant body.
The realization that I am very much mortal has allowed me to recognize how precious my time on this earth really is, and that I don’t want to spend it on the edge of a precipice knowing that at any moment, if I happen to stick a single toe out line, I’ll be spent spiraling into eternal darkness and agony by a celestial force whom I’ve lived my entire life trying to please.
I am a freak accident of nature. I am a collection of cells that was born from another collection of cells. The odds of my existing are so small that I shouldn’t be here at all, and yet, here I am. The universe did not arrange the planets and the stars in a certain way just so that I could be born; therefore my being alive is the only miracle I believe in. Because this world is so big and I am so small, I have to take advantage of the here and now. Earth is it for me, and I am determined to spend my precious, precious existence experiencing the wonders of this earth—the only Heaven I will ever know.
My soul belongs to myself and to myself only. If I choose to, I can share it with those whom I love. I can season it, flavor it with art, music, literature, and experience. I can pour it out onto what I love to do, and when my time comes, as it surely will, I can kiss it goodbye and release it to the winds.