LJ Idol Season 7: Week 26; Open Topic

“Who created God?” was a question I had asked my mom when I was maybe in the second grade.

She told me “God is so powerful, he simply created himself...”

To her surprise, her second grade daughter replied back with “I don’t believe it.”

Yes, I was rather precocious as most children are at that age. But instead of asking the usual questions such as “Why is the sky blue?” and “Why can’t I eat glue?”, I had deeper thoughts that plagued my brain.

My mom had enrolled me in the Catholic school system never knowing that she would bring on a world of complex questions. I wanted to know why things were the way they were and how they came about. She couldn’t answer these question and, neither could the teachers at school. But unlike most people, I always wanted to know more than our tiny brains could comprehend.

I told my poor mother that something had to have created God...A fact she didn’t try to argue. However, with that in mind, I then asked her “So what created that which then created God...” And then “What created that as well?” She would just shake her head and merely tell me that perhaps there are some questions which we simply shouldn’t ask. It’s called “faith” for a reason, and you simply believed it to be true because that’s what the God tells us.

It wasn’t just the existence of God and creationism I would question though. I would often question the other side as well. If someone tried to explain the Big Bang Theory to me, I would ask again and again... But where did those particles come from? Where did the thing that created that come from? I asked these questions and would delve deep into arguments most people would choose to never think of. It was too complicated, why ask questions you didn’t and couldn't ever know the answer to?

I suppose that’s precisely what makes me consider getting my doctorate in philosophy. These questions and discussions fascinate me to no end. I don’t understand physics really, and I don’t believe everything can simply be explained by some fancy mathematical equations. I believe there are some concepts our brains merely can’t comprehend, at least at this time. I guess I must be crazy to sit around pondering theories such as this, but that’s just how my mind rolls.

I've got many fond memories of my time at the Catholic school and the people. I was a well-behaved child and never had my knuckles rapped with the infamous ruler though all my teachers would complain to my mom that they could never get me to stop talking to the kids around me or asking questions that they couldn't answer. I was never bullied for being poor since most of my counterparts were also poor, inner city children. I never knew racism existed because I was, in fact, as much of a minority as anyone else since my inner city school was primarily African-American. I was in this closed off little circle, and I had no idea that anything else even existed outside this bubble.

You’d think, this could be an ideal way to grow up. But alas, no...

While I certainly owe so much to my Catholic school upbringing, it also taught me something else that, looking back on things as an adult doesn't come as much of a surprise. My time in the Catholic school taught me fear. From the start, I had the fear of God drilled into me to the point that I couldn’t sleep at night because I envisioned the Rapture and just knew that it would happen in my lifetime.

My childish vision of the Rapture, which is probably a bit skewed because I wasn't able to fully comprehend what was being preached to me, was of a world where evil took over and you were given just two options. The first was to have a big "666" tattooed to your forehead and you were forced to join the ranks of the heathens burning in Hell for all eternity. Or you could make the choice to follow our Lord and Savior and watch as your loved ones were decapitated in front of you knowing full well that you would also lose your head but you'd be saved and go to Heaven.

Pretty dark thing for a young child to be thinking of, isn’t it? Yes, as I mentioned above, I was an odd one. But is it any wonder that I had trouble sleeping at night? Are you surprised that I was sent to psychiatrists because of nightmares that involved my family being decapitated before my very eyes? Is there any doubt that I lived in a constant state of fear, thinking every sign I imagined was a sign of the end times?

I often laid in bed at night, questioning my own strength and beliefs. I thought I must be weak because I would probably take the sign of the beast and burn in Hell just to save my family. I couldn’t handle it. And all of this was pushed onto a fragile child who knew very little about what the Bible “actually” said. I was just told to fear God, to fear the end times, to fear this, to fear that... and it's a lesson I learned well. Though it never stopped my questions, no matter how fearful I was in asking them, I never received any answers that satisfied me and was simply made to fear some more for having the temerity to ask them.

When people ask me what broke me away from a faith I used to put my entire life into I tell them that it was the fear that destroyed it all for me. I was tired of living my life in fear of the unknown, of not getting the answers to my questions and being made to fear the act of asking them in the first place. Had my life not built primarily on those fears, perhaps I would still be a Catholic today. It really is a beautiful religion with gorgeous traditions and ceremonies, I won’t deny that. Perhaps I was introduced to Christianity in all the wrong ways and surrounded by poor role models. However, it truly destroyed any hope for me that I could follow a religion so blindly when the only true basis for the beliefs seemed to be fear.

I know I’m a good person with every fiber of my being. I don’t avoid hurting others because of a deep seated fear of going to Hell (since I don’t believe in such notions)...I do it because I have empathy for other people and it's the right thing to do. I do what I do out of a compassion for others, not because I am told to do so by a book written thousands of years ago.

I no longer let the fear of the unknown hinder me in living my life precisely the way I think is right. If only others in this world would learn to do the same thing, the world just might be a better place.