The last couple days I’ve been doing nothing but complaining. I can’t get Emily Moss out of my head. How can I be so annoyed at her when we got along for so many years? Honestly, for most of my life I considered her my best friend. But as soon as I started seeing outside the little bubble I was in, things started to change between us. Now Emily’s acting like I died or something just because I quit going to church.

       Well, not exactly that. She’s all mad at me (or worried about me, or something) because I told her I am not Christian anymore. Emily and her family (not to mention my family) have always been devout Christians, and now that I am moving away from it Emily is pulling the whole “I’ll pray for you” bit. I started reconsidering religion because I hit some passages in the Bible that just totally clashed with what I believed. I’d never noticed them before. It was like I’d read them before but never thought about what they meant. I just accepted it as truth because everyone I knew said it was, and it was not to be questioned. Like the one part about eating from the tree of knowledge being forbidden. I don’t think being blissfully ignorant is better than being aware, even if it does cause you some worry. If something’s worthy of worry, it needs to be passed on so it can be dealt with or fixed! Not just ignored so we can stay happy! That was the first time I disagreed with the Bible, and there were quite a few times after that. It was such a strange revelation . . . it was like being told for years that washing your hands is good for you, only to find out that you’ve been washing your hands in poison. Those Bible verses were poisonous to my brain. It made me feel really unsettled, because I didn’t agree with the guy I thought was God. Then it struck me to realize . . . hey, maybe God didn’t really say this. Who says He did, anyway? No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer on that one, as to why this book is necessarily the Word of God and how we know that, and why all the other religious books aren’t God’s “real” Word. They just tell me I have to have faith. I’ve had enough of faith for now. It seems to be a euphemism for “I don’t know the answer, so you’d better shut up before you think too much.”

       I finally realized that I needed to get out of this poisonous atmosphere when I met my girlfriend, Tai. I’d never had a boyfriend, but I had expected that my first date would be with a guy. It just didn’t happen that way. I’d never “aspired” to be a lesbian before, but something with Tai and me just clicked. Not common interests, not physical attractiveness, but just something else. Something I never felt in my experience with religion. We were always talking about the glory of God and all that, but I realized I really didn’t see much that was glorious about it.

       Emily is really, really against this. Up until a week or so ago, she was always calling me and trying to talk me into “coming back.” It annoys me so much that I can’t make her understand why I feel this way. I admit, it was a little scary to “leave the arms of the Lord,” so to speak. I mean, I’d been raised to think any other way of believing was a one-way ticket to Hell. But I realized I wasn’t leaving any Lord’s arms. If there is a God, I really don’t think He cares too much about whether I believe in Him this way or that way. And if there’s a Heaven and He wants me there, I reckon He’ll put me there. I won’t argue. I just am not going to make a belief system out of closed-mindedness, which is how I see Christianity now. It’s an open, shameless admission that you’re positive you’re right, and that your way is the only right way. How cocky is that?

       Emily tells me that she feels the truth of Christ in her heart. I think that if she believes Christ is going to save her from Hell and it makes her feel better about herself, I’m all for it. It makes her happy. But as soon as she starts getting hoity-toity about the “right” way to believe, she loses me. I can’t believe there’s only one “right” way, especially not in a world where just about every religion thinks it’s the one true path. How can I be sure that one of them isn’t, or that Christianity is “the” one? I just have to go on my feelings, and I don’t feel that Christianity is right for me. Especially not in the way it’s taught, and with the whole thing about not letting me love my girlfriend.

       What’s different about my love? Emily says it’s lust. I suppose that if I was dating a boy (probably as long as he was Christian), she would think it was cool. But since she doesn’t like it, it means I am operating on lust. To tell you the truth, I have not even had sex with Tai. We kiss and now and then we go to second or third base, but nothing else. And I do that with her because I love her, and we consider it an expression of our love. I like to be close to her. The Bible says that what we’re doing is a sin and it simply does not allow it. I think that’s ridiculous—how can love be thrown out the window just because it involves two girls instead of a man and a woman? It’s the same kind of love, at least, I think it is. Maybe my love with a guy would be different . . . but then again, my love with any girl besides Tai would be different, too. I think it depends on the person. I think it’s really rude of Emily to try to tell me my love is not okay with God. Who says?

       So, I’ve been complaining to Tai about how annoying Emily is being. I think she’s tired of hearing about it, but she knows it’s really important to me to get this issue straightened out, so she listens. Another reason why I love her: she cares about my feelings, which apparently is more than I can say for Miss Priss Emily Moss. Emily says she can’t even talk to me anymore. I know it sounds really silly but I don’t want her to stop talking to me, even though all she can talk about lately is this God thing. She says she keeps harping on it because if she doesn’t get me back to God I’ll go to Hell, and nothing is more important than going to Heaven. But I sure wish she’d let me figure out religion for myself, and just leave me alone. Thing is, when I was “Christian,” we were such good friends. We had so much in common. I really don’t want to lose her as a friend, but I’m not going to say I believe in something that I can’t believe. Emily says we shouldn’t talk anymore because until I’m back in the arms of the Lord, I’m a lost soul, and she can’t stand to see me like that. So, basically, she’s saying that she is just going to talk my ear off about God until I break down, and until I do break down, we can’t hang out. She says we’re going to be separated come Judgment Day anyway. If that’s true, so be it, but I wish she’d let God separate us instead of doing it herself. She can’t accept that she might be wrong.

       I love Emily, but I can’t deal with her closed-mindedness. She won’t read other philosophies or religious texts, because she says that they’re only Satan’s crafts, trying to trick us into going away from God. I’ve been reading a lot of stuff: a little Buddhist stuff, some on the Jewish faith, and a lot on pagan and Wiccan beliefs. The Earth religions are especially interesting to me because they say there’s as many ways to believe as there are people in the world, and that as long as you don’t hurt anybody it’s your choice as to what you want to believe. So, I’ve been reading over a bunch of religious books, picking out what rings true with me and adding what I find out to the beliefs I already have. I haven’t rejected all of my Christian teachings, just the ones that don’t make sense to me. Like, I’m totally okay with most of the commandments: “thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal,” et cetera. But the whole thing with “thou shalt not worship any other Gods but me” . . . who’s the God that said that? Who’s to say I’m not worshipping the same one? I mean, if we’re all worshipping the “one” God but we call Him different things, does that really matter? I’m sure there’s a different word for “book” in a hundred languages, and they all mean the same thing. None of them is more “right” than any other. But that’s not really what Emily and I were arguing about anyway. She thinks there’s only one way to reach that God, whatever you call Him. I’m not so sure you even have to try to reach God at all. I think we’re already there. I think God is with us, and we’re already living with Him every day. The idea that I would have to accept a certain story, which sounds more like mythology to me than anything else, in order to reach God sounds completely ridiculous.

       I think that Emily is still living in a bubble, like I used to. Maybe one day she’ll meet a nice girl, too. That would be great. But really, I think that she believes so seriously in the Christian ideals partly because she’s never heard anything else, and anything else she does hear just gets weighed against Christianity and thrown out if it doesn’t match, rather than being considered for whether it’s really right. She compares things to a book, and I compare things to my own spirit, which is just as much a piece of God. But she just won’t open up. Every time I say something that makes too much sense to her, she claims it’s just Satan trying to trick both of us but that I’m the only one falling for it. I think that if there’s a Satan, Christianity sounds more like his religion than any of the other religions. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone trying to recruit for Christianity by talking about God’s infinite love. More often than anything, they warn against Hell. Indoctrination through fear and ignorance. That’s not for me.

       I hope that one day Emily grows up a little and realizes she really doesn’t know what’s right, that nobody does. I’m not saying I hope one day she discards Christianity. I really think some parts of it are positive, and she seems to enjoy it. But if she can’t accept that she has no right to snub other people when they don’t agree that there’s “one true way,” then she’s acting childish, and I personally would rather be awake and mature. Maybe one day she’ll quit being a spiritual brat and we can be friends again. But until she drops that holier-than-thou “I just want to save you” attitude, I can’t deal with her. I wish it wasn’t this way. But it’s her choice. I’m the one who’s open to being friends with her, and she’s the one closing the gate. So I suppose I’ll just continue to rant to my girlfriend about how annoying she is until either I get over it or she comes around.

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