I was in kindergarten when I learned that my parents’ religious traditions arose out of the application of reason to faith; my early teens when schoolmates asked why my family didn’t attend the local “hellfire and damnation” churches; my late teens when my university’s Baptist Student Union children started sounding like little cultists; my 20s when I learned that being openly gay was rewarded with bizarre reactions from my ostensible peers, most of whom—the “Christian” ones—really didn’t want to socialize with me; my 30s when I came back to NC and found that people wanted to know whether I was married and where I went church, in that order, upon first meeting me; and my 40s when I realized that I’d have to hide my inner personality—including my skepticism about the value of most organized religion—if I wanted to remain employed.
Now, in my early 50s, I know that people like me are being killed and tortured in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Russia; my essential humanity is questioned every two years by “religious” political candidates; and I have to wonder how I’ll be treated by health “care” workers as a gay senior citizen.
NCbear (who knows that organized religion is not only the opiate of the masses but also the direct cause of the tremendous suffering of millions of people over the last few millennia)
Now, in my early 50s, I know that people like me are being killed and tortured in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Russia; my essential humanity is questioned every two years by “religious” political candidates; and I have to wonder how I’ll be treated by health “care” workers as a gay senior citizen.
NCbear (who knows that organized religion is not only the opiate of the masses but also the direct cause of the tremendous suffering of millions of people over the last few millennia)
