I have to wonder something.... when did so many people I know become atheists? Or, rather, so many people I knew. I mean, I had a reason when I was an atheist. You can't really believe something you know practically nothing about. We weren't even (as Kellee puts it) a "CEO" family (Christmas and Easter only)----we just NEVER went to church.

I wasn't really an atheist anyway.... I was one of the dreaded agnostics, which is apparently a taboo now. You HAVE to know, nowadays. Either you have to know religiously or you have to know the other way.

I know some people who stand for themselves. They believe in family and friends and stuff, but mainly they believe in themselves. And I guess that's fine or whatever.... it just seems pretty limited. To me.

There must be something very wrong with religion that would turn people away from it... or maybe there's something wrong with the people. Or both. Maybe the people I knew from high school who were religious (in any respect) had the same kind of awakening AWAY from God that I had TO God.

Or maybe something happened to them.

I can see why crisis would turn people away from God. No one knows why there is suffering or why good people die and millions of people are homeless and/or starving. Why would God let that happen? Of course there's the "to bring them closer to Him" answer, but generally it doesn't work. Not everyone is Job; not many are going to turn to God if they never have before. I obviously don't have any answers, but speaking from experience, nearly every bad thing in my life has brought on a good thing. I was in a crappy relationship for years which made me stay in Kent. If I wouldn't have stayed at Kent (which I hated) I might not have gone to OTAs in 2003. I got into a car accident which made all my theatre applications late. If it wouldn't have been for the car accident, Jann wouldn't have felt sorry for me and made the late offer for Huron. Sarah's mom got cancer and she decided to pass for spot at Huron to me. I was all mad that year because I didn't get cast in anything... but if I HAD gotten cast, I wouldn't have been able to go. And, as we ALL KNOW, if I wouldn't have gone I would have never broken up with John and never met Jim and probably would have stayed an agnostic for the rest of my life.

Even if Jim and I break up some day I know WHY I met him. I know why I HAD to meet him.

And it's so weird, because the line extends so much farther back than just "crappy relationship." I can see connections as far back as I can remember. I'm one of those "everything happens for a reason" people. To me, it doesn't just happen because of what has happened in the past, it happens, currently for what will happen in the future.

So, whenever something is awful, I always remember that stuff... because things can't be bad forever. You also can't be brave if you've never had anything bad happen to you.

But still, why do some of us have to watch others suffer and why do others have to be IN suffering? It can't possibly be that some of us are here JUST to teach others something in the future. I refuse to think that so many of Lave's relatives were put here on earth and got cancer just so she (or someone else) could learn something from it. It makes everything seem SO insignificant and how or WHY would that be true? I guess everyone's life is pretty insignificant in the long run...

And, in my opinion, the above thought is as far as the atheists get on the subject. That's as far as *I* would have gotten.

But now... I feel like, as insignificant as we all must be, we're all a part of something much bigger, which is building to something unimaginable. Every single thing matters in this process, good and bad. I honestly don't want to be around for the end of the world (I know some people do. I do not. at all. as much as I never want to die.), or at least the end of life (since the earth itself will probably be here much, much longer than life will), but that, and whatever all it entails, is probably what we're all building up to. Things are, I presume, going exactly as planned.

Not that this would make anyone feel better about anything.

For me, God time is almost like heart ache. And actually a little close to hearburn, also. I can't call it up (which oftentimes makes time at church kind of pointless), but I almost always end up crying and feeling, for lack of a better word, complete. I had never felt this way before and NOTHING else currently feels this way. I KNOW when I am connected to God. I mean, I can think about God all the time and fall asleep while trying to pray, but being aware and actually knowing what I am feeling IS God... well, it's cool. And I get doubts all the time that I'm making stuff up but WHY would I make this up? I didn't choose this, it chose me. And I was a bastard. I wanted proof before I believed.

Well, I got my proof.