i wished on a dandelion's petals that a nigga would


when i was a kid, i had a loose concept of god that was something inherently gentle and soothing to think about. i'm not sure what breathed life into it (because i was maybe 5 and this was before i can really remember any outward influence) but they were always something clad in robes and i liked to think about it

i remember being scrappy and adventurous, in love with the world around me and full of wonder and that free will shit that everyone was going on about

then around 7 or 8 i became old enough for adults to manipulate into obedience


as the years went on, god became this twisted, abrasive, thorny and hateful thing that spit on anything that wasn't unquestionable obedience (and clearly it must be pure coincidence that said disobedience was anything my parents didnt like) and my life became peppered with pleas for forgiveness at this angry, vengeful thing my parents seeded into my brain, as if a friend i once knew was only seconds away from smiting me into dust and burning me alive for eons

and then my parents became divorced, and as a Purely Coincidental I'm Sure result, god became scarier, and more frightening than ever before.

when i turned 13 i watched my dad nearly put his fist through a glass table, all for the sake of "protecting my brother and i's souls" or some shit. because we were liars who needed saving. and not because he was divorced and abusive and sure of some secret plot our mom had cooked up for us to be conscripted in some relationship war he made up. but it broke me, even when i knew he was cooking this up in his head, the omnipotent but kind friend i knew when i was 5 was in leagues with this whole thing, apparently.

there was even a period where some neurological conditions i was going through at the time were sold to me as ploys for attention that i had to pray forgiveness for.

when my brother and i stopped having to see my dad for the above reasons we lived with my stepdad and mom, and while it was """nicer""" it was still a decidedly christian upbringing that worked in my stepdad's favor because he was more passive aggressively "needle you until you break" abusive to my dad's "take off the belt" "scream at you" anger (though even he had his evil moments, it was still a far cry from Dad's House and that tricked me into believing it was fine at the time)

one day when i was 14 we stopped going to church due to events happening to my parents that i wouldnt understand until my early to mid 20s. i started to make more nuanced and diverse friends and wouldn't you know it, the concept of god slowed down on being terrifying and wasn't some thing that had a sniper rifle trained on me at all times if i jerked off or breathed weird

it was a slow undoing but i was shown a world that wasnt commanding obedience and it seemed more in line with the whole Free Will Given To Us thing

god stopped being wielded by my parents and i was permitted to enter and leave various stages of belief systems for myself, ranging from full ass atheism to agnosticism to whatever i was making up, et cetera.

this was a weird stage of my life because i had never known freedom to believe in what i want, but god stopped working as a way to scare me into obedience and while it unfortunately meant being chided for every other avenue of my life, it meant they had to yield that god could no longer be weaponized

in being allowed a greater distance from the concept of god and omnipotent beings and whatever, ironically my relationship to the whole idea became a lot more healthy, and these days its something i can muse on with peace because it isn't something being used as a convenient tool for parents to avoid having to answer their kids' damn questions

i currently don't really ascribe to any system of belief more so than i am kind of loosely spiritual and yeah i kinda give occasional thought that there could be things beyond scientific understanding, but that science and beliefs don't necessarily have to be at odds with each other.

either way im more focused on just not trying to make other people's lives worse and trying to just Be

i think if there's a god it's something cosmologically and mathematically out of human brains to conceive, but these days it feels a lot more friendly and like a homie has returned

anyways thanks for reading if you did, im not sure how much of this comes across clearly bc i def had to just ramble it out but its always been on my mind and i guess these days i want to show people that beyond goofy queer furry who post doo doo joke i am ultimately human and tender and currently working through decades of scar tissue and broken glass to emerge on the other end as something worth me nurturing


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in reply to @capy-bara's post:

i appreciate you sharing this. <3 while reading the whole thing i kept thinking about how different it was from my experiences with the idea of religion or god as a kid (parents both overt atheists, to the "my dad told me nothing happens after you die and that religion is stupid" extent) which is still definitely preferable to a lot of the shit kids have to deal with regarding religion but still made me have a bizarre relationship with the whole concept of religion for a long time.

i am still not very spiritual, but in some senses i am more spiritual than i was as a kid, and certainly have a lot more respect for it!

i hope that your relationship with your own spirituality continues to improve as you heal. wishing you well. 💕

yeah, outside of my cptsd-induced atheism era i never really liked "there definitely isn't anything after death/religion is stupid". it always felt a bit arrogant to be so assured about what happens when we die since the only way to get there is to...well, die. like the science is all there ofc but maybe its a more petulant side of me that doesn't like how cocksure it is heh

plus a part of me feels like science-wise, since energy can't break down it can only change forms, maybe there can be something to after-death but its just not something we can anthropomorphize

that said atheism also has the benefit of showing that human kindness is a social and developmental need that doesnt have to be borne from a book

a part of me does wish i had that atheist alternative to what i went through, but at the very least i have a very clear path of how i never want to treat people. also hey i'm glad you have an improved relationship to spirituality too!

this is a very good writeup and i think this is a weird, powerful, interesting thing to share, in the way that any person's life story tends to be.

i didn't grow up particularly religious (i think i went to church like, once) and had a real ripper few years of being an Edgy Atheist in high school, but i feel like the past... ehhhhhhhh 8 or so years has really leaned me more into the spiritual direction. idk why, i guess some combination of becoming very interested in history (which is always intertwined with belief/religion/spirituality) and also a sort of grasping desperation for something better than what we got.

so i really vibe with the whole "god as a homie" mentality. i wouldn't even say i particularly believe in a/any god but also like, i understand the vibe. i feel like i can much more relate with spiritual/religious viewpoints now that i can see how they can relate to actual lived experiences & some sort of appreciable ideology. which now that i say that sounds really fucking obvious but i think you get what i'm getting at

yeah its definitely very 'a vibe' since i similarly don't think i believe in any specific god moreso than the loose idea of connectedness to something bigger in concept than what i can really fit into my mind + i don't think the point of this feeling is to have it 100% defined with words vs just feeling at home with it and digesting it as comforting

its just nice to think of things like after-death and not be filled with the scared anxiety and dread that was poured into me in a hopeful bid for total obedience by adults who maybe shouldn't have had kids

Yeah, I think learning more about forms of Christianity & Judaism that are less about a literal interpretation of sacred texts and more about... seeing them as guiding practices, cultural traditions, etc, really helped.

Also learning about the history of middle eastern religions in general and how they were formed and used (both positively and negatively) by individuals and systems of power throughout human history just has given me a lot more appreciation for religious practice in general, and helped me feel like I didn't need to be a weirdo edgy atheist about everything.

honestly ngl i think the first thing to really shatter that viewpoint for me was going to a couple talks by some anarchist quakers right after the 2016 elections and one of them explaining how his faith informed his activism and vice versa. just a really interesting viewpoint & history that I had never considered