Losing My Religion

Gilgamesh

Trigger Warning: religious deconstruction.

This is hard for me to say, but it gets easier each time I say it…I am not religious. I don’t subscribe to the Southern Baptist doctrine I was raised in. I don’t think I can call myself a Christian anymore. And, if you were raised like me, you know how scary saying or writing those statements can be.

It was a long process, but I remember the exact moment it started and I also know this: Christian nationalists don’t want children fully educated, because a good education forces you to think for yourself and that comes with questions and difficult dilemmas.

How it started:

I’m not sure if it was explicitly said, or if I just got the idea from years of indoctrination, but I was absolutely positive the Bible was the first book ever written.

I know, I know.

That idea could have been disproven a thousand times over through my own reading or through a teacher’s lesson plan or through a talk with an adult willing to tell me the truth, but I never had any of those things. I went through the first two decades of my life believing nothing was written by man before the Bible.

And then, I read Gilgamesh. It was assigned by my World Literature professor. I was a non-traditional student, I already had a baby and a full-time job at 21, so I was always running a little behind on my reading, and sometimes I didn’t pay attention as well as I should have, but that was not the case with this poem.

One evening, just like most, I worked, came home and got supper around, put the baby to bed, and started my homework. I settled onto the couch, opened my massive World Lit textbook, and read the background info for the text:

Gilgamesh: An epic poem loosely based on the historical King Gilgamesh, who ruled Sumerian Uruk (modern day Iraq) in 2700 BC. This is the oldest written story, period, anywhere, known to exist. The oldest existing versions of this poem date to c 2000 BC, in Sumerian cuneiform.

Shit. I had a moment right then and there sitting on the couch. My head started to hurt and my heart started to beat quicker. Everything felt like it was coming undone.

The poem is much older than the Bible. What’s even more problematic? The same themes and stories were written in Gilgamesh long before they were recorded in the Bible. I found out that it wasn’t just Gilgamesh — the flood story and the hero’s journey and the mother goddess archetype and the babies sent down rivers to become heroes later in life are recorded in myths across the world.

There was an unwinding that started that night that I couldn’t stop…I had pulled a thread that I would continue to tug for the next several years.

Once you see something, or read something, you can’t unsee it. In that World Lit class, I realized that the stories I had absorbed since childhood weren’t unique…some were almost identical to Greek, Roman, Norse, and Celtic mythology. Why did no one tell me? How could I be so stupid?

Still, I wasn’t ready to walk away from the Baptist faith and the church family I had always known. I could make logical conclusions…of course events that happened in the Bible could be recorded elsewhere because things like floods occur and folks write about them. Of course archetypes existed for a reason. I had been told a few lies, but I could also figure things out on my own. I was shaken, but still going to church, trying to steady myself.

I was bothered by other things I noticed, though. Why did I have to be scared to be a believer? Why was there constant talk of brimstone and hellfire? Why did I have to dislike other religions? Why did a loving god condemn children to hell just because someone hadn’t shared the good news with them?

Why did I wake up to train whistles and think they were the angels’ trumpets announcing the rapture? I was getting tired of being scared. And, I didn’t want to be raptured anyway. I wanted to live a long life with kids and grandkids and lots of experiences.

Also, the misogyny in religious fundamentalism was eating at me. I had a friend in high school who became pregnant. She was forced to stand in front of the congregation and apologize for her pregnancy. Alone. Now, I am positive she did not get pregnant alone, so I’m not sure why she was up there all by herself, but I’ve never forgotten it. It bothered me.

Later, I had friends in really bad marriages who were counseled to stay with cheating or abusive husbands. They were told to be better wives and mothers and even cooks. Be better in bed. Make him want you — this is mostly your fault. Happy men don’t stray. Happy men don’t hit. Make your man happy.

Add it to the list.

The final straw for me came a few years later while sitting in the late 1990s. I had been a member of a church for several years and loved the preacher. That particular preacher had gone back home after a tragic family incident and there was a new man in the pulpit. He was okay, but he lacked something…I found out what something was on my last day in the church. It was empathy.

The new pastor was telling a story about encountering a homeless man at Wal-Mart earlier in the week. He said the homeless man had a dog with him and he purchased dog food at Wal-Mart — nothing else. The man eventually made his way a few blocks down to the church and went in to ask our preacher if there was a food bank at the church.

The pastor told the story in front of the parishioners the next Sunday. He said he admonished the homeless man for buying dog food rather than food for himself and then he told the man this: I don’t know what you expect? We aren’t a soup kitchen.

I was stunned. And then I was enraged. Tears fell down onto my lap during the prayer. I was sick that I was attending a church that would refuse food to a hungry man. I was devastated that we weren’t doing the work of Jesus…the work I thought we were supposed to be doing all these years.

I never darkened that church door again. I have been to two church services since.

While I lost my religion, I have gained an appreciation for true love and empathy and a willingness to serve others…I realized religion has nothing to do with any of those things. You can be a good person while religious or while an atheist. That was a surprise as someone raised in an Evangelical church.

Recently, I attended the Summit for Religious Freedom in Washington, DC and it was filled with people of faith and folks who are not religious in the least. What did I learn?

That there are folks fighting against Christian nationalism who are very much Christian. That there are folks standing up for the marginalized and oppressed while never turning their eyes toward heaven, but being driven by love for humankind. It was a beautiful event that strengthened my resolve to continue to work in service to others, while demonstrating that the love and desire to help is a human emotion and doesn’t have to come from religious indoctrination.

In saying these things, I do have to say that I have many religious friends who are both pious and loving. Both believers and benevolent. I mean them no disrespect.

I have deconstructed from organized religion, but I built a better faith in humanity. I have grown since first unraveling, and have found so many friends who did the same.

The first tug on the thread that started my unraveling was the hardest. If you were raised like me, you know how difficult it is to write these things down, but it’s worth it.

I lost my religion, but I have gained so much.

~Jess