This Shit Called Life: Where God Was Not The Light, The Way, Or The Truth.

Back when I was seventeen I was a Christian. Yep. I prayed and shit.

No hating on religion or anything, but this has got to be the most hilarious part of my life.

A fellow churchgoer friend back then said that my story of becoming a Christian, or giving my life to Jesus Christ, was a "revolutionary and inspiring" one. That honestly was a huge exaggeration because all I seriously did was look up Christianity on the internet.

Yeah. I was bored. So I became a Christian. That's pretty much the gist of it all.

Well okay, I read up on Christianity because I was intrigued by the idea of God, that an out-of-this-world entity was actually out there. It inspired me because I saw it as an opportunity to believe in something even greater than life itself. I mean, come on, look at this shit called life. We're all pretty much just growing up by going to school and then to work, and that's if we're "lucky", like you know, having food, shelter and other basic shit. But God only knows (What? Who? Which God?) what we need exactly to lead a fulfilling life.

By the way, I write God with a capital 'G' to signify that I believe there's perhaps one person up there overlooking everything. He or she doesn't have to belong to any religion. Oh that's right; God doesn't belong to our man-made idea called religion.

Anyway, yeah, I wanted to believe in something that's bigger than my current state which was just pretty much studying in junior college, going out with friends, video games and hoping to get a girlfriend, which I never did at that time.

Now, here's how I had my moment of divine intervention. I was watching porn and jacking off one evening. It was raining outside. Midway through reaching my climax and also the good part in the video, lightning struck the road outside my house. Outside my window literally fucking went, "BOOM!" and shit.

I stopped wanking. I thought God was pissed. That was my divine intervention. I took it as a message to stop fucking around and start being religious.

One of my best friends then brought me to his church and that was the start of some of the best times I’ve ever had in my life but also the decline of my faith in God.

I attended church regularly. I went almost every Sunday and I looked forward to it. I really liked worship, which in hindsight actually meant I really liked to express myself through singing and then get to eat the free food afterwards. I even joined the youth prayer committee, thinking that I was the shit as I started to pray for others.

I even went for youth camp one year. It was cool. I had a lot of fun which, in hindsight, meant I had fun bunking in with my friends, talking shit and all while thinking we were doing great work and also scoring good karma points since we were doing it all for God. And yes, there were pretty girls around. That was cool, of course. We spent our time trying to impress them, as young horny boys would try to. I remember intentionally walking out of the shared, male shower room topless. I wanted to show off my hot body when I was actually scrawny and pale as fuck. If Jesus shone some light then, it was all on me.

So yeah, I had a lot of fun in church. Some of my greatest memories were from there.

Christmas in church was just amazing. With decorations, worship hymns of Jesus, re-enactments of Jesus' birth and the supposed blessings from God himself, it was feeling really Christmas-y.

I'd hang out with my church friends at their house. It was fun and cool as I got to know them better.

There were also some hot girls in church and I remember having a crush on more than one. So I had fun making a fool of myself to impress them.

And the church camp? Fuck. My best buddy made it memorable. We had "reflection" hour in the mornings where we'd all go to the nearby beach, sit by ourselves and start reflecting on our little Christian lives or whatever. Instead of reflecting, my buddy went to swim in the sea with his clothes on. Nobody else asked why he was all wet from reflection.

A year later, like a few months before my eighteenth birthday, things started to go downhill. My faith in Christianity was declining at a rapid pace.

It all started when I picked up an old copy of “Conversations With God” by Neale Ronald Walsh. That book changed my perspective on everything. You could say I was fooled at first. I thought it was a book on the Christian God and that it was going to enhance my faith in Church.

But instead it fucked my mind over and made me stop believing altogether LOL. It’s pretty funny when you put it like that.

Honestly, the thing is, I had already started doubting my faith. And no, it wasn't a case where the church fucked it up for me while God was still intact and whatever. I really had my own personal doubts. Just like how I found my way to God initially with the help of the internet, I also found my own way out with various sources.

The first thing that really got to me with the church was the idea that my love for God and his love for me was shared with everyone else. I mean, I gave my life to God and did that whole "give my heart to God" prayer on a real, personal level. That was what I wanted, a personal relationship with God. I guess you could say I wanted an all-knowing, omnipresent bro who watched over me. But I didn't get that in church. What I saw was a mass, collective idea of God. Every time I was in church I was thinking like, "Why am I sharing this love with everyone here? And why the hell are we taught about this personal love by a single, human pastor? Oh shit! I said 'hell'! That's bad!"

Needless to say, I was confused as fuck. But I certainly didn't want to share the love, so to speak. I didn't want someone to teach me how to love, much less teach me how to feel and accept love from something or someone.

The second thing was convenience. The bible simply had way too many convenient answers and it was all taught to us to be true, never false, simply because it was the word of God. You know the whole shebang:

Say, "I don't understand why this shit happened" and you'll get "God works in mysterious ways".

Say, "I'm not sure what to do" and you'll get "Pray and God will lead the way". And when things don't turn out the way you wanted, you refer back to the above. I remember one time during church, they flashed on the Powerpoint, "First three rows, please pray for the turmoil and people in Afghanistan". Wow, seriously? If a war itself can be settled by prayer, then life would be so damn easy eh? It wasn't just God working in mysterious ways. War alone is a mystery.

Say, "I want to masturbate" and the answer is fucking no, of course, because God probably hates masturbation and you aren't allowed to pleasure yourself. Why can't I masturbate?! It's not harming anyone.

The most convenient answer which I got was back in that youth camp. During worship, one of my friends disappeared. Then she came back. And she was bawling her eyes out. She was crying like a bitch. Later on, I'd ask my church senior, an elder mentor if you will, why she was crying. He immediately replied, "Oh, she was touched by the Holy Spirit". God damn, that spirit really has a way with girls. I took that answer in, but to this day it really bothers me how he, another fellow "brother in Christ", was so quick to accept such an answer.

The third thing was the double standards the church had on people. I think the church is man-made, hence, it's flawed and that means every Christian is flawed. No human is perfect, duh. I understood that, but the church didn't seem to. I had a crazy, church-going girlfriend (more on this later!) who kept riding my ass to straighten up and go to church and shit. One time I replied and asked what if the pastor was too busy for church one day. She conveniently (again the convenience!) replied that he's just one guy, he's not perfect and that I should give him a break. Holy fuck. She obviously needed to get laid! But she didn't allow me to, what the fuck? More on that later. You're going to love it.

These double standards reeked of hypocrisy to me. I just kept losing faith. I stopped praying. I cut down on going to church. I read more books on spirituality, metaphysics, new age and scoured the “Conversations With God” forums, thirsty for knowledge. I once posted a thread inside titled, "Is it really wrong to masturbate?" and the replies I got were what I needed. People were open, cool and non-judgemental.

Three strikes already. The finishing move came like a dropkick to my face. The elder mentor dude knew I was losing faith. He wanted to help me. He wanted to ask me out to talk and stuff. Now, by then I was kind of like the "designated bad boy" of the youth group. Everybody knew I partied and drank a lot. I was also skipping church a lot. Elder mentor dude said to me, "Hey Alden... how about we head out sometime at night? We can talk..... AND DRINK?!".

Okay, he didn't shout the drinking part, but it seriously came out of nowhere. It felt like he added that in to try to get to my level. I only did this fake shit when I tried (and failed) to impress girls back then, like the time I told a girl I was interested in learning Latin Dance (because there would be hand-holding and body grabbing).

And so, I lost faith completely. If I could give you one reason in one line, it would be that I do not think that life itself can be captured by a single institution, or book.

This shit called life is just life, man. There're way too many fucking people who are all brought up differently, so who's to say who is good or bad?

There're also way too many religions, and there're good people in each religion. I think religion is just a buffet. You choose which god you want to believe in and then it's still up to you to how you want to lead your own life. Go back for seconds if you want to. Who's to say which religion and its followers are qualified for salvation or eternal damnation?

This shit called life... is kind of shit. But I can easily sum it up for you. I can easily sum it up for all religions:

You just try to be happy. Along the way, you be kind to others and give a helping hand when you can.

That's all. God is not on earth. He's somewhere the fuck else. We're only human, and all we have is each other.

Today, I've no religion, but I'm not an atheist either. I choose to believe in the possibility that there is something greater out there. And it doesn't have to be God. It can be aliens or whatever. We don't need to waste time thinking about the endgame (death and what happens after). We just have to be happy and help others.

When I die, and if I do meet God, he or she is buying me a fucking beer.