Running away from religion

For myself to work through certain things ahead of time, I'm putting up this post, to note why I'll try to carefully avoid any type of religious debate, and it's so much about the religion of my past.

As a child I was thoroughly indoctrinated in the fundamentalist Christian religion Jehovah's Witnesses, which I'll colorfully call in this post, the religion of no.

No birthday presents. No Christmas presents. No girlfriend, unless dating with the expectation of possible marriage, preferably with a chaperon. No military service.

And I could go on.

On top of all the things we were supposed to not do, which included the Pledge of Allegiance, so as a child I had to step out of the classroom when it was recited, you were dragged to something called a Kingdom Hall, which most people call church, usually about twice a week, plus bible study. And routinely, we were supposed to try and convince other people to join, which actually could be kind of fun. I got to see a lot of different people that way, but still it was a religious dominance of your life that people outside of such religions may find hard to fathom.

The religion seeks to dominate every aspect of your life and tells you that is God's will. For me it was my parent's will, and while they could make me, not much I could do but go along, and at times I was a true believer. But once I could move away from my parents' sphere of influence I left it as well.

It was in my opinion a relentless religion dedicated to dominating your life, and I left it when I could. And with it, I left religion entire.

I recognize that my feelings are very personal so don't trust myself in being rational on the subject, so no point in pushing one position or another on anyone else!

But having freed myself from the shackles of the religion of no, I have no intent of ever taking the slightest chance of being imprisoned again by any religion.

And it's not that I don't see a social role for religion, and it's not like I will not go to church, occasionally. But I just won't be committed to it.

And mostly I'd like to just not comment on it.


James Harris