I had an interesting childhood. My mother was a strong Catholic and my father was a freethinker. My exposure to other religions was limited. When a friend asked me what religion my grandparents were, I replied “Christian”. He then asked what type of Christian. I gave him a funny look. Growing up, I was taught that all people who believed in the bible and were not Catholic, were all called Christians. I had heard of Baptists, Lutherans and such, but did not understand how they were different from any other Christians sects — after all, none of them were Catholic!
While most of my religious exposure was strictly to Catholicism, my father’s parents were Christians. I often spent the night at their house and would go to church with them. One major difference I noticed was how the people at the Christian church carried around their bibles and read from it all the time. In my Catholic household, the bible was something we wrote important dates in and it sat on the piano. I never did quite understand why Catholics never read the bible. A friend of mine recently told me how she asked a nun this very question. The nun informed her that the bible was too complicated for many people to understand and it was best to let the priests explain to you what the bible was all about.
I never bought into any of the religious dogma. In fact, one of my earliest memories is of me sitting in church thinking how silly all of this was and how the people looked like they were in some sort of hypnotic trance. Every week it was pretty much the same thing. Kneel, say a bunch words, sit, stand and do it all over again. I began to protest going to church in my early teens. When I was sixteen, my dad decided I was old enough to make my own choices, and told my mother that I no longer had to go to church if I didn’t want. Needless to say, this made my mother extremely upset.
There is much about my mother I do not understand. She is a smart woman and yet she chooses to remain trapped in her extreme religious nature. In one moment she will talk intelligently about evolution and science, and in the next moment she will talk about how the bible and creationism is true. About 5 years ago a group of folks at her Catholic church created a group where, among other practices, they regularly “speak in tongues”. My mother has gotten so good at this that she will begin to do it at any given time, although it seems to occur more during stressful moments (such as conversations with her Atheist daughter). She claims that God is speaking directly through her. My usual reply to her is “If God had something to say to me or you, he wouldn’t be babbling”. That usually guarantees an end to the conversation.
Hello. My name is Angela Christine Byers (yes, my mother actually named me “Angel of Christ”), and I am an atheist.
Copyright © 1996 - 2002 Angela C. Byers
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Angela C. Byers