religions

I wonder about people who are crazy religious. You know the type, those people that are so into their chosen faith and all other belief systems are evil and wrong. I can’t say that I was raised a certain faith and then grew out of it … my parents really didn’t care one way or the other.
I had some friends in elementary school that asked me to go to their church with them once or twice. I can’t remember what religion it was — some twisted trainwreck of a faith as far as I could tell. I remember my friend telling me not to tell anyone at this church that I wore pants or watched television. That was my first clue that they were whackos.
My mother was a methodist — but I never remember her talking to me about her belief in any god. My dad was primitive southern baptist and his dad was a preacher. Dad spoke of his belief in god a lot but he never pushed and he and I would have conversations about why we each thought the way we did.
Before pre-school even I can remember my mom’s sister taking me to her church and I felt strange. It wasn’t like those stories you hear about the “spirit” taking over, it was uncomfortable and scary. I never felt right about being there.
I remember hating everything about it.
Religion has been on my mind for a while lately. The wife of the guy we bought the house from is crazy religious. She refused to meet us before we bought the house and even gave her husband a POA so he could sign her name at the closing. In her words, we are evil because we are witches.
Then at the closing one of those “you can’t be a witch unless you are skyclad and praising Isis” wiccans handled the paperwork on the house and when I said that LK and I weren’t religious, she said we were if we were witches. WTF?
Being a witch has nothing to do with religion for me. I despise organized religions of all kinds. Who is anyone to tell me what spiritual path I need to be on, or if in fact I need to be spiritual at all? I let it go because frankly just signing all of those bloody papers was wearing my nerves thin anyhow and we were running late. (Had to get to the Booze Monkey show later that night yanno)
I guess I just don’t understand the need some people have to cling to something like that. I say find your peace within yourself and don’t let others tell you what to believe in.
The older I get the more I think I have been an atheist all along.