I remember once being told that when it rains, god is crying. That has always ticked me off. First of all, god made this mess: it’s HIS fault- I don’t even want to credit him with a capital H. And second of all, what does he have to cry about, if he’s the reason the world is a wreck? Exactly. Better to think that there is no god than to spend your time arguing the finer points of his existence.

Not that I don’t believe. I do. In a backwards type way. Not belief in the church-multiple-times-a-week-thank-you-for-this-meal belief, but belief as in accepting the idea that there is something bigger than me, than my world. Something bigger than the minute number crunching of mathematicians and over-analysis of poets; something bigger than science’s discoveries of new fuel and the ten minutes of screaming and door slamming with your parents. Belief that the world does not consist of me, and how I feel, but, rather, a cohesive whole.

I’m aware that the “thing” today is to not believe in God. I find that hard to swallow. People can broadcast their atheism as much as they want- the fact remains that they will be using the lord’s name in every day speech, and cursing him for the traffic jam and the long line, long after Scientology has become socially accepted. And I know for a fact that when you come to the end of the line sooner than you should or want to, you will be asking for his forgiveness, his mercy, everything that your CCD teacher told you that you would only be deserving of if you paid attention to who was upstairs for your entire life prior to its hectic, panicked end. It has never been a question of being a good person regardless, always you should only consider being good if you also want to confess every weekend, according to our religious teachings; bully for you, if you buy into that. Before you commit yourself to god, consider why you’re signing the contract: if you’re doing it to get into heaven, then drop the pen and leave the room. Better you’re the person you want to be than a lie to yourself trying to get somewhere after death that you have no proof even exists. Live your life. Love your life. Don’t worry about what comes after until you need to, because in the end, what can you do about it? You will die. I’m sorry. That’s the way it’s going to be.

Atheism feels like a weak teenage rebellion. What, are we all trying to be the angry, independent kids of the 60s? For your information, the seventeen-year-olds then were just as insecure and upset as we are now, but they dealt with it by tripping over the mounds of culture and substance and sex; we should know better. Do we? You may think that you know everything: you don’t. I promise you. Adults see things that we can’t even think of, let alone find in other people- we haven’t reached the level of maturity that thirty-year-olds are still scrambling for. Declaring that you don’t believe in god is, on the surface, just another rebellion against adult power and living under someone else’s control. But it is also teen angst, and the fear of the greater world that haunts us all as a black cloud in already turbulent skies.

Maybe we are all just struggling with the misery of being in that stage between bruises and birth control; writing sentences and conducting meetings. In the end, though, we are all extremely talented at ignoring what we cannot face. Case in point: we do not believe that there is a god.