Being Differrent

WHEN I WAS ABOUT TEN YEARS OLD, I decided, I realized to my satisfaction, that the Christian religion is a bunch of nonsense. Cruel, frightening, illogical, predicated up a good man being tortured to death to achieve salvation for cowards unwilling to suffer the consequences of their own actions. I have never wavered from this viewpoint. It has tended to guide mer towards philosophical closeting. My Victorian grandmothers never found out, and my parents, protecting me from my grandmothers, didn't care, bless them. Le the kid do his own thing. In 1967 I was twelve, and became a secret Viet Nam war protester. I could see through the scam, and the impossibility of winning a war halfway around the world in which the enemy was invisible, ubiquitous, and committed to the long haul. I kept that secret too. My parents wouldn't've been so sanguine on the issue of patriotism. Also, I agreed with martin Luther King, and his protest methods, secretly. My middle class white world thought him a troublemaker, a complainer. A full blown radical revolutionary I had become before I was a teenager. My choice was to conceal my true identity, or risk widespread disapproval among my family and friends. The makings of a troubled, double life, clearly evident from an early age, Dr. Freud. This couch is comfortable. I grow sleepy. I also concealed the fact that I was a Yankees fan, until I came out of the baseball closest at about the age of twelve. Thank God I aint gay, eh? Its a miracle I aint schizophrenic. Or am I? (am I making all this up?) Now, at the tender age of sixty two, I am positively mouthy, when I choose to be. No more cowering in closets. My beliefs about all the above haven't change, have instead fortified, evolved, filled me with pride and confidence. I try, not always with success, to avoid broaching religion and politics, which my sixth grade teacher advised us in 1967. I remember thinking that she was truncating the two most interesting topics, and she was, but for a very good reason; human pride and anger. I still don't like her advice, but I see the wisdom of it. Throughout my entire life Christian have been trying to save me. Really, they needn't. My religiosity is good enough, for me, if not for them. They don't count. If someone invites me to church, I decline, with thanks, If they ask me why I declined, I say I am not religious. If they question why, I tell them because I consider their religion primitive, barbaric, cruel, and insane. They ask, I tell. But I know better than to bring it up. To encourage others to adopt your religion is arrogant, insulting, and condescending. At least I understand that. And, if you try to dissuade me from rooting for the Yankees, you won't succeed. But I have no trouble understanding why you might hate them.