Saturday, May 3, 2008

#3: Broke Woman’s Faith

This bad deed may be a little abstract, but it’s one I think about a lot.

It’s no secret that I’m a ferocious atheist, and I’m ashamed to say that in my youth I took a few conversations about religion a little too far.

When I was around 18, I had a female friend who worshipped me, as though I were a God. To her, I seemed to have an answer to everything, and she could never seem to win any arguments with me.

Over time, to her chagrin, she found that I was just as human as everyone else around her, with my own set of flaws, and this drove her to break up with me several times, though we kept getting back together because of the comfort that came from knowing each other so well. I loved this woman for a very long time – six years, an eternity for a relationship in stasis.

I could never get her to admit that she loved me, because I felt that she both loved and hated me. There was something missing in her life. It was either something I destroyed, or something she perceived I had destroyed.

Though I still believe religion is bound to go the way of the dodo, that its demise is in fact, completely inevitable, but it isn’t really my place to shatter another person’s irrational beliefs. After all, I have my own set of irrational beliefs.

Many people are far too frightened by the thought of a world with no greater intelligence, no afterlife, and no inherent meaning to their existence. That life would be too lonely for these people. I believe all people need connectivity to a certain extent.

What I think I’m guilty of in her case was intellectual bullying, something she then turned about and did to countless other people. So, I think I may have turned one of my ex-girlfriends into an intellectual bully. I’ve turned her into one of the most critical people I know, and now she thinks she’s a natural born critic, but she’s not.

This girl came to me as an open book, and I was very rough with her.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Now that one you'll have to pay for.