Which one of us is sane?

Image by the mad LOLscientist via Flickr

A letter from Mr. Incognito

I just need to get this off my chest. My situation now is that although I lost faith 18 months ago, I’m still with the Christian girlfriend whom I met 9 months before my de-conversion. Although she’s pretty liberal in some ways (and pretty), I’ve just had an argument with her over the evils of Creationism and have realised possibly the main threat to our relationship, and it‘s not simply religion: I get angry about being lied to, while she doesn’t!

She thinks I should stop being angry and bitter. ”Anything for an easy life”, she likes to say. “Anger rots the soul” (to which I replied it didn‘t seem to do Jesus any harm…). I’ve just successfully managed to get her accepting evolution again after a two year lapse (the lapse was due to a famous English proponent of pseudo-science), but now to my complete dismay she tells me she has no problem with other people still believing in young-earth creationism - “people can believe what they want - it helps them prop up their beliefs”. Is she right????! Am I going mad? I try and tell her about the lies creationists use and their unethical indoctrination of children but she’s just not bothered!

The truth is, I am quite angry and bitter about all the many lies told for Jesus, since they personally changed the way I lived a massive chunk of my life (including relationship-splits and depression) - I think anger is a reasonable and justified response.

Or should I just get over it??? (I’d like to add I don’t believe in bitterness without action - I believe it’s OK if it motivates me to influence/educate others).

I do find myself less sure about our future together. There’s now much less of a reason to get married (as far as I’m concerned anyway) and I even find myself wondering if I should now be setting myself free and finding someone-else - someone who understands my…. not just apostasy but… pretty much hatred for religion (does this utterly limit my options I wonder??!!) Or just someone who suits me a lot more, now that I don’t have to be with a Christian? (sounds incredibly harsh but I’m just being honest).

But of course the flip-side is that we suit each other in a lot of ways, I care so much for my girlfriend etc etc (often I feel I need her due to the history we’ve shared, especially as she has a hard time of connecting with the average naïve, ‘yes pastor’ Christian). But all this has affected my feelings for her. Plus if we stay together and marry it’s going to be tough - I personally worry about not agreeing on how to bring up our kids, or what she’ll tell them about God etc. I believe that even private religion can really mess up peoples’ lives. Should I be worried?? What are peoples’ opinions on letting my possibly future wife take my kids to church every Sunday? She says she wouldn’t force them to go but… I just get scared about indoctrinating kids in rubbish that’ll haunt them forever.

“Have a doctor come and visit us and tell us which one is sane.”
-- The White Stripes

Previous

Next