(author’s note: sorry in advance, this one’s a bit abstract.) when i was a little kid i broke down sobbing and screaming in front of my extended family. i sobbed because i fully believed that the people in front of me, good people i loved with all my heart, were going to hell because they didn’t believe in god. my parents were atheists, but my grandpa on my late mom’s side was christian. he was my favorite person in the whole world. because i saw him all the time, he took the opportunity to take me to church, in his mind showing me the light, and my parents let it happen because they thought it was harmless. after this incident, they realized something much worse was going on. to say i was raised christian wouldn’t be fair to christianity. ultimately, christianity’s core tenets are compassion and love, which is what i loved so much about it. but under the guise of this love i was raised the kind of christian that people like donald trump and charlie kirk were raised. my sunday school taught me at a single digit age that jewish people were made of dirt (whereas we were made in the image of god) and that non-christians would burn in hell. i was taught that these people are not just unsaved, but evil, intentionally and maliciously choosing to disregard the word of god in service of a life of hedonism. it felt good as a child who didn’t know any better to believe that i was on the right side. it felt like a service to god to chastize and belittle these people into believing. to scream. to cry. my parents stopped allowing me to go to church shortly after. over the next years of my life, i slowly found myself to be an atheist. when i transitioned to female, my grandpa stopped talking to me entirely other than the occasional email deadnaming me and trying to convert me back to christianity. when my dad died in april, i called my grandpa for what was likely the last time. i’m more aware of ever that my grandpa will go soon too. and i can’t spend time with him because he won’t accept me for who i am. before we fell out entirely i watched him transition to trumpism and fox take over the very large screens in his very large house. he should be enjoying the fruits of retirement but instead lives his life scared. any god that encourages this is an impostor for the real big guy. my relationship with christianity as a child lead me, for a while, to despise spirtuality entirely. i would describe myself at that period of my life as a reddit atheist. i’d go around comparing god to bigfoot and spectres and santa. i think that this is an understandable reaction to the things i was put through. this went relatively unchanged until a couple years ago when i met the ex before my last. he was native, which is not a good enough descriptor, but his tribe is small enough that i don’t want to write it here. he did things like burn sage that to me felt like gobbledygook. i remember vividly sitting on his bed once as he was doing so before we left somewhere. i remember feeling frustrated that this snake oil was taking my time. in that moment, though, i noticed something undeniable: indeed, after burning the sage, his anxiety was calmed and he was happier. i think that’s when it clicked for me. in my lifetime we will never know why the heart beats or the brain thinks. psychology is founded not on an undertanding of the brain but rather observations we’ve made over decades. we don’t know why certain things help us and certain things don’t. we can’t. did the sage comfort my ex because of its spiritual meaning? i argue that the answer can be yes even if i don’t believe in the underlying explanation. i think that you can connect with the dead without believing they’re in heaven. connection is completely arbitrary. it exists exclusively in our brains and dies with us. but i still love my dad even if he’s dead. in that way, i can be happy for people who find god even if i don’t think god is real. if they truly found connection, with themselves, with others, with the world around them, then they did find god. after converting from christianity to atheism, i too have found god. i found god in my friends, in my family, in myself, in the fleeting moments i live, and in this beautiful rock we live on. god is real even if he isn’t. humans are terrible at communication. maybe we're all trying to describe the same thing. we should celebrate every time people find him. god 01.13.2025 viboof.com