I grew up in a relatively “religious” (Christian) family. We went to church on a semi-regular basis, especially when I was younger, I participated in Vacation Bible School almost every summer, we went to Bible study, had close friendships within the congregation, and other things. Even though we did those things, we never prayed before meals, or read the Bible, or listened to the Christian radio stations--things that I didn't mind, but that I would later learn were part of other “Christian” families’ routines.

Now, as I look back on my younger years of going to church every Sunday, and when we moved to North Carolina and found another church where I enjoyed the youth group, I appreciate the fact that my family never encouraged or discouraged an extremely “religious” home environment. Growing up, what church and Sunday mornings often entailed was seeing friends, singing songs about God and being kind, doing coloring pages, eating donuts, and playing games. Church was different before you were too old to leave the service halfway through for the children’s service.

We stopped going to church entirely, and I stopped going to youth group, by my sophomore year of high school. Leading up to that point, we’d been going a lot less regularly since about seventh or eighth grade. Why? Life got busier, basically. It had nothing to do with us not believing anymore, it had more to do with what the churches were saying and how many other things we had going on at the same time. At that point, I had a decent enough understanding of the world around me to start to question some of the things I was “learning” at youth group and a new insight into what kinds of people some churchgoers really were.

Before I continue, I would like to state a few things: yes, I believe in God; yes, these are my opinions and none of my readers need to feel like I’m telling them what to do or not do, because that is not my intention in the slightest; yes, I understand that not everything that I’m about to say applies to all churches or churchgoers (or all religions for that matter).

One of my biggest issues with organized religion (Christianity specifically, since that is what I know best) is the extreme, excessive reliance on the Bible as the “truth.” Legend has it that each book of the Bible was written by a person whom was called upon by God. Now, I'm not saying that that isn’t true or that that isn't a possibility, however, sometimes I question the credibility of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and the authors of each individual book. Let's say Matthew and John were called upon by God, but Mark and Luke heard about that and decided to join in on the fun. If that were the case, then Matthew and John may have written down the word of God, but Mark and Luke wrote down their own words. Taking the whole book as “God’s word” feels like a bit of a risk to my skeptical mind.

On the note of Biblical authors, let’s also remember that the Bible was written by people who believed the world was flat. Now we know that isn’t true, because of science. What if there’s something else that these people believed and wrote into their portion of this sacred book that is also false and we just don’t know it, or that Christians refuse to acknowledge as false because “the Bible says so”?

Keeping in the Bible theme, I don’t understand why some passages are to be taken 100% literally, whereas others we are supposed to interpret or are just supposed to ignore completely. There are even parts of the Bible that aren’t in the Bible (*cough* the Apocrypha *cough*). Nobody wants to talk about the passage in the Bible that says you can’t eat any animals that don’t have divided hooves and “chew the cud” (Leviticus 11), but everyone wants to remind us about that part where marriage has to be between a man and a woman. According to the Bible, women must submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22-24), you can’t eat pigs (Leviticus 11), and divorce is not a good thing (Mark 10:2-12). Yet most Christians do not follow these rules.

Still, even though most Christians do not take every word written in the Bible as law, they look down upon others who do not take certain parts of the Bible as law. By that, I mean, a whole lot of Christians look down upon, judge, call out for sinning gay people, transgender people, drug users, drinkers, people who listen to rock music, people who have sex before marriage--the list could go on. My main qualm with this isn’t just the hypocrisy within judging others for “sinning” when you sin all the time, too. My main qualm is in the judgment, maltreatment, and hatred for the people who do not line up with their perception of a non-sinner.

Jesus himself, according to the Bible (Matthew 22:39), said that the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself (the first greatest commandment is to love God with your entire heart/soul/mind). So why do some people feel the need to hate others for their “sins”, when all they are supposed to be doing is loving? There are so many other passages in the Bible that say that love is the most important thing. How “Christian” of you to think that all gay people are going to hell because they're gay. How “Christian” of you not to let your children be friends with people because of their “sins”. How “Christian” of you to judge others in place of loving them.

I just think that sometimes, we all need to step back, and take the Bible for what it's really saying: love our neighbors, love God, be a good person. That’s what it says, as a whole. It also says we are allowed to make mistakes (sin), as long as we acknowledge our mistakes and ask for forgiveness. That’s all stuff that I believe. That's all that I want religion to enforce. I do not think that there is much else that isn’t along those lines that can necessarily be taken word for word. Because, like I said, the Bible was written by people who thought the world was flat.