I'm so Confused! On Display Collab for January 2002.

My Mom had never been a person to shove religion down her children's throats. She just figured that when we were old enough, we'd make our own decisions about it.

My Dad on the other hand, seemed to go through a phase of making us to to the church down the road. Maybe because he had grown up in that community and even though he never really seemed to FIT into the community, maybe that was his way of trying. Or maybe because his Father and Mother went there, he did it to please them. Who knows. (I do seem to remember that as the only time during my life where my father was adamant about us going to church. I was about 8 or 9.)

The Church of the Nazarene wasn't a terrible church to go to as a young child, I remember many hours spent upstairs in a Sunday school class coloring pictures and drinking kool-aid and eating graham crackers. Nobody there, really made an impression on me. It's just a sort of vague, hazy memory.

Living in the "Bible Belt" is both an interesting thing and a very not so good thing.

I took it in my head to visit other churches at various times through out my life while growing up and while I was never able to find a synagogue or a Mormon church or a temple of any kind, there were plenty of Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Catholics and Baptists.

Which to this day I can tell you only a few things and most of them are things that I've heard OTHER people say about it:

Methodists: Tightwads who used to charge for pew seating. (Overheard or read somewhere) My Grandpop is a Methodist though I can't remember the last time he actually attended a church service. Never. I can't remember even once. He was/is also a member of the Masonic lodge stuff. He still wears that ring. I've never seen him do anything as

Presbyterians: Have no idea, no overheard pieces circulating in my brain. My Mom has found a church of this sort that she likes a lot down in Wilmington. I've attended a service there and it is a HUGE, HUGE church. Nice enough, contemporary service with a bit of tradition.

Lutherans: Sort of like a "Catholic" lite version. (A myth I've heard/read other people describe them as) I think my Mom and Mike (the big giant child abuser and deserter) attended one of these churches at some point. I've been told they are like a version of lite Catholicism because they don't frown on divorces. That's what I know about this religion.

Catholics: I always thought that I loved this religion; the tradition and beauty of the Mass. The candles and Hail Mary's and crossing yourself and kneeling and standing and sitting and kneeling. And the Exorcist. You know, the movie. And the Amityville Horror. My Gram was a Catholic and even begged me to have Alix christened soon after she was born. I don't know much about it all really but I know this one more than any of the others.

Wicca: I paid money to have the lessons sent to me through the mail and I would complete them and send them back and get "graded" on it. This was back in 1991 when I had first moved to North Carolina. There is a big Wiccan faction located in New Bern, NC so I guess it was easy enough for me to find. Though I can't remember HOW I went about it.

I've always been so much happier out in nature than I have been indoors that Wicca seemed a natural way for my interests to turn. I have a hard time with this because it's a bit too, not liberal, but it's just so very different and the concept of Gods AND Goddesses, like more than one, isn't something I can wholeheartedly embrace.

Then of course once you have the stereotypes down for the rest of the religions there is still the Jewish Religion which I was always told, because I never KNEW anyone who was Jewish before, that they didn't believe Jesus was the son of God. Which went against EVERYTHING I'd ever been taught or come to accept.

Mormons, as the stereotype goes, had lots of wives and a bunch live in Utah. That's all I knew until I married into Nathan's family and they are all Mormons. Mary would/still tells me about the 7 levels of Heaven or something like that (see how much I manage to not absorb after 10 or so years? Scary) but that just sounds so much like, "well, if I'm bad now it doesn't matter because there really isn't a Hell and I can just work my way up the ladder".

Being raised around the concept of a Heaven and a Hell, it's incredibly difficult to even think that way. So while tempting to me at that time, it definitely didn't fit right.

Islam, Buddhism and everything else wasn't even a factor or a piece of my religious development/non-development. I had no sources until the internet came along. I'd never met anyone before who practiced. So they were foreign concepts. Or something I would read about in a book.

Protestant just confuses me because by my understanding, they've split into so many factions that you can't lump them together or call it one thing like you can with Catholics. Am I wrong in this? I don't know. I'd have to look it up on the internet. I'm not an authority on any religion/s.

And finally, the only other one is the one I've recently become more familiar with and that is the Baptist faction. Which is very confusing anyhow because you have the Southern Baptists, the Primitive Baptists, the Free Will Baptists, the ORIGINAL Free Will Baptists, Baptist Baptists and the Pentecostal Holiness Baptists. Plus all the other hundreds of factions that have split off from that sector. Oh yes, don't forget the Scientologists and the Fundamentalists. Or is Fundamentalist just a description?

Oy vey.

And does the Baptist faith come from the Protestant faith or is it it's own thing?

It's all very confusing.

Religion is just confusing and I'm beginning to think that it follows the line of thinking (organized religion that is) of something I used to hear growing up:

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit.

And then you can get into the whole Evolution/Big Bang/God Did It stuff.

And the Science stuff. And how can I discount a whole like, huge thing like SCIENCE just because someone told me to? And vice versa, how can I just say it's God and science is all just a bunch of theories with poorly supported bits of evidence?

I don't know.

The only things that I am absolutely sure of is that I don't know anything at all except what's in my heart and my heart and my head let me know when I've done something wrong. And I do try to think the best of people and I do try to give of myself freely. I try not to judge and if I do become judgmental of a certain person or situation, I try to find out the root cause of it. Is it just a holdover from a stereotype? Personal? All of the above?

Scratch all that. The only thing I'm sure of is that I try to live my life the best I can, hurting as few people as possible, treating others as I would like to be treated and just looking for meaning in my life and I believe there is a higher presence. I call that presence God.

I think that's the only things that I AM sure about. Are you confused yet? Because I can go on for pages and pages with questions and rebuttals.

There is a bad side to being able to see all sides of a situation.