When I was 10, my mom started going to church - without my dad.
My old man wasn't really into religion. More precisely, he wasn't really into the idea that Jesus was the son of God. The immaculate conception really pissed him off. Usually, he would sit in stony silence listening to someone talking about the way of God. His face would get redder and redder and his head would start tic-nodding up and down on a horizontal axis. It was the final sign that he could no longer contain the pure, spitting anger building up on the back of his teeth like Satan's plaque.
Once he built up enough of his jizzy force, he would start foaming at the mouth and hurling headlong statements like, "Mary got knocked up by some guy and to save face she named God as her bastard child's father. Com'on, are we really to believe that God would bother taking the time to come down to earth and impregnate a woman with his child?" And then he'd seethe on and on about the whole fandango, until his face exploded like Veruca Salt. Then he'd quietly walk over to cupboard and pour himself a mug of boxed wine. The conversation was OVER.
I was always shocked that he could get so angry about th whole thing. For a man who vehemently insisted that he didn't believe, he sure believed very strongly in this opinion. He was almost speaking in tongues.
My mom went to curch without my father, but that didn't stop her from dragging us along. It was okay. She was United, which is probably one of the mellowest forms of Christianity out there. Mom stuck with the "pro gay ordination" side when the factions split, so it was pretty interesting watching the flock split ways - I was pretty confused by the "nice" people who went the other way - I though compassion and love of your fellow wo/man was a pretty important aspect of this faith. Guess not.
So, when my grandfather started dying, my mom decided that my brother and I should get baptised. I was about 12 or 13. Now, I had no desire to get baptised. Even to this day, I'm not really into any kind of institutional ritual that deems you are part of the sanctimonious "in" crowd, whether it be through marriage, baptism, or sorority hazing. It seems so weak - like a crutch.
But I was cool with doing it for Grandpa. He was a cool guy. He never pushed anything on me - except for those powdery, white candies in rumpled white bags that, along with salt, Scottish men never seem to be without. So, I figured I'd do it because I loved him. But, if the minister was going to make me give up my belief in evolution, then I was not going to do it. It was then that I forged, what I now call "Creative Design". Yes, I decided to believe that "Adam and Eve" were the first sentient (as those bloody Humanists like to call it) apes.
So, I sat with the minister in his chambers before they dribbled water over my head, and told him I was only willing to get baptised if I could believe that Adam and Eve were apes. He leaned forward, peered at me, and said, "That's fine, but are you a good person?" I figured that I was pretty good, so I said yes. And he leaned back in his leather desk chair and said, "Good, then you can believe what you believe." What a hoot.
These days, I'm truly fostering a belief in "Creative Design". But who wouldn't want to be a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
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