This Is Me

There are many things I love about being Canadian. Four distinct seasons and wide open spaces are only two things in a long list about why Canada is one of the best countries to live in. (Still, I'm in love with Australia and New Zealand. I at least want to visit them before I die)

Since becoming an Atheist I learned about how religion plays roles in other countries. It horrifies me. I never thought about it before, as religion doesn't play a part in how my life is run in Canada - certainly not by law.

The best thing about Canada is religious freedom. It amazes me how many rights are taken away in far too many countries just for not being one with the crowd. It is so foreign. I don't have to worry about my rights being taken away simply because I don't believe in Ra or Luna, or any other god or goddess.

I am lucky I was born in a country where my journey could be navigated by me, and not by anyone else. I was born, raised Christian, and in an attempt to get closer to God read the Bible. Well, tried to. I read all of the NT, and bits of the OT. I decided the Bible was wrote by men, and had no divine hand at all. I still believed in a higher being though, so I went searching for a religion that fit what my parents had told me about God. Strangely, it was the one religion that Christianity spoke out against that fit the bill: Wicca. I became a self-proclaimed Wiccan, only to discover magic didn't work, and anyway, I was really just going around in circles.

At 21, I was tired of trying to make everything fit. But I decided to try one last thing. Sylvia Brown! Everything she said made sense. I remembered bits from her books (like when you in heaven and such) but I read one line that made me rethink the whole thing. It said insects are not in heaven.

Let me get this straight, I thought, God made us, all creatures, and he loves us and we will join him. All will live and work together in heaven. Lions with deer, Elephants with coyotes. But no insects?! Insects are alive, and they are creatures. I also remember them in heaven. I've done research on memory and come to the conclusion I remembered 'heaven' because I wanted to.

Throughout my whole journey I had been reading up on science. Evolution really held my interest. Far from what most creationist say, I loved evolution because I thought it confirmed God existed. He's the perfect father, right? Patience is a key element of that - and evolution is never finished.

After Sylvia Brown, though, I really looked at the world around me. What did I see?

Well, nothing different actually. I just removed intelligent design from the equation, and you know what, for the first time in my life I understood.

Fast forward two years, and what you have is me. I tried to be Wiccan for most of the last two years because I felt I needed something, (and when I was little I was more Wiccan than Christian) but a few weeks ago I realized I didn't need the security blanket anymore.

There are many things I love about Canada. Oddly, freedom wasn't on my list. Now it's at the top.