I decided to let nostalgia take the reigns and I dug up some old assignments from college and high school. This turbid look into my old self will hopefully motivate me to continue changing, hopefully for the better.

Class: The Christian Faith, January 15th, 2008
“Religious History” 

My father drives a 2005 GMC Sonoma pick-up truck. The white color, along with the optional Rhino lining and small cab size, nudge toward his idea of what a vehicle is meant to do. He drives that truck for practical reasons, whether he needs 4-Wheel-Drive in the snow, a durable bed to transport steel parts, or towing power to haul any number of things. My mother, on the other hand, sports a 2006 Mustang, which is far from practical, but awfully pretty. The two-door coupe makes it difficult to transport her grandchildren from Lafayette to Bluffton, or even groceries from Scott’s to home. The 210-horsepower V6 hardly ever gets a tug on the reigns. Driving on snow also proves to be a challenge for the frat-boy/middle-age intended vehicle. But my mother falls within a more aesthetic school of thought when it comes to driving. Her first love was a ’65 ‘stang, hard-top, red goddess of the American asphalt. She still has one in storage, only to be driven for recreation in the summer. And some people would have the audacity to criticize my mother for purchasing such an impractical ozone eater; hell, some people would criticize her for buying a Ford. But that’s just it, isn’t it? Having an argument about cars requires both sides to have reference to at least one car. Some people would defend, say, a Cadillac, even if they have only driven Cadillacs all their life. Between my father and my mother, practicality and aesthetics would be argued, yet they would both agree on American manufacturing and, more elementary, the need for a car.

Religion and cars. If the two were synonymous, then I would have no car. I would describe myself as an atheist, although I feel I will need to clarify this more thoroughly later on. For the sake of the metaphor, and even as a true statement, I do own a car. In the United States, it is impossible to travel anywhere without one, unless I mooch or learn how to ride a bike long distances. I could live without a car quite easily in Japan (barely second to America in automobile production), and in fact did do so for a year. It’s this same reasoning that made me believe I needed a (metaphorical) car in order to even survive in America for most of my adolescence.

To understand my personal religious story, you needn’t look further than my driveway. I grew up in a GMC truck and a Dodge Dynasty. My father can best be described as a consistently practical Christian. Much like his truck, he only uses religion when absolutely necessary. I’ve never had a conversation about God or religion with him. He prays before a holiday meal, visits loved ones at funerals, and celebrates weddings. This is the greatest extent I have ever seen him go with religion. Church, prayer, worship, or even conversation involving spirituality does not serve a purpose, let alone get him from point “A” to point “B” efficiently. He has never driven anything other than a reliable, white, GMC Sonoma. Even when he gets a new truck, it’s only different by the year behind the name.

My mother drove a Dodge Dynasty when I was growing up. It was navy blue with vinyl seating. They bought it used, but was still fairly new. Practical for chauffeuring children and not much more, the car simply provided my mother with a sense of luxury to an otherwise boring tool. She could have been described as somewhat religious. She went to church every Sunday with us kids. She is a Methodist, and believes that faith should intertwine with some aspects of life, but not take-over. She prays, talks about God, and worries about her children’s spirituality. Religion is more than just a functioning quark in life for her; she views it as an enjoyable supplement to life.

Fittingly, my first car was the Dynasty after already being passed down through both of my older sisters. The same could be said for my Methodist beginnings. It was never mine, just a good first try at theology. No one expected it to last more than a year. And it didn’t. Chronologically, I can say that I became a “confused Christian” when I became twelve-years-old. A young age, yes, but I was always the inquisitive one. I did not find full-blown atheism until I was fifteen, incidentally old enough to drive. After I broke-down and noticed all of the things that I hated about Christianity, I became incredibly interested in new ideas. I floated around from Satanism, Unitarian Universalist, Taoist, Buddhist, agnostic, pagan, and I think a few others. Not to say I practiced any of them. Instead, I would read about them, ask believers and gain knowledge and interest…then move on. One could say I test-drove them, but never committed to buy. This was within a span of about three years, putting me close to graduating high school.

All through high school, in fact, there was only one car in my life that I cared about, even though I drove a few borrowed from my sisters and other family members. It was a ’74 MGB. My father and I began our project almost immediately after I started high school. We bought three of them from his cousin for a couple hundred dollars. We received them ripped apart, with several of the pieces in coffee cans and other packages. Only one body of the three had sustained the three decades of weather to not have rust damage. It was a project of projects. We worked hard for three years trying to get the damn thing to work. The engine seemed fine, but the electrical system was a horror to say the least. In fact, the British refer to the electrical system of the MGB within the seventies as the “Prince of Darkness” since it almost always failed after a rainstorm, or during seemingly random moments while driving. Senior year was quickly approaching, and by some leap of determination we completed our project. This is the only car I had ever loved, and probably the only one I will ever build from the ground up. She’s a two-seater convertible with a small 4-cylinder and about as raw as a car can get. All steel body, no ABS, no power steering, manual transmission, polluted emission, and a ninja-esque giddy-up that fellow drivers could not challenge. I guess you could say that this was a transitional moment in my life. High school is, after all, a defining period for anyone’s life, including the religious aspects. Like any religion, it should take time, care, love, commitment, knowledge, patience, and a literal mess of other qualities. I feel like most people don’t do this. It can be seen in their driving, too. People will go far beyond the recommended miles for an oil change. My sisters often have smoke barreling out of their car, but will drive it until it will not start again. I’ve seen accidents caused by the dumbest of mistakes. It’s as if most people take advantage of an otherwise awesome tool, but never care to know how it works, or what better way to use it. This is exactly how I feel about religion.

So, after high school I head to college, open-minded about religion, but still a practicing atheist (if that’s the best way to describe it). I say “atheist” in respect to how I describe myself. I do not believe in a higher power, or anything outside of the life I live. I am happy “believing” that I will die and be no more. I am happy “believing” that what I feel as a human being is limited to what I experience, and not considered to be incomplete or even a sin. I came to this conclusion timidly at first, but now I can whole-heartedly accept it as my worldview. So I don’t believe that I simply “don’t own a car”. Instead, I believe that the car I own is mine, and no one else’s. I also know that, no matter how much I care for it or respect it, nothing can stop an asshole too busy talking on his cellphone to flip his expensive SUV over the top of my car and kill everyone on the road.

I hope I offered not only my history within my development of religion, but also some of my religious conclusions. I will not be bold (or stupid) enough to claim I am one-hundred percent right about anything, especially religion. This is a flaw characteristic of most band-wagon atheists. I crave intellectual stimulation, and the best source of this is through the passion of others. One of the most passionate subjects in several peoples’ lives is indeed religion, so I have no other choice but to hold the idea of religion with great respect, curiosity, and challenge. To believe I will forever drive my ’94 Pontiac Bonneville is not only incredibly scary, but almost surely impossible.

Thankfully, the Bonneville is long gone.