EX EVANGELICAL

My faith in the religious, that religion and god’s existence

Dominated my young life, good riddance

Deep-seated need for truth took dogma down like dominoes

Ripping my security blanket away when I woke

I had kept warm in sheep’s wool

And those who denied my truths were fools

My inquiring, inquisitive little mind

Was taught not to reason but to learn the rhymes

To adopt a religious morality as my own wrong and right

To trust the culture that taught me lies

Trust a book written by illiterate men with no concept of science

Trust a god written as malicious, vindictive and so far from real righteous

To love him and dedicate my soul to him despite this

And despite rampant poverty, suffering, war and violence

That plagues us from Old Testament to the time that I write this

They say I don’t know their god or their Bible but oh how I did.

Religion is free of a realist’s scrutiny; it lets logic lapse

We are romantic silly creatures who crave to connect to our past

Who can never admit grandpa’s superstitions may have been wrong at long last

We fear fictional fires of hell and keep our praying hands clasped

I fear no god, not Allah or Yahweh or Zeus

Christians take it one god further or they’d be atheists too

But the religious are indoctrinated from diapers between the pews

And grow up convinced that they know the one true truest truth

Religion is the perfect tool to justify crimes against humanity

Because it’s not politically correct to criticize a belief

So 21st century and here we are

Quoting scripture at each other as if it has gotten us so far

Allah is still great; just ask the Islamic State

Rampant with misogyny, child abuse and rape

And God is still good, just ask that irate

Christian cherry-picking verses to help her discriminate and hate

While the goals of the religious right involve judging other people’s lives

They’ll save your soul but not feed the poor, or be in other ways like Christ.

Because along with hymns of faith being the norm internalized

So is belief we’ll be pardoned for our wrongs, and faith alone is required

Religion is millions of folded hands praying instead of working to change the world

Generation after generation of indoctrination of little human boys and girls

Ancient lies internalized, authority abused to suit and claim lives

Cognitive dissonance allows the injustice of religion to perpetuate the lies

I don’t think God should be given all the glory on Mother Earth

I’d rather praise the elements like the fire and the dirt

Now there may or may not be a creator where there is such a creation

But from the look of the current situation, its interest has faded