I have been reading a book my sister gave me: "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I can't put it down. I just reached Chapter 14: Leaving God and it's making me cry.

I, too, left the bigotry and inconsistencies of religion and god some years ago. It was such a painfully lonely journey, but I had enough of trying to make god concepts work. I'm much happier now that I can explore my wonder and amazement about the world without religion and the self-hatred it was engendering for me.

She experienced so much abuse from religious adherents. Then, when she finally stepped out of that world into a new one by escaping to Holland, she witnessed so much more abuse that others were experiencing. I don’t want to compare my experiences too closely to Ayaan, but I think my journey has been similar.

Coming out conferred on me a sense of freedom I had never experienced. At the time, I had been using religion as a way to hide my sexuality. I even almost attended a fundamentalist Christian school. It would have provided most ingenious cover, don’t you think?!

Coming out, though, also allowed me to start questioning religion, and I had so many good reasons to do so!

I tried so hard to be religious even after coming out. I joined a national ministry in an extremely progressive denomination and felt good about my efforts and the lives I was touching, and was able to do so without an ounce of proselytizing, fortunately, thanks to the wonderful denomination I worked for. As I worked in the church, though, I could see the damage that religion was doing to so many of the people I was working with.

Then I worked at Planned Parenthood for a couple years, believe it or not, doing similar outreach work. Here I saw even more of the abuses. Religious people are susceptible to others drilling ideas and beliefs into their psyche that are self- and other-hating. You can’t be gay or a woman and be an equal in ‘God’s’ kingdom. You are evil if you love certain people but acceptable if you love others, with no rational logic to back up such dogma.

Even worse, religious people can be so abusive and violent, yet self-satisfied about it, and not just to themselves! Take the countless women who came to the clinic for help and were verbally assaulted by protesters, or physically assaulted by family members or their partners. Take John Salvi who, backed up by his religion, bought a gun in a neighboring state, walked in to our clinic, and killed my coworker. Take the protesters who would not point out to police what direction John Salvi had gone, enabling him to go down the street to another clinic and do the same thing there. Take countless religious fanatics who drive gay people to suicide or drugs or self-hatred because they love people of the same sex, despite the fact that such feeling are natural and hurt nobody.

Not to mention the energy that religion and it’s cognitive dissonance was absorbing from my endeavors. I believe I am doing so much more good in the world now that I am not wasting my time satisfying some egotistical, sometimes hateful god that demands worship and time and attention! I really do believe that I am a more principled person now. When I do good works, it is a gift to the world and the people around me. When I act with love and compassion, I do so not to please some god in return for some final reward, but because there are good reasons to do so right here on planet Earth! I am free to observe the positive, empirically evident reasons why ethical behavior is preferable (it feels good, it benefits my relationships, etc...) which fosters in me the desire to continue to act ethically and be a good person.

An atheist is unlikely to do things such as fly an airplane into a building full of people. An atheist generally would not walk in to a women’s health clinic and shoot a receptionist dead and injure clients waiting for non-abortion related health screenings. Why? Without religion, there is nothing to indicate that such behaviors are good or ethical and would have any rewards whatsoever.

I thought I was alone in my lonely journey from religious to ‘infidel’ (although I have not been made to feel like an ‘infidel’ by my family or friends, so the label sounds a bit strong and strange to me). I feel like I have a new friend in Ayaan even though we have never met.

Since leaving god, people have often asked me, “What if there really is a god? What if you are mistaken?” Well, so what? If god exists as a loving, compassionate force in the universe, surely it does not really demand worship in exchange for benevolence! If it did, I would DEFINITELY not worship it! Yikes! What a horrible thing to worship!

When asked, though, I generally smile and ask the same in return. What if there really isn’t a god? What if you are mistaken?

How sad, eh? Centuries of hatred, self-hatred, war, torture, death, misunderstanding, and factionalism doled out for nothing. It’s painful for me to think about the pain of my experiences multiplied exponentially.

That is how much pain Ayaan has endured and survived. Because of her journey, though, she now thrives!

That is also how much pain religion, especially fundamentalist religion, has caused and continues to cause in our world. May we all survive and thrive regardless.