Religious Puberty

my freshman year was my second helping if you will, my reborn christian mental relapse, forget about the opiate of the masses, i was on crack baby, and NOTHING was about to thrust me out of the sanctum sanctorum of my belief!

some dude at this high school, from my recollection, saw i was emotionally saddened, and talked with me a bit, and brought up christ and all that jazz. best time to get converts, when theyre needing something, anything, to make sense out of life (talk about oxymorons). i ended up pretty much skipping school that entire day, yet still on school grounds mind you, just talking with this guy near the cafeteria by the lunchroom on a grassy gnoll, jesus' sniper rifle at the ready, and walla, BANG! i became born again.

i was feeling it, i knew in my gut that this was truth, i truly believed!

alas, that only lasted for about six months, somehow, i kept my beliefs to myself, the only person that knew about what i was reading was my little brother. even then i remember him saying "why read that bullshit, you should read this (dragonlance series)".

my zeal started to wane, i started asking myself questions i couldnt answer, nothing made sense, im fucking 14 years old and believing in some really wacked out shit, i need to research this! what the hell am i really believing in!!? why was i believing it??!

my mom had some old books in a box, one was martin bubers "i and thou", jewish mysticism, i read that and my mind was blown apart with the loss of ego, the gnostic traditions. then i started to read bertrand russell's history of philosophy, earlier pre-socratic philosophy, some books on the greek & norse myths, philosophy of religion, emil cioran's history of decay, the nag hammadi texts that were transcribed into english(some of which i gleaned from elaine pagels adam eve & the serpent and the gnostic gospels), basically anything my hungry eyes and voracious mind could handle.

enter the doubter by age 17, high school was ending, and i figured hell, why not join the military.