A couple Sundays ago I was just workin' away at my part-time job at a local grocery store.

A cheerful-looking middle-aged man came through my lane. As I rang in his things, he asked me a question. A bizarre question, to someone like me.

"Did you make it to church today?"

I was a little thrown off by that. Nobody's ever really assumed I was Catholic or Christian or Muslim or whatever church he was talking about before. And if they have, they hadn't openly voiced it.

I didn't really know what to say, so I just said, "Nope."

He seemed, well, appalled!

"Poor thing! You would think your job would let you have Sunday mornings off to go to church!"

By this time I was darn well flabbergasted. "I, uh, actually don't go to church."

"What do you mean you don't go to church?"

"Well, I've never been."

"You've never been to church?"

"I'm an athiest."

This guy went visibly pale. I thought, oh jeez, now I'm pissing off a bible-thumper.

"Athiest? Are your parents athiests?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Were you Baptized?" (Are you supposed to capitalize Baptism? Who knows these churchy terms. Certainly not me.)

"Yeah, but I was a baby, I didn't really have any say in the matter."

"Then you're a Catholic."

Now it was ME getting kind of pissed at this guy. 

"I'm not a Catholic. I've never been a Catholic. Athiesm is just what makes the most sense to me."

At this point I was done with his groceries. I handed him the recepit. He took it with a snuff and said, "Shame they don't teach you children the right ways in school anymore."

Then he turned to the old lady in line behind him, said "God bless you," and was on his way.

Now, I have nothing against Catholicism or Christianity or any religion whatsoever.  But this dude, this dude made me MAD.

For me, the idea of having some bountiful overlord or deity doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. I'm a real sciencey kind of person (yeah, sciencey is a word. What are you gonna do.), so the "theories" (more like facts, but I don't want to offend anybody...) around evolution and how life on Earth was ACTUALLY created (meteors crashing into the Earth billions of years ago caused chemical reactions which created amino acids- thank you, Discovery Channel) is way more sensible, in MY opinion.

But hey, if your religious, good for you. You have your beliefs, I have mine. I won't try and lecture you on evolution if you don't try and preach Creationism to me.

It's just guys like this that make irate. If you're a devout Catholic, please don't shove it in my face. I don't appreciate trying to be "converted."

Religions are great. They give people hope when there would otherwise be none. They give people guidance when they don't know which way to go. They give people purpose. For the most part, they give people morals and happiness.

But my beliefs are mine, and yours are yours. And I don't think peoples beliefs should play any part in how they are accepted in society, and how other people look upon them.

It's the 21st century. The gap between science and religion is widening, and some of the more old-fashioned folk are going to have to realise someday or another that not everyone is put into a certain box when they're born. I was born into a Catholic family (hardly Catholic, I've never seen anyone in my family say Grace or even touch a Bible), but they didn't force any opinions on me, and they let me decide for myself, what do I believe in?

Everyone's got choices. Everyone's mind works differently. People are people. We're all made of flesh and blood. That's the bottom line.

"God bless you"...?

Izzy/AJ

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twitter.com/izzyzilla