Thanks for the help I sent him your response, we have had some long debates about religion. I will let you know his response.
My uncle Nate became a preacher in 1972, he got busted selling pot at the High School to his friends, the judge gave him an option of six years in prison, or four years in a missionary school. Either way you come out a Christian.
I was sent to live with my uncles Nate 14, and Lance 16, when I was 12. My step mother kicked my out of the house because I borrowed her haunted house album without asking, for a haunted house my friends an I were making for Halloween.
So I was living with my Grand father and my uncles who were more like brothers. Lance was nice to me and loved me while Nate tollerated me and considered me a nuisance.
Before Nate got busted, Lance came home one night after drinking and getting caught in the back of his Bronco with his girlfriend. Lance had Asama and when he got home at 1 AM. Lances Doctor (the one who caught him small town, Hot Springs SD) called my Grandfather and told him what was up. Lance walked in and Grandpa started yelling at him, and that triggered Lance to have an Asama attack. Lance walked into the bathroom to try to clear it up with some water and an inhaler, however he had been drinking and smoking pot with his girlfriend and that made things worse. He passed out in the bathroom because he could not breath. Gram pa was yelling to Nate to wake up and help him with Lance to get him to the car and to the hospital.
Nate did not wake up, I did and I ran into the bathroom and lifted Lance with my Grandfather and we got him into the car. Gram pa told me to run inside and call the hospital and tell them he was on the way. I was hysterical, I called the hospital and started praying to god, I loved Lance with all my hart and I would do anything to bring him back. When my grandfather came home and sat next to me on the couch, I was sure that my prayers were answered and Lance was going to be OK. Gram pa told me that they kept Lance alive for thirty minutes and then he died. That was the exact second I lost my religion.
Here it is 36 years later, and there is not a day that I don't think about Lance. He had everything going for him. He was an straight A student all the way threw High School, he was good tall and extremely good looking and had the most beautiful blond in town for his girlfriend. He was only 16 years old.
On the other hand Nate was short with glasses, and buck teeth.
Well to make a long story short, from that day forward I resented being lied to about God, I screamed at the preacher at the funeral to shove his God and Jesus bullshit up his ass and that there was no god. Then I walked away home from the funeral crying.
Latter in life, Nate and I grew closer together and I love him very much, even though we do not agree about religion.
He went on to missionary school and became a preacher, while I have lived a unique life feeling a bit isolated. I find it very hard to build relationships with others who believe as I do. Even my wife is an devout Christian. I truly feel I live in an insane world.
To this day I have tried my hardest to help those I love to see life on a Humanitarian level. I was only able to reach my step daughter out of the 100 or so I have approached. I have always lived withthe feeling of indifference to society. I just do not fit in to the social majority of our society.
I feel that I am fortunate to lived my life so far as a free thinker to some degree, and yet it has been a burdon, I feel I am under siege by the religious fundamentalist, and there is little hope for those who are infected with the virus that is religion.
