WHO AM I AND WHY DID I WRITE THIS?
My name is Melissa Grant, and I'm an alcoholic.
Oops. Wrong group.
I live in Minnesota. I am a lawyer, but I had to retire after I developed a disease of the cerebellum and brainstem. The doctor told me I had about 10 years to live, maximum. It's been 20. Lousy doctor, don't you think?!
After I retired I started writing. I have 7 completed books, and one is for sale on Amazon. It's called "What to Put Into Your Head Now that the Alcohol is Out." It's a collection of sayings that were not written about addiction, but that apply perfectly.
As of 2005 my husband and I had 3 kids, and then we found out there was an 11-year-old boy who needed a family, so we set out to adopt him. Along the way we learned that he had a 2-year-old brother who also needed a home, so that little guy became child no. 5. Then we were notified that the birth mother was pregnant. Child no. 6. It was an international adoption (Guatemala), and we brought them home on Thanksgiving day. Now we have 3 boys and 3 girls, and their ages range from 30 down to 15. Good thing my doctor was wrong.
Why did I write this book? I believe religion is the cause of much of the suffering in the world. It's not innocuous. It does harm. Think of the Crusades and the 9/11 attacks. Neither of those would have happened if religion didn't exist.
Sometimes the harm religion does is more personal. Once there was a little girl who was taught about God and the Bible, and about being obedient to them. She was riding her bike, and a teenage boy saw her and ran into her on his bike. He forced her into the nearby bushes and raped her. She knew that the Bible says that if a woman doesn't fight off a rapist hard enough, the rape is her fault and she should be killed. (It says precisely that at Deuteronomy 22:23-24.) Was she obedient? Did she try to fight him off? No. She was terrified. She followed his instructions, including the parts about shutting up
and not resisting. According to Christianity, that meant she had no right to complain about it, and in fact that she should be killed for losing her virginity. So she never told anyone what happened and thus no one comforted her. Since she knew she was no longer a virgin and had nothing to protect, 10 years later she hated herself and let guys have their way with her.
You've undoubtedly figured out that the little girl was me. Perhaps it will seem like I'm carrying a chip on my shoulder against God. Nope. I don't blame him just as I don't blame Zeus. But I do feel an urgency to do what I can to help prevent other little girls from condemning themselves for something that was out of their control. My dream is that people will see that Christianity is a myth, just as myriad other religions are mythological, and men, women and children will never suffer religious shame again.
Of course, mine certainly wasn't the only time that religion let someone down. It happens all around the world, to probably millions of people a day. I want these events to stop completely. And I want to see an end to shaming of homosexuals. And teaching children false science. And wars in the name of God. And, and, and.
If religion caused you to suffer in some way, tell us about it on the forum.
