God stole my teddy bear

I was seven years old when I stopped believing in God, it wasn't until I was fourteen or so that I stopped believing in the supernatural. But I can not forget the day I stopped believing in the christian God, the god of Abraham, Yahweh.

I was in Carpenteria with my family for the weekend, my great aunt has a place right there near the beach. It was Saturday night when I realized I didn't have my teddy bear. I had had him forever, he had one eye, he was white and his name was Snowy. I took him everywhere. Until one day I lost him, somewhere. I looked everywhere for that bear and I couldn't find him. I was in tears, my family looked everywhere my dad was asking people on the street if they had seen him. Nobody had.

It got to be saturday night, the last night we would stay there before returning home. With nowhere else to turn, and as a last resort, I turned to Yahweh for help. I told him that I realized I hadn't been a very good christian. I skipped out of church whenever possible and seemed to only go for the doughnuts, which were delicious, and I didn't seem to spend much time thinking about Him or doing anything to spread his word and stuff. But, I told him, if he would let me find Snowy, or remember where I had put him, I would be the greatest christian He had ever seen. There would be no end to the wonderful things I would do for him. And it was then with the hot tears streaming down my face soaking my pillow that I prayed myself to sleep repeating the words, "Please let me find him, please let me find him."

The next day I still couldn't find him and we had to go home. I looked up to the sky--for every seven year old boy knows precisely where God sits to ruin your day--and said, "Thanks for nothing jerk-face. It would have been so easy for you to let me find Snowy. I wasn't kidding about before, this will be the last time I talk to you." And I remember feeling so much anger. I wanted to do to Yahweh the worst thing that I knew how to do, the worst thing that any human could do. I waited for the moment when no one was watching and I flung my little arm into the sky and flipped Yahweh the bird.

For years I probably still believed in Yahweh enough to hate his guts while waiting for snowy to turn up. It wasn't until I was about fourteen or so that I came to understand that none of the mythic traditions of the religions of the world or of history were true. I realized it was silly to be mad at an imaginary figure and stopped. Then I started learning about what we know and what we don't, and found that science was responsible for so much and that religion tried to compete with that as though it were on equal or better footing. This made me mad on account of the unfairness of it all and I read a great deal about all sorts of subjects, while religion continued to claim the wonders by saying in essence, "wow, science, isn't that extraordinary? God is more complicated than we thought."

After reading the book of Job I see that this would be my own personal Job story; Satan made a wager with Yahweh that if you took his Snowy away and ruined his day, he would curse you, and Yaweh, ever the sucker, said, "You're on." And Satan won, although since Yahweh knows everything he would have known that I would curse him and he wouldn't have taken the bet, which makes Satan the fool for betting with a guy that knows the outcome ahead of time.

Anyway, that's how it happened. I wish I had a better ending for you, but I don't.

I wonder what would happen if on my death bed someone brought my Snowy to me? Now that would blow my skull.