Sodom

In the recent months I've come out to family and friends - as an atheist.  And I've been having quite a few debates about the subject.

The funny thing is that the more people try to show me "the light", the more I see the light! Here is a passage that I've recently come across on a Facebook page (and that I previously read in the bible):

And here is what I make out of it:

Lot was a righteous man, so he offered his daughters to get raped instead of the men who he is hosting generously (maybe just to avoid the "wicked" act of homosexuality?)

Not to mention our loving god's way of dealing with this was - just destroy the whole city.

And of course you may have - or know someone who has - a great poetic explanation that twists this into being "god's amazing way of telling us things", possibly in a symbolic fashion, or maybe just say that it was different times (obviously it was okay to offer your children to be raped 5000 years ago...), or a combination of both...

But it's just like Einstein puts it: "These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text" (from wikipedia)

This text like many others in the bible, is immoral today, was immoral 5000 years ago, and will remain immoral in the future.

Even if a god exists, saying that he has anything to do with this text would be an insult to him, regardless of any interpretations that may be out there.

Growing

A lot has happened since my last post.

I got an internship in one of the biggest high-tech companies in the world, and I practically started my professional career with a boost. 

The past few months were the hardest, most demanding, and most exciting ones I have had for as long as I can remember. Work, school, homework exhausted my every last bit of energy, and I didn't have much time to think about anything.

More big things have happened that gave me more responsibility and burden, but I'm not going to get into them.

It is exams time now, and I took days off work. So finally I've got some time to actually relax. 

Now that I have time to look back, I can summarize what happened to me in the last period with one word: I grew. 

All my life I never minded living in the closet. Today, for the first time ever, I wish that my closet was a little bit bigger. If I could only have a tiny bit more room.

The closet is getting smaller everyday. 

Every time I allow myself to think about opening that door and getting out, I realize that horrors await me outside, with no way back in.

You may think that I am weak, and rightfully so. But I am also realistic.

Now it’s burning inside me... the secret…

Since I was in my early teens I knew I was gay. I didn’t quite understand it, but I knew it.

I was thoroughly religious then, like my family.

While I was growing up I loved going to church. Not any church, only the one at this nice monastery in a village nearby. A (catholic) priest lives there, and he has a way of making traditional services untraditional; and a knack of attracting young people.

In this unique place, every service (mass) is preceded with half an hour or more of songs. That was the best part. Two or three young people would sit in the middle of the small cozy church and pick up the guitars, one person would play the keyboard (that used to be me…), and they would play religious songs (fast beat – not traditional). Everyone attending would sing, reading the lyrics on a nicely-done power-point slideshow projected in front of them. There is no professional choir, no microphones, and no rehearsals. Everything was done spontaneously by young people who were there.

Going there was not only about the service. There was also a lot of hanging around in the grounds, camping in the summer, barbeque, more music, and fun… In short, everything a teenager like me would like to do.

I was as religious as one can get. But deep inside, there was this little secret…

Astonishingly, most of the time, I never felt the weight of it. I guess it’s because I never thought much about the future. I mean I did think about my future; like about what I wanted to do for a career. But somehow the whole matter of relationships and the fact that at some point I will be expected to be with a girl, settle down, and get married, has completely slipped out of my mind.

Probably my subconscious had locked this little detail in some closet deep down, so that I don’t have to deal with it. I’m thankful for that. Because if I hadn’t been oblivious to the fact that society will never accept me for whom I am, and atop of that if I had let my sexuality collide with my faith, I probably wouldn’t have been able to handle it all, being that young.

However this started to change two years ago when I graduated from high school and went to university. That’s when I started to reevaluate and rethink every aspect of my life. I started to question things that I previously regarded as axiomatic. Most importantly, I started to question my faith. I don’t want to get into the details of that lengthy process (maybe I’ll do that in some other post), but in the end I got to a point where I no longer believe in god.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about my sexuality.

I’m longing to be with someone that I really love. And I don’t know how to do that while still keeping the secret.

And I feel like it’s gonna explode inside me. I find myself googling stupid stuff like “I’m gay” just to let the words out.  

Coming out is not an option. It’s not because I’m a coward (well, I admit I am in some way). But I don’t want to freak my family out. Knowing them, if they get word that I'm gay, they will be going around from priest to priest asking how to get the demon out of me; and on another channel, they will be consulting as many psychiatrists as they can find about how to cure my “illness”. Not to mention being regarded as an outcast by everyone around me. In short, my life will become a living hell.

Lately I’ve been thinking that my only way out is to travel abroad and live at a less homophobic society; somewhere where I can stop caring about what everyone around me would think. I just can't wait for this to happen...

The first post... The start of an era...

Hey...

So this is my brand new blog, and I'm hoping for it to be the beginning of a new phase in my life in which I explore who I am, and more importantly, who I want to be.

Let me talk a little bit about how this blog came about, and while I do that I'm gonna give enough information to go by about who I am...

So the idea of this blog was born about 30 minutes ago while I was surfing the web, when I stumbled across some blogs of gay guys telling the story of there lives. It inspired me how they discussed their lives, feelings and relationships; something that I somehow do very little, if not at all.
I, by the way, contrary perhaps to the authors of the blogs I stumbled upon, come from the middle east. English is not my first language (so please forgive my errors...), but odd as it may seem, I like reading and writing in English more than my first language.

I'm a 20 years-old man, and I come from a very religious christian family. I also happen to be gay.
In my community, homosexuality is a taboo. Most people around me believe it's an illness, and saying that someone (or something) is gay is an ultimate insult. So naturally I don't get to talk about it.
But today, inspired by these blogs, I though I'd change that. I gave myself the name Justin (the first that came to mind), and created a new blog!

I don't know if the blog will get many readers if any readers at all... But I certainly hope to use it as a platform to get to know people from around the world ...