Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Writer Anne Rice: “Today I Quit Being A Christian”


Bestselling author, Anne Rice, officially decided she had had enough. "For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else." "And frankly," she continues, "after doing it, I felt sane for the first time in a very long while."

Rice says although there were "last straws," there was no one event that caused her to reject organized religion. "This is something that had been going on really almost from the beginning. There were signs that the public face of Catholicism and the public face of Christianity were things that I found very, very difficult to accept."

Rice says she tried her best to ignore the facets of Christianity she didn't support and concentrate on the ones she did. As time wore on, though, and as Rice continued to live and study as a Christian, "more and more social issues began to impinge on me."

Rice says the priest child molestation scandals and cover-up, the Pope going to Africa denouncing the use of condoms, but the final straw was when she realized the lengths that the church would go to prevent same-sex marriage. "I didn't anticipate at the beginning that the U.S. bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage," she says. "That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society."

"I felt an intense pressure. I am a person who grew up with the saying that all that is needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing, and I believe that statement."

6 comments:

  1. Yeah, all well and good. That she didn't know the churches position on condoms, or was aware of clergy pedophile cover up,or their fevered opposition to gay marriage waaay before she "became" Xtian speaks to her rather stunted intellect, and selective research.

    That she still retains belief in Jebus as God...and buys into all the Biblical horseshit, but is now simply rejecting the religious organization and it's doctrine, speaks to her being nothing more than a deluded cretin. A very rich, vampire obsessed cretin, but a cretin nevertheless.

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  2. Hello Hump,
    What you say is correct but I still see it as a public slap in the face to the fundies.

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  3. I did read the first Conversation book and found it entertaining. I had a friend who was a fan and gave me the subsequent books to read as they came out. A descent in to a formulaic ritualistic soap opera...She sure cleaned up with them, though.
    The books were condemned by religious groups all over the world, predictably. I find it quite hard to believe that she professed to be a fervent catholic for years.
    I applaud the public statement about rejecting christianity, but it's a little after the fact. It would have made a much bigger impact if she had done it back in the 90's.
    I agree, engineer, though one might argue with the degree of her heresy, you have to be thankful for the sentiment and the effect it does have.

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  4. Yes, I know I'm being pesky, but here's m quote of the day...
    " The essence of Christianity is told tyo us in the Garden of Eden story. The Subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could have been in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your ficking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions. "Get smart and I'll fuck you over", sayeth the Lord.
    Is this not an absolutely anti-intellectual religion?"
    Frank Zappa

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  5. Microdot my friend, you will never be pesky and let me pass on that you are free to post any comment you desire.....and Frank Zappa is perfect.

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