Now I don't really have an interesting story, I found this site from a friend, and I thanked her for it, and decided I wanted to share my "story". When I was younger, I used to think I was somewhat alone, because I certainly didn't fit in with those all-black wearing "gothic satanists". This site made me realize I'm not as alone as I thought, and I wanted to thank every single person who submitted their stories.

My "story" (I guess) starts out when I was a young child. I don't have vivid memories of church, as church was as boring as humanly possible. I used to live in Puerto Rico with my parents and my gigantic family, as you all know, hispanics breed alot and are excessively religious. I can say this being a hispanic and having witnessed this firsthand. I'm pretty sure the first time I went to church, I was extremely bored and adamant in not listening. This went on for a few years, until I got older, and started to understand things a little bit clearer. At first, I was typical of a person of the catholic "persuasion" in that I did not question the things that were taught to me, because it's such a complex and clever design. How can you question something that nobody in their "right mind" questioned for a few thousand years? I thought that God was this all-knowing all-seeing creature that lived above the sky and watched over everyone and made the world go round. However, this typical behavior did not continue for very long. I think it was about age 10 when I realized how much BS this all was. You see, when I was 7 or 8 years old, back in Puerto Rico, I got stung by a scorpion and almost died. Shortly afterward the incident, I moved to the United States to get away from the "bad side" of my family, among other things.

I moved to a crappy little neighborhood called Cicero, which was fast going to hell, in an almost literal sense, and ironically, Cicero happens to be a heavily hispanic-populated neighborhood, with a whopping 90% or so being the hispanic population now, at the eve of 2004. What does that have to do with anything, you ask? Well, for anyone unfortunate enough to move into a neighborhood populated by lower/middle class people, knows that these neighborhoods come with slightly higher crime rates and gang problems. I think I was about 9 when I realized that there is no God, or atleast where I realized I THINK there's no God, just to be "fair". I heard lots of stories about bad things happening to people, but never witnessed those type of things until about then. That was when I first witnessed a drive-by shooting. This isn't a core reason for my disbelief, but still a reason. As I grew up in this neighborhood, I witnessed/found out about more horrifying things, like a cild molester living next door and not knowing about it until the day after the cops showed up and raided his home. The person who lived next door always waved to me, and generally seemed nice, even though we never really shared real conversations, just me or him passing by and waving...sometimes I'd see him mowing the lawn, or shoveling snow in the winter time, or I'd see him in church.

The cops showed up at his house, about 2 squad cars, and busted down his door. I saw them removing him from his house in handcuffs and I was very curious as to why this was happening, as I really didn't know the man (fortunately). The next day, the newspaper referred to him as "child molester". I thought to myself, how could "God" let these things happen to people? I asked this question to a fellow catholic much older than I, and I received an answer surprisingly fast - it's not God's fault, it's man's fault. But, I always thought parents were supposed to look out for their children, and take responsibility for them. Isn't God our ultimate parent? If so, why isn't he taking responsibility? Must be too old! Atleast, too old for this era. This is where the idea that maybe God didn't exist started to take shape in my head. I began questioning things about God and Religion just as any other wise person would. All of these different questions yielded alot of the same answers: "I don't know" "because God said so", and such. So maybe, I thought, just MAYBE the church-goers and such here were just idiots, not anywhere else! I never got too many straight answers about my questions, and when I actually did straight answers, I was sort of scolded for asking such questions. I think I was too smart for these unfortunate people.

So I was about 10, or maybe even 11 when I finally "decided" that the Christian God did not exist. All of the things I saw, all the things I thought about, it made me think that God did not exist. I finally rebelled against religion at age 12. I saw so many people contradicting religion, and teachings of the church, and that alone seemed to sicken me - these people professed their undying faith to "Jesus" and turn right around and forsake him. If you're going to be a simple-minded Christian, atleast have the decency to follow your teachings. I have yet to meet such a christian! For many years after this, I didn't profess anything, I had no direction. For the most part, to be honest, it's not that I didn't believe in God, I was somewhat "agnostic" you could say, as I did not care too much. I thought maybe something existed, but I wouldn't bother putting my spin on it as that would take too much effort. For a few years, I was without direction at all in terms of religion. Then, with a childhood friend, I ended up picking up a paperback book called "The Satanic Bible" by Anton Szandor LaVey. I was still too young to fully comprehend everything presented to me in this book, but the basics of it stuck in my head. How could there possibly be any sin if you don't regret the things you do? The only sin IS regret!

I learned things like "if it doesn't hurt anyone, then it's not wrong" and such things sick true with me each day. I may be a satanist now, but I'm not a totally selfish person. For those FEW (I hope) who aren't familiar with satanism, it's not worshipping some demon created by the church - it's worshipping the idea the demon represents, created by the christian church. In some boring-ass passage in the boring-ass bible Jesus was tempted by the devil. The devil, in my interpretation, represents everything man has/wants - power, lust, greed, fame, pride, all the good things in life! I've got to admit, I've been very proud and very lustful most of my life especially towards women (yes, I'm "bisexual" if anyone could have possibly been wondering), and ever since I began to see things this way, I felt no guilt about it, as I should not. Especially now, being 20 years old, these feelings and for the most part, acting upon them, is totally within the law. To be honest, even if it weren't within the bounds of the law, I would't be stopped. I finally realized satanism and myself about age 17, when I met my boyfriend, who I am still with, as he's a satanist too. However, I'm not going to go in depth about this. So, I guess that wraps up my rise from religion and mediocrity in a nutshell. Perhaps if I come up with something more articulate, I'll tell you about it.

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