I’m really sorry.

I was reading one of John’s posts at Mind On Fire and it occurred to me that back in my Christian days I really was an insufferable shit. So I would like to make a few heartfelt apologies:

To my first real girlfriend, to whom I was a total git partly because I was utterly terrified of sexual arousal (it’s hard to get a chubby when every sexy thought you have is inexorably linked to the idea of a great fiery-demon pitchfork being violently introduced to your most delicate sphincter) and partly because I sincerely believed that, being a man, I was her natural superior. Thanks for that, 1 Corinthians. As a result, I behaved abominably – refusing to touch her, ordering her about and correcting her grammar.

(Actually, I do still do that to people. I ‘m not sure grammar is a religious thing)

To one of my schoolfriends, who used to tolerate my inane proselytising for the duration of our 40-minute bus ride home from school. I had a shakier grasp of apologetics than Ray Comfort, and an irritating piety which shrugged off his every (accurate and well-phrased) rebuttal, and he put up with me for about four years.

To another guy at school (not a friend, regrettably), whose dedication to Islam incited a murderous hatred in me. I beat him mercilessly, because he was a filthy pagan and I was in the year above. I was not a nice kid at school, in fact I sometimes wish I could go back in time and give myself a damn good thrashing. God knows I deserved it (or would, if he was real…)

To the parents of one of my closest friends from my teenage years – he didn’t know it, but throughout his Bar-Mitzvah I was quietly whispering something like, “Please Jesus, don’t let me become a heathen like these Jews…” His mum and dad heard, however (they were standing next to me), and yet were civil and courteous, in fact very friendly to me for the whole of the time we knew one another.

Most of all, to anyone I ever evangelised to who actually believed the shite I was spouting, and got embroiled in Christianity as a result. I’m happy to say this number is probably zero (I made a dreadful evangelist – who wants to take advice from a ten-year old in a pudding-bowl haircut and a bad suit?), but in the unlikely event that you once attended church as a result of being shouted at by a very badly-dressed and unattractive child, I apologise for wasting your time.