Mix Master Matt
Sep 7, 2018 · 3 min read

Let’s Talk – Religion (TW: Suicide Mention)

Religion can definitely be a nice thing to grow up and live with that can help give so many good morales and beliefs people can live with. Not that everyone SHOULD be in a religion, but if you grew up in a religious family or background, depending on your circumstances, believing in Bible scriptures and passages and living through the Word of God can help you be a better person.

However, I know that’s not always the case. You can be religious and still be a bad person, and atheist and be a good person. Let’s talk with my story in context.

I grew up as a Catholic. To be honest, I don’t believe I never really did want to go the Church in the times I had to as a kid. But it couldn’t be helped. Although at the same time, it was to some extent in the long run good I knew about these beliefs and ways to be kind to people. I reckon it was more I was in a religious school in classes that I paid more attention because of course, pre-high school would have fun ways to express religion and what’s good and bad.

Come high school, I received this Word of God book that was a ‘Scripture and Explanation per day, per page’ type. It was interesting, but I don’t think I finished entirely. This was during my first year of high school. Second year, I did indeed want to kill myself, so religion wasn’t playing a big role at the time. However, as my music mashup part of life went, I came across a YouTuber known as ArcanaAaron (who did plenty of video game mashups), and one of his mashups involved Skillet’s ‘Hero’ and ‘Monster’, two songs I immediately touched with and loved. I decided during the year to listen to the band’s past music, and ‘The Last Night’ was what helped me keep on going with life for about two years, and more motivated to go to church when I did. I guess as well I owe Skillet among other bands and the music industry itself for helping save my life, also why I’m pursuing a musical career. For those unfamiliar, Skillet is a religious rock band.

However, by the end of my fourth year of high school, one unfortunate conflict ended with someone choosing to use God to implement fear into me, I decided altogether to stop believing in the religion I grew up in. It caused a big stir, but in the long run it was finally accepted that I was now atheist. (A side note: Fear was what caused my anxiety because of how I grew up, so even now at times I always fear making another post, text, piece of art, mashup in fear of criticism, because I was very sensitised practically all my life. However, another story altogether).

I knew people in a religious background who basically harassed me during high school, some out of fun, some out of self-defence (because I had faults I was unaware of until the later years), and I alone, currently as an atheist, still strive to be kind to people (although one could say about promoting the sin of gluttony in relation to fat activism beliefs). I know alone I’m not someone who is kind to everyone in the world, because I have to deal with trolls and abusers of sorts in my own context, and even then I still wish to be nice to them. Even now, playing games where the gods are enemies or that the triple 6 is a thing in the story (i.e. Brave Frontier and BlazBlue respectfully), it doesn’t mean I’m spiteful against them, actually BlazBlue has been my favourite game series.

On a side note during high school, one of the things given how I grew up I came across online was a comic strip image of sorts which depicted a person who was being harsh in various ways, and at the end was praying to (God) with a caption which gave the message of ‘just because you’re religious doesn’t mean you’re automatically a good person or your bad deeds are justified’. And looking back on it now, I absolutely agree.

The one advice I can give in this context is that you alone when you’re old enough should determine if you want to hold onto faith or not. Religion should not be forced upon or something to brainwash people into. You should only choose to be part of one from your own will.

Mix Master Matt

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YouTuber, former music mixer/mashup person, now turning to actually creating music.