It is unusual, but not unheard of, for a person to protest at their own God. This rarely takes the form of a mass civil disobedience protest or a general riot. These are usually reserved for protesting at other people’s Gods. Also if you go to your church/synagogue/mosque/temple and tell everyone there that you disagree with the God that the establishment is there to worship, you may suffer one of the following (guess the religions):

  • Receive a slightly below-par cup of tea and only a dry biscuit.
  • Be told that they understand your problem, but you must learn to live with God’s arcane and obfuscated plan for you.
  • Be told to shut up, stop thinking rationally, and say 4000 Hail Marys/other religiously cleansing phrase
  • Be forced to repent at sword point
  • Be forced to repent, and regardless of your answer, be burned at the stake
  • Be recognised for your thirst for religious truth and be invited to get close to God by being ritually sacrificed
  • Be the subject of a vicious public defamation campaign
  • Be the target of a torch-and-pitchfork-wielding mob
  • Instantly be cast into the deepest, fieriest pit of hell
  • Lots more exciting possibilities await the unwitting (or perhaps like witting and masochistic) apostate.

As such any problem you have with your God is best taken up directly with him, although the being cast into hell option is still open for you there. This depends on the God, and also the specific interpretation of the God. A likely response will be that nothing happens. In this case, you will have to infer what silence on the behalf of the higher being means. Is he/she/it saying that your doubts have made you unworthy to be spoken to? Is it tacit agreement that the policy in question probably should be revised? Is it because you are falling towards hell at faster than the speed of sound, so God’s voice can’t reach you? Nobody knows. This is where you should ask a priest. Note that by doing this, you open up the possibility of any of the above consequences.

Sometimes you may get an answer. Be careful about interpreting the answer, though. Perhaps the butterfly just happened to fly past at that very moment. Perhaps the sun coming out may have just been one of those clouds going away. It happens, believe it or not, even when God isn’t trying to tell you something. Occasionally, God may actually say something directly. Before taking this at face value, look for radios and TVs in the area, and carefully consider the point that if you tell most people that you can hear a voice in your head, they back away slowly.

Alternatively, you can protest though inaction, and ignore the God and the teachings of the religion. This opens up whole new worlds of opportunity (and Sundays or Saturdays), as well as one or more of the following, depending on the specific religion:

  • Enjoyable Sex
  • Any sex at all if you are certain kinds of priest
  • Being allowed out with out a chaperone
  • Shellfish/pork/camels/rock badgers/rodents/beef/Yorkshire pudding with your beef
  • Alcohol
  • Gay Sex
  • Being able to keep certain animals as pets
  • Being allowed to commit suicide or euthanasia
  • Adultery
  • Starting a business selling graven images
  • Selling your body
  • Freedom to go about life without a moral broomhandle up your backside
  • Talk about someone or quote them without permission
  • Believing in something else, be it another religion or something like the theory of evolution, or for very tolerant religions, both!
  • And many, many more - inquire at you local place worship for more information.

However, leaving some religions or cults may leave you more open than usually about the partner-sharing/drug-taking or other strange practices taught by it. This may lead to you forming your own cult. However, this is probably how the old cult started – the difference is that now you’re the guy at the top who knows it’s a load of BS.

Also some religions and cults actively encourage the followers/mindless drones in their command to harry/oppress/hunt down/torture apostates. This is actually quite common – so when that shiny building down the road offers free Personality Tests, be wary, as running from a bunch of crazed, lobotomised Scientologists is not as much fun as it sounds.

Also if you decide to leave in protest, make sure that you really don’t want to go back, because although you have severely pissed off your God by leaving, at least you’re not talking. Going through the whole process of being asking for forgiveness, possible flagellation and general misery will really suck, as well as the fact that you will lose a lot of face, both in your religion and outside of it. So be sure.

New-Labour-esque Disclaimer: I am not defaming anyone’s religion/s (if you have more than one – that’s pretty good going). Respect, tolerance, all the rest, blah blah. No specific religion (except Scientology) has been deliberately targeted above all others. If it appears so, I'm sorry, but your going to have to deal with it. If you're a Scientologist, then tough.

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