Instead of "I Don't Believe In God"

For some reason, I got to know two American guys who are living in my town currently and spoke to one of them. As talking to him, I got to know that he is a student in the US, but now he got two years break and came to Japan as a missionary 6 months ago. Firstly, I was surprised at his Japanese. Actually, he speaks good Japanese. So I asked him if he's been learning it for a long time but he told me he learned it for 3 months before coming to Japan. Oh my... Since he likes traveling and so do I, we talked about it. He told me where he wants to go and I talked about the places I recently traveled. Since I really enjoyed talking to him and got interested what they do, I decided to visit their church when they have free English lessons. I knew that it was maybe just one of the good opportunities to let people know what they do and I may be persuaded to become a member of the church, however my curiousness for the young guys who don't look older than 20 won. I wanted to get a chance to talk to them more, because I wondered what those young gentle guys who said one of their most important thing for now is "church", have in their mind.

Honestly, if I had to say if I don't have a negative impression about following religions, I wouldn't deny that have it. I know that mostly not, but sometimes, terrorism or wars are caused by crazy believers. I also don't like people who tell me to follow their religion by saying something like "You don't know the truth" etc.

So, as I got a good impression from them, I visited their church as they told me and took a free English class. But actually, I didn't expect anything from the class, I went there to talk to them again, lol. In exchange for going to their class, I had to give them 30 minutes to let them introduce about their church in a few days. What I felt was they are very ambitious about their mission. They called me Tuesday night to let me remind about the class on Wednesday, and called me again to confirm that I was coming to listen to their talk.

Since I got interested in them when I met them for the first time, I searched about their religion and also about the missionaries on Internet before going to meet them. When I got to the church, they let me sit on a chair and showed me a short video which introduces about their religion. After watching it, they asked me which part of the video I like. Since I didn't expect that I would be asked such a thing, I couldn't give them an exact answer, but they told me their favorite parts. What was most interesting for me was when I told them I don't believe in God and also not really interested in following any religions. One of them asked me why I don't believe in God. So I asked him back what made him believe in God because I didn't find any reason for me to start believing in God. What he told me was not the exact answer for my question, but I was really impressed. I know that he had a tough time to explain, but he told me in Japanese. Almost 100% of the conversation there was in Japanese. How dedicated they are! He chose the way to become a missionary by himself and trying to share the happiness with people through believing God because he believes following God's words makes them happy and he knows that is truth that God exists.

Even though I'm not following any religions, I think there is something we can learn from them. For example, about relationships in family. There are somethings that I want to tell but I refrain from writing them because it's gonna be very long if I write about such things. So, in the end, the moment being told about their church was very interesting and fun. But I said "I don't believe in God" clearly and didn't let them set another time introduce me about their church more. Honestly, it's fun to know about them but I might be disgusted if they talk about God a lot because it's unrealistic for me. But don't take it wrongly, as I mentioned, I think there are a lot of things that we can learn from them. And those things may be revelations of God for them but just things that should be for me.

Anyway I wish we can be friends. But it seems that it's hard to become normal friends with missionaries under the mission. As I searched, they must have strict rules and tough schedules...damn!! Lol. However, exchanging thoughts with someone who thinks different from me is quite interesting as long as we don't force each opinions. I really enjoy talking to them (I mean it!) and hope so do they. I think it's great if they visit Japan again and feel like hanging out with people they've met like me someday in the future.

By the way, my fried told me what I said sounds cold. Yes, I don't know the proper way to say some things sometimes. And that's why I think my English is not good. I may be able to tell you what's on my mind in English, but maybe it's too direct sometimes because I don't know a nicer way to say, and maybe I don't even notice that I'm hurting someone. So, next time, if I get into a similar situation, I'll say "I have no intentions of following any religion at the present moment." instead of "I don't believe in God" :)