Small Island Thinking

I live on a small island drenched in sunlight. It is beautiful.
 On small islands like mine nothing much happens. People visit, but if they are young they soon wish to leave because young people have too much energy to  remain too long in a place where nothing happens.
 It is a place of peace, quiet and a laid back population. We become excited over very little, and we are easily afraid of much for our experience is limited unless we have lived abroad.
 Minding other people's business is where we find  one of our deepest thrills, so we ask many personal questions, and rest assured, we are going to tell somebody what you tell us, and that person is going to tell somebody else, because we have nothing exciting to look forward to, and we get our thrill from watching people. It's like soap opera to our minds. Other people's affairs thrill us to the core.
 So the rumors abound that I don't believe in god on a small island like this. They ask me about it all the time, and I am absolutely certain that there are many more who have heard, but do not dare ask, though they want to and would if they got the chance and the courage.
 Why it matters to them whether I do or not is beyond me, and I have asked those who have asked, "why does it matter to you whether I believe in god or not?"
 They do not know why it matters. They simply find it too annoying, or too intriguing, or too frightful- and to a few- too painful or disappointing to comprehend or ignore.
 It needles them. All they know is that it matters to them.
 One person explained: "It matters because I want to know."
 My response was that I knew people who firmly believed in god but were vengeful, rude, hateful, disrespectful and inconsiderate of others, but it did not matter as long as they believed. I know of husbands who mistreat their wives. The poor wives are forced to ask the same simple questions of these men of god a dozen times before they receives a rude, incomprehensible response,  and this while in their car on their way to church.  But alas, it does not matter as long as he believes in god; and, of course, there are legitimate explanations as to why this is okay. It is because of the available grace of god.
And for those of you who notice that god has a little g and not a big one, do not let it give you high blood pressure.
 On a small islands like ours it is really amazing the little things that hurt us terribly, and feel so crucially important; in fact, so important that they sully our perception of really nice people and damage  the chance of meaningful relationships. Fundamentalist religious thinking is one of these.