I am only fifteen years old but I can say that I am already an atheist. I don’t really have a great story or a single life-changing experience but nevertheless I am an atheist. It was only a year or so ago that I was in CCD and well on my way to making Confirmation in the Roman Catholic church. Since then several things have happened to me to change my beliefs. None of them, however, are really “bad” things like a death of someone close to me. All of them were, in the long run, positive for me and my existence.
I was fourteen years old when I first heard the album “Aqualung” by JethroTull. I must have listened to it over 100 times and each time dissecting the lyrics as if they were poetry. By the time I had finally gotten sick of the album, I was questioning every aspect of my faith. The album talked about Man creating God as something abstract to worship. When, after all, all of the powers given to God were posessed by Man and once Man realized this they he would become God. Or that's at least how I interpreted it.
Anyhow, at CCD, I was beginning to think it was a waste of time regardless of whether I believed in God or not. I began to question aspects of my faith and stories in the bible. I was not shy to direct these questions towards my teacher. She soon got sick of it and told me if I didn’t believe in Roman Catholicism I should quit. And that I did.
I was not quitting from worship of God, I was quitting organized religion.For the next several months I prayed to God and asked him for forgiveness for all my sins. I still had full faith in him and had no intentions of denying his existence. This all changed about a year later, when I was lying in my bed.
I was ‘talking’ to God and I thought, “how do I know that I am actually talking to someone? Maybe I’m not talking to anyone and he is nothing more than am imaginary friend. Boy would I feel stupid if this was the case.” I quickly told myself that that was foolishness and I went on praying.
Around this time we began studying Evolution in Biology and in History the abuses of the church in the Middle Ages. In Biology there was one kid, whom I am very good friends with to this day, that I can say was responsible for my‘enlightening.
He always asked the teacher questions about evolution. He is what is called a Creationist, meaning that he believes the Story of Creation in the Bible. He had several scientific books to support his theories. He lent me one of these.
I still wanted to believe in God, for comforting reasons like death and thinking that he was helping me to be successful in everything I did. Whenever I did good in a Cross Country race or a Wrestling match, I would give him all the credit. And when I did bad I would take the blame myself. Getting off the subject.
I read this book wanting to believe. But in order to combat the theories of evolution it gave lacking explanations. It claimed all Carbon 14 and Uranium238 (I think that is the number) was off by millions of years. It claimed continental drifting never happened. It also made up other stupid (in my opinion) theories like the speed of light has slowed down and there was a “magic” cloud around the Earth before the so called Great Flood. These explanations were so out of whack I was disgusted. I felt that they made up anything to prove the Bible correct.
I was also sort of angered by my friends inability to think that the Bible might be wrong in some aspects. After spending about a month contemplating the existence of God, all the time not wanting to let go, I decided I was atheist. It was hard to say at first but later I became sort of proud of it. About a week before writing this essay, I opening said that there might not be a God. It was in History class when we had a substitute and not enough work to do. I asked another good friend, whose father is a preacher, if some one like Tommy from the rock-opera by The Who would go to heaven. Being deaf, dumb, and blind, he therefore had no knowledge of God like in one of the songs.
One thing lead to another and pretty soon about ten people were discussing the existence of God. From all different religions, we debated. Eventually I became so fed up with my friend being so naive, I said meekly that I did not believe in God. My friend then became offensive and almost acted as if he was expecting support from the fellow Christians. To my surprise as well as his, other people shared MY views.
Although it was only a week ago, I feel like a different person. I am not ashamed of my views like I once was. Only God knows (a pitiful joke) what the future will bring. I feel, at this moment in time that I will die an atheist but things could change. Only time will tell.
---Joe