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As background, I should first describe myself to some degree. I'm 15 years old but I'm said to be ridiculously intelligent for my age. This is probably a reason for my early diversion from the Catholic church I was baptised to serve. I was raised in the quasi-dogma Contemporary Catholicism (Basically Catholicism without the harsh condemnation of heretics and emphasis on Satan and how he's spending every moment of his eternal life trying to tempt us), which probably sped up my conversion to atheism quite a bit. I had attended a Catholic school up until Kindergarten, when I moved to Chapel Hill, NC and attended a public school. I had believed in God in a fairly casual way, not nearly as casual as the current church that I attend (due to my parents' will) is. That is, to say, I thought God as more of an especially important friend, not as a supreme being and master of all that is, was, or ever will be(though technically he was). I would have to say the seeds of heresy were planted in about 4th or 5th grade. I had begun attending Catholic school again, beginning in 4th grade, and the attitude was much the same, except we had to attend mass in two mornings of every week and have religion class. Just to sidetrack for a bit, 4th grade religion class was the "Jesus loves you, let's be happy" feel-good material that basically focused on a personal relationship with divinity. 5th grade, much in contrast, focused on all of the ceremonies, rituals, sacraments, prayers, and such that 'ensured' we wouldn't be roasting over a pit of fire for all eternity. In 6th grade, probably the most important stage of my atheistic development, we learned about the Old Testament (i.e. the opposite of what we learned in 4th grade). Anyways, in 4th grade all of the material seemed shallow and meaningless; the credo of religion class was basically 'Join in the fun, if you don't, then...well... try to!'. This probably helped to separate me from taking my religion too seriously. 5th grade helped to slowly reveal the silliness of Catholic rituals and their general lack of any religious value to me. Probably the strangest thing to me at the time was how they seemed more like bartering with St. Peter to pass through the pearly gates, offering him 14 Hail Mary's and 10 confessions while he steadfastly requests 17 Apostle's Creed's. This was the seed that was slowly but amply fed for the next few years. 6th grade, with the gory descriptions of the fates of heretics in the Old Testament, helped my inner self begin to chuckle at how contradictory and ludicrous my slowly waning faith was. In the stories, all of the values that a modern Bible-thumper holds dear (self-pride, fear of God, damnation of heresy, et cetera) were expressed by the characters in some way. Onan spilt his seed on the dusty ground and was smote by God. Moses was an ultimately blind leader that still led his devoted followers confidently. Israel's enemies were ultimately crushed and the Hebrews victorious. It seemed diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus. I was a very rational person, and I knew that such a contradiction was too ridiculous to allow. I let myself slip from the supposed safety of the church, stumbling off of the top of a white tower above a black abyss. I fell for the next year, and when I hit the ground, I noticed that it was just like the tower, except without the harsh winds that only seemed to cause pain as they asked the burning questions that Contemporary Catholicism avoided : "Am I really going to go to hell or not?". I felt free, and for the rest of my past life, and probably for the rest of my entire life, I felt proud. It's important to point out that I'm a fairly introverted person that largely hold other people's opinions in equal or more worth to my own. Therefore, when I was proud of something, I was VERY proud. I haven't mustered the strength to reveal to my parents my piety in the lack of piousness. I'm not even sure if they know my true nature, but I'm fairly confident that they know I at least have doubts. When I'm not in front of my parents, I am steadfastly and proudly atheistic. I'm only evangelistic to the degree that I encourage those who have doubts of their religion to doubt even more, but I don't curse the names of believers until they submit to my lack of religion. In the best of all possible worlds, everyone would forget their silly beliefs and stop slaughtering each other in the name of imaginary beings. Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world, and therefore I can only hope that as many people that can will decide that the worship of beings whose existence is continually being debated is generally a waste of effort and not worth worrying about. I hope critical minds will not only choose to not believe in any deity, but also in anything else that is contradictory, hollow, or otherwise backed by flaky rhetoric. Not only will it help us concentrate on things more important than bickering over our divine beliefs, but it will forge minds that won't let fallacy and inanity seep through the barrier of truth. |