"Why are others Atheist?" I cannot tell you how heartening it is in today's USA, where bible-thumpers grab all the headlines and where Atheists at best go unheard of and at worst are scorned, to read the views of other rational, free-thinking human beings. Especially the teenagers to whom I want to say: "You are strong and wise beyond your years!"
I have always been Atheist (I am nearly 39), which is remarkable because my parents did make me go to church and sunday school and even to a christian summer camp for a week (two years in a row). But I knew from almost the very beginning that religion, any religion, not just the dutch reformed faith of my parents, is based on lies. Luckily I was born very, very smart with an exceptional ability to analyze and reason. Otherwise, I may have wasted precious years, or all, of my life.
One of my earliest memories of anything at all is of a particular sunday in church. It is vividly etched into my mind in great detail as if it happened yesterday. It was a glorious, sunny day in early June 1966 when I was in kindergarten. The blue sky was broken up here and there by huge billowing white clouds and a light breeze played with the tops of the trees. I wanted so badly to play outside, but I couldn't because my parents would not allow it on sundays. Apparently child's play, even in our own backyard, did not qualify for rest.
I was in this room at the church where the children from kindergarten and first and second grades attended Sunday school. It was an L-shaped room in the corner of the building that could be split into three square rooms with these cream-colored partitions that reminded me of the folds in an accordion. The walls were made of cinderblock painted cream as well, and the floor was covered with speckled linoleum tiles. In the room were three round tables with maple or birch tops, around which the children sat on these little Robin-eggshell blue-colored versions of modern office chairs (think 1960s Brunswick or Herman Miller). In the corner stood an old upright piano. On one wall hung the usual picture of jesus christ (you all know the one) as an anglo-saxon (rather than as a semitic). There were three windows and I kept looking out the one nearest me at the clouds in the blue sky, wondering why I was not allowed to go play outside on such a beautiful day. I don't think I have ever seen a sky so blue since.
From the start, I did not like going to church because the other children teased me. My parents made me wear hand-me-downs from my brother, who is six years older than me. Many of the children in the church came from wealthy families and even though they were aged 4 or 5, they had already learned from their parents how to feel superior and treat others shabbily. I spent most of the time at sunday school daydreaming and I only vaguely listened to the stories read to us, they weren't nearly as entertaining as Dr. Seuss' stories with their funny rhymes. Gradually I realized that the teacher expected me to accept these stories as true, but I neither embraced nor dismissed them as truth. I knew something smelled rotten in sunday school, but I didn't know what.
On that particular day, my oldest sister Nathelee played the piano as usual. I remember we, the kindergarteners and first- and second-graders, always sang songs together first and then the teachers pulled the dividers shut and read stories to us separately. That day was different. The teacher announced that Nathelee would be playing for us for the last time! She had graduated from school and was going away! The teacher then looked at me and asked if I wanted to tell everyone where! I was stunned. "She is going away?" I stammered. I had not been told anything at home.
The teacher said that Nathelee was going to fly in a plane across the ocean to Holland. I was shocked and confused! You see, I grew up north of Holland, Michigan (USA) and at that age I did not yet understand that there was a difference between Holland, MI and The Netherlands (commonly referred to as Holland) or that there was a difference between Lake Michigan and the ocean. Nathelee began to play and while the other children were singing, I was wondering why she would fly across the ocean to Holland when it was just an hour's drive away and obviously on the same side of the water as our hometown.
I noticed the teacher looking at me and started to sing so I would avoid further scrutiny. (Early on I had discovered that adults do not like to hear serious questions or answers from children, so I tried to avoid attracting attention to myself.) The song was "Jesus Loves Me." The lyrics start out "jesus loves me, this I know, 'cause the bible tells me so." But singing those lyrices started another chain of reasoning in my head: I do not know that Jesus loves me. I do not know this Jesus. Why should I believe the bible? Just because it's a book? I don't believe Dr. Seuss! And something that is true may not even have been told to me, like Nathelee going to Holland. And my parents told me that I may not play outside, but I know that there is no common sense reason to their rule.
Then I focused on the next part "blah blah blah (I said the memory was vivid, not complete), they are weak, but he is strong." More reasoning followed. Nonsense, I thought. Though the other children teased me because of my clothes, I knew I was smarter than them. This knowledge gave me, as it would a year later when I realized I am gay, a strength and self-esteem that has made me impervious to unfounded criticism to this day. Not only did I know that I am not weak, I also resented being told so.
And then came the truth. Thought control. Church and religion are nothing more than thought control. My parents expected me to accept that I could not play on sunday because they said so. They wanted me to behave a certain way, their way. And it was the same with the church. They wanted me to be a little christian soldier to do and say only what they wanted. (I remember being scolded once because I pushed another boy who taken away my pencil. I was scolded for un-christian behavior, but the teacher said nothing to him, so much for "thou shalt not steal!")
I never paid the slightest bit attention to religion since then. Sure, I went to Sunday school every week and occasionally to a sermon. But I knew that attendance was never taken, grades were never given out and, as long as one did not talk back to the teacher, parents were never called in for a conference. Later, when I was in high school and my younger brother, who is also gay, was in junior high, we would skip sunday school together. Our father would drop us off at church and we would walk in the front door, through the building and out the back door to go to the playground of the public elementary school across the street. We would just hang out on the swings and when it was time for our father to pick us up, we would walk in the back door of the church and through to the front. No one ever caught on, that's when I first realized that christians and other religious folks are not exactly aware of what really goes on around them. They believe only what they want to believe.
My parents were strict but I never rebelled. I obeyed their rules and I studied hard to get very good grades. I did everything necessary to NOT draw attention to myself and no one ever questioned whether or not I believed in god. They all assumed that because I was a "good" kid, I naturally was a christian.
I became an adult and never went inside a church again, except for a few in Europe to view some art or, in the case of a church in Munich, some gold-leafed remains of somebody's bones (not even Alfred Hitchcock could have come up with something so macabre!). I have been accosted by my share of the evangelical busybodies. When I was in my 20s, I would politely, but firmly decline any conversation. I do believe in treating people the way that I would want to be treated, just plain common sense, nothing to do with the bible. However, my patience has worn completely out with the rise of religious hate against not only gays and lesbians, but also single mothers, people of color, intellectuals, anyone who does not look or think like a christian. I think the straw that broke the camel's back happened when George Bush said that anyone who does not believe in god is not patriotic and does not deserve to be an american citizen. Since then, the kid gloves have come off.
Recently, my company hired a bible-thumping maniac out to convert everyone, even fellow christians who he believes are too weak in their faith. He has already been reprimanded for preaching and leaving literature around, though he has yet to proselytize me directly. I think the Tinky Winky sitting on my desk wearing a "That's MISTER faggot to you!" button and sporting an image of a man?s crotch in a french thong on his tummy TV screen scares him or makes him believe that I am a permanently lost soul. But I know what I will say if he (or anyone else) approaches me.
I will ask him what the difference is between the bible and Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. I will tell him that there is no difference. I will tell him that both were written by racist, sexist, homophobic bigots to provide justification for murdering people and taking their property. I will tell him that christians are no different from Nazis. And I will tell him that I find it highly ironic that he does not recognize the similarity between himself and a white supremacist who would call him "nigger", tie him to a truck and drag him to his death.
I don't expect at all that he will see that I am right. But I do expect to get a certain amount of glee from pushing his christian buttons. And OH, are those buttons ever so big! And I wonder, if christians truly believe that they will go to heaven and we will burn in hell, why do they get so upset with us Atheists? Why do they care? Why don't they just let us burn? Because subconsciously, they know we are right, but they do not have strength to admit it.
Pitiful are the christians because they have missed so much in life and know not their true selves.
Steven