Losing My Religion: How I came to be an Atheist

From an early age I greatly disliked church.  I remember being eight years old, throwing up in the night, and being glad because it meant I wouldn't have to go to church.  Not only was church boring, I really couldn't see the reason for going.  The middle of the week fellowship dinners, choir practice, hand bells, and spending time with my friends interested me.  But being forced to listen to sermons I couldn't understand, and sitting through archaic, fantastical bible stories, and being told their perceived meaning and application to modern life really didn't appeal to me.

I was forced to go until I was through the Sunday School class my Dad taught in order not to shame the family.  After that, I got out of going by joining my neighborhood friends at their church, the church of the latter day saints.  Still having to sit through sermons, I was more active in their classes and enjoyed being with my best friend.  I attempted to read the Book of Mormon (at age 11), and I learned about some of their traditions.  I even participated in a stage production, and had my Dad come with me to their 'Daddy Daughter Dance.'  But then a double whammy occurred.  I witnessed a "testimony" from an 8 year old girl after her baptism, in front of the entire ward (congregation).  She was scared and crying and it appeared that she didn't really understand what or why she was doing this.  And I was harassed by my Sunday School teachers, grown women, for wanting to have a profession when I grew up, specifically I wanted to be either a Pediatrician or Veterinarian.  They badgered me, asking "so you want to see sick children and animals?"  I didn't know how to respond to this at my age, but I probably defended myself by saying I wanted to help sick children and animals.  That was enough  for me, I never went back.

Unfortunately my fallout with the LDS coincided with my family's church confirmation classes.  Again I was forced to go to classes, at age 11, to confirm my faith.  My mother remembers the ceremony, in front of the whole congregation, where she just kept hoping that when they asked me "Do you confirm your faith in Christianity?"  I wouldn't say "No."  Had I known this was an option I probably would have.  Instead I forced to do something I didn't agree.  From that day on I felt it was irresponsible to force religion on a child and have them make up their minds before they are really old enough to comprehend what they are doing.

Then I learned I could get out of church if I volunteered in the nursery.  What a win-win.  I got to play with little kids, take care of babies, and get out of church.  Later, in my young adulthood, I would work in that same nursery and still get out of having to go to the family forced holiday services.  It did kill my soul a bit to be somewhat participating in the very thing I despised-forcing religion on children.  But it also offered me the opportunity to teach better values, and I even got the curriculum changed when I realized it was bigoted.

It was around this time that I was studying Paganism.  After learning the history of the Christian church and how it not only stole several Pagan stories, but adopted its culture to assimilate its followers or else killed them, I could no longer believe in any of Christianity's myths and greatly questioned the motives behind the religion.  Then I began studying as many religions as I could only to come up with the same realization over and over.  All religions have the same myths, share the same fundamental beliefs, and are exploited for greed, money and power.

I was also studying Philosophy at this time, a lot of which has to do with questions like How can we know if there is a god?  Are humans born with a moral compass?  Is man naturally good?  What is truth?  What is the meaning of life?  What I did find out is that there is no super being controlling the universe.  If "god" does exist it is more like the Force in Star Wars, it is the collective energy of all living things.  I do have a moral compass, whether or not I was born with it.  Good and evil are different sides of the same coin.  There is a huge gray area in all circumstances.  And there is no meaning to life, we do not have some purpose.  You live your own life and you find your own reasons for doing so.

I was content for a long time thinking I was Agnostic.  It wasn't for several more years that I would admit that I was in fact an Atheist.  I do not believe in a super being.  I do not give any credit to any religious texts, other than being a very loose history of the laws and beliefs of that time and lots of fables.  Those texts are outdated and haven't applied to modern life for millennia.  It would be as if the people 2,000 years from now were trying to live by our laws.  Our laws and morals are constantly changing because we are constantly changing and the population is only getting larger.  The ability to travel and communicate globally has changed not only our perception of the world, but our need to keep evolving.  The more we experience and become knowledgeable, the greater our understanding.  People who hide behind those books are unwilling to evolve.  They use those ancient texts to discriminate and exploit.  This behavior is crazy, willfully ignorant, malicious and unacceptable.