Why I am an atheist – Fred Santos

This is a story that I have written numerous times, however I never feel that it is comprehensive enough, or at the same time concise enough. That is how I am with my writing. Especially in factual cases, such as this; I aim to write with honesty and provide each detail of the events that led to my atheism showing the logical progression that it took, being both in-depth and at the same time avoiding the sense of clutter and babbling that plagues me. I often feel that my writing becomes incoherent and am never totally satisfied with the final result. But here I begin once more the story of my deconversion from the Christian faith.

Like the majority of middle class westerners, I was born into the dominant religion of Anglo-European tradition – Christianity. My earliest and fondest memories of family include attending church and reading Bible stories. Though my early childhood wasn’t a particularly religious one, there was always an element that was drawn to the warm sense of group identity that came with visiting my ‘uncle’s'* church. *(He wasn’t actually my uncle. The pastor of a Baptist Church and my mother’s former guardian during her time under the care of the Bernardo’s foundation as a child, I had come to know him and his wife colloquially as aunt and uncle, and their children were referred to as my cousins – due to this I still have a strong familial bond with them to this day.) This church remained an occasional place of attendance during my growing-up and was a significant influence on my developing faith.

Around my ninth year I developed a fascination with science, and was introduced to the idea of evolution at school. At this time in my life I dreamed of becoming a scientist, explored the world of naturalism with a child’s science kit that my mum bought me by my request (as well as an awesome Max Steel action figure set – a contemporary of Action Man that I thought was the coolest thing!), and read books about dinosaurs and astronomy. Science, along with history, was to become one of my passions in years to come. But for the time being it was to be short lived. Had it not been for a ‘supernatural experience’ I may have become an atheist or agnostic (or at least a skeptic of the blatantly unscientific stories from the Bible with which I had grown up) much earlier.

Up until this point, though having had a childhood slightly ‘dabbled’ in the church (though as I mentioned not particularly religious), I hadn’t been baptized into any particular faith. The Baptist church of my ‘uncle’ obviously was in no position to baptize an unprofessed child (though there are churches today baptizing children who for whatever ridiculous reason deem them mature enough to make a profession of faith in a metaphysical scapegoat – though usually with kinder sentiments than being saved from hellfire – though this may also happen – i.e. ‘Jesus has a great plan for your life’ or ‘God will fill the whole in your heart’) and so it was into the Catholic faith of my father that I and my siblings were simultaneously inducted. The events that led to this are, in hindsight, ridiculous and incredulous. It began one night when I was nine that during what I now believe was either a dream or sleep paralysis I was convinced that I had seen a ghost. How this became grounds for anything at all is simply beyond me, but after alerting my sleeping mum in a state of shock and panic, it was arranged for the local Catholic parishioner to make a house call. He did so and brought with him some holy water, which he used to bless the house.

I mean no disrespect for my mother, whom I love dearly, but I can’t get my head around this act of gullibility that led to my baptism. Perhaps the parishioner had convinced her that I had indeed seen a lost soul; but to think that in the 1990s this sort of thing could be endorsed by the church or believed by the laity is to my mind, simply absurd. However the number of other apparitions of saints and virgins endorsed by the church seems consistent with this account. (To this day my mother still believes in ghost stories, such as that of my sister’s sadly departed step-brother following us when we moved house, and the claims of numerous psychic mediums and clairvoyants parading on cable networks). Whatever the causal events, in 1999, soon after the birth of my brother, I was baptized into the Catholic church. This led to an instant religiosity on my part. From my point of view now, it was initially due to the family hype around the baptism and the gifts which I received from my godparents. However this was soon to develop into a more genuine faith.

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