Being someone who is deeply interested in history and who is trying very hard to find a job as a history teacher, my tale o’ atheism is essentially historical, with the subject being myself.  When I was little my mother tried very, very hard to convince my younger sister and myself that her liberal Methodist faith was an integral part of being a good and wholesome person.  We all went to church, we went to Sunday School, mom ran the Children’s Church program, we sang the songs, we missed NFL games on Sundays so we could help clean up the kitchen on communion days, and so on and so forth.  I can’t say any of it was ever super-intense, in your face, be-saved-or-be-damned like many churches seem to be, and all in all it wasn’t too bad.  I heard over and over again that it was a good thing to do good things, and I figured that wasn’t a bad idea at all.  It wasn’t until I got older and started to think seriously about making the religion plunge that I began to see that “doing good things” included doing a lot of things that didn’t seem particularly good at all.  I learned it was a good thing to go vote for the anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-gun, pro-death penalty, borderline racist candidates with R’s next to their name.  I learned it was a good thing to help buy the church a new jumbo-screen and a fancy new building (with a gift shop!) with a giant sign, even though there wasn’t a thing wrong with our building.

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