I’ve been an atheist since before I knew the word “atheist” existed. It still seems silly to me that we need a word to describe people who aren’t convinced by a claim that has zero evidence behind it. After all, we don’t waste time talking about a-ghostism or a-sasquatchism as if these were worldviews that had content and needed followers gathering weekly to reinforce.
Its amazing how being “saved” can begin to change your attitude towards religion. My family did not regularly attend church, but as an young teen, my mother brokered a deal with my sister and I that if we attended church on Sundays, our chores would be waived for that period of time. Sounded like a great deal to an adolescent. After a couple of weeks of attendance, I was invited to an event featuring a religious speaker who everyone said I would really enjoy listening to. After receiving permission from my mother, the trip was set and we arrived there on a weeknight evening to listen to the individual.
I never got the man in the sky. I was brought up in an ultra Reform Jewish home, with holidays celebrated at home in English, and no formal religious training after I was about 8. I read the stories, but my connection to Judaism was cultural (food, some major holidays, know you’re Jewish in case there’s another Hitler, etc.), rather than religious. I learned about science and mythology when I was quite young, and couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I was interested in science and math; my earliest books were about science, and my favorite “toy” was a chemistry set. I thought myths were kind of interesting and amusing stories, but not something to be believed. Sometime in junior high school (grades 7-9 when I was there), I came across the aphorism “Man created God in his own image.” That made sense to me. I never gave it any more thought.
Ravel
Because there’s no other rational, thinking choice.
Barbara Eckstein
[Sunday Bible study class, 1973; I’m 12]
Me: So, how can we PROVE that God exists?
Teacher: We can’t, we just have to believe.
This could be a much longer response, going over my background and
struggles with religion, how good it felt to believe that there was
always someone invisible watching over me, that there was someone who
saw all injustice and ensured that it all came out right in the end,
but frankly, I don’t think there’s anything there that you haven’t
already read or experienced yourself.
I remember during my youth I was pretty “spiritual” and believed in an after life, a higher power, etc. I didn’t affiliate myself with any particular religion. I would take a cursory interest in the main ones, but always being an independent (some would say stubborn) thinker I reveled in figuring things out for myself. Why my starting position was that of a spiritual nature I’m not wholly sure of. I wasn’t raised in a religious home or had anyone close to me during my impressionable youth that was overly religious. Maybe it was simply the general consensus in the environment I grew up in – anyway.
I grew up in Northwestern Minnesota in a nominally Christian household; Mom and Dad took us to church most Sundays, and it was usually the Methodist church, although once in a while we would go to a Catholic mass, a Baptist “come to Jesus” meeting, or a Lutheran church — just for variety, I guess. They didn’t say much about religion and it didn’t seem all that important; it was just what you did. I remember in about sixth grade that one of the neighborhood kids said that he could get away with anything he wanted to do, as long as he asked a priest for forgiveness later. He was from a Catholic family, and Mom and Dad told me that he was mistaken about that. I also went to a movie about being saved where I told the nice young man in a suit that I accepted Jesus into my heart; but I didn’t feel any different in the next few days, so I soon forgot about it.
For most of my life – late teens until mid-30’s – I was an Evangelical Christian, and this wasn’t just a social identification for me. I really believed, I really loved Jesus. My freshman year of college I went to a little Bible college in Minnesota, and seriously considered becoming a pastor or missionary (fortunately in the end I decided to pursue engineering). Over the years I attended various churches within the evangelical/Pentecostal part of the Christian spectrum – Assemblies of God, Vineyard Christian Fellowships, occasionally Baptist or independent churches – but always places that took the Bible seriously and believed that Jesus should be the #1 priority in a believer’s life. At various times I led youth groups, attended men’s fellowship groups, went to prayer meetings, and volunteered for various special events. I tithed. I hosted missionaries in my home when they visited our church on fundraising trips. And, I’m now ashamed to say, for a couple years in the late 90’s I helped run a pray-the-gay-away program that was sponsored by my church. My churches were for most of that time the center of my social and personal life.
