I was raised Roman catholic by my mother, my father was not religious. I was christened and confirmed into the church, I was even an altar boy. My mother would drag me to church for an hour every Sunday, I would spend half an hour in Sunday school and another half an hour pretending to be somewhere else whilst I listened to a priest drone on at length about subjects I, as a child had no interest in.
My mother always said that if I prayed hard enough God would grant my wishes, so naturally as I child I did just that, I prayed, I knelt in church thinking to myself and hoping that God would hear me. I realised that there was no difference between praying and thinking; that was all I was doing, closing my eyes and thinking really hard, hoping that God would magic me up the complete set of action figures for Thundercats or Visionaries plus a number of other cartoons I was interested in. Suffice to say, I never came home from church and found them awaiting me on the kitchen table.

Then came a fateful day, I was around 6 or 7 when I was bothering mum about something and she told me to go outside, enjoy the nice summer day, pick a dandelion and pull off the petals one at a time whilst making a wish for whatever I was bothering her for. Like a child I did just that, I went outside, found myself a plant and proceeded to pick the petals one at a time whilst wishing for action figures. Only whilst I was doing this I realised how bloody stupid I must look, it hit me full in the face that what I was doing was never going to get me the things I wanted, that making a wish is simply thinking to yourself exactly the same as praying to God is, that if God didn’t bring me my Lion-O figurine then what chance did I have of getting one from a flower? I realised that day that thinking about something doesn’t make it happen, that really, really wanting something doesn’t make it come true.

I slowly grew up and discovered a great interest in science, a simple experiment in physics class with a stream of water and a charged acetate rod showed me more wonder and amazement at the world than 12 years of church ever did. I found more answers in biology, chemistry and physics than all the religion I had ever been exposed to. I realised that every assertion needs evidence and that you don’t have evidence for what you believe then I don’t have to take you seriously, I could quite happily turn around and tell you you’re full of shit.

Today I no longer believe in ghosts, ghouls, goblins or gods. I follow evidence where ever it may lead and don’t shy away from hard conclusions because it offends my sensibilities, I no longer require belief in anything to simply be who and what I am, but I do require evidence and reason for the things I think. Exposure to religion from the earliest age possible merely taught me what bullshit smelled like; science taught me to make a bullshit detector which after 30 years is now incredibly finely tuned.

David Wragg
England