I was raised Catholic, not too strictly. My big sister was the lucky one that went to Catholic school for early elementary. I guess I just kind of floated along, not too strong on religion, but not exactly divorced from it. In 1970, my sophomore year in high school, I saw my first comet (Comet Bennett, a beauty) and got hooked on astronomy. I kind of slid gradually into the realization that the picture religion painted was not exactly correlated with the facts and the appearance of the actual universe, unless you did some serious weaseling and rationalizations. That was my wake-up call. Empiricism trumped dogma. I have been an atheist and an amateur astronomer for 41 years now. The most difficult part for most of my Christian friends and relatives to grasp is the willingness to say “I don’t know- there isn’t enough evidence.” All of my most religious or woo-oriented acquaintances cannot fathom not having total knowledge of the universe. They crave it so much, they invent it out of nowhere. That always struck me as being so tragically sad, not being secure enough in our own mind that you grasp frantically at anything, no matter how counterfactual or downright harmful.

Jim Atkins
United States

I was raised in a creationist, fundamentalist home. If you’ve ever seen those videos where Ken Ham tells the crowd of kids to ask scientists, “Were you there?”, then you’ve seen a little bit of my childhood. I looked forward to getting our quarterly copy of “Answers in Genesis” (a magazine that Ham’s organization puts out). Later my dad subscribed to their “Technical Journal” of creationism because I was so interested in nature and science. When I was very young I was at one of those presentations that Ken Ham gives, and I am embarrassed to admit that at one point I even did ask a geologist “Were you there” as he talked about rock formations in Mammoth Cave.

I went to church at least twice a week, was in a christian school until college, listened to christian music exclusively, was in a very christian Boy Scouts of America troop, and I didn’t know a single person who wasn’t from one of those circles. All of my knowledge of ‘Atheists’ and ‘Darwinists’ came from creationist writings. I never had a ‘rebellious’ phase and was eager to please the authority figures in my life. So I really didn’t have any motivation for questioning the dogma I’d been given. I was growing up to be a zealous defender of “scientific creationism”.

And that was what brought it all crashing down for me, starting around my 16th birthday. I wanted to engage the other side and fight the good fight for Jesus, so I decided to figure out what the “evolutionists” could possibly have to say for themselves in the face of our awesome arguments and “facts”. The first thing I looked into was the claim that fossils formed over millions of years. Every real creationist has seen pictures of ‘petrified’ hats, boots, clocks, etc. This seemed like pretty good evidence that the scientists were wrong. But with a little bit of reading I found out that the hardened artifacts that the creationists were showing off were not, in fact, fossils. They were simply encrusted with calcium deposits. I also learned that replacement fossilization (where the organic molecules are replaced by inorganic minerals) occurs slowly because of diffusion rates, which are very easy to determine experimentally.

I was concerned that my heroes had been misinformed on that issue, but my faith was far from shaken. I simply thought that we would need to look deeper and we would find a way for fossilization to occur rapidly (in those days I planned on becoming a ‘creation scientist’). And I was excited about writing an explanatory article for Answers in Genesis because I really thought at the time that they would want to correct their error.

But while I was doing that I also started looking into ‘carbon dating’, which was another topic that was often ridiculed in creationist literature. I was told that it all depended on the assumption that everything had always been basically the same on the earth, but since god had magically created the earth in some unknown state and then flooded the whole thing that those assumptions were flawed. I was curious as to just what those ‘assumptions’ were and did some reading. I very quickly learned that carbon dating is only one of a large number of radiometric dating techniques, all of which agree on dates. And the ‘assumptions’ of other dating techniques (especially potassium-argon dating) were really impossible to argue with and produced data that was definitely incompatible with a young earth.

I then looked into a whole range of topics covering geology, cosmology, and biology; and literally everywhere I looked I saw dishonesty coming from the creationist side. So I briefly looked into ‘Old Earth’ creationism and ‘Theistic Evolution’ but ironically I had already been inoculated against those ideas by my Young Earth Creationist upbringing. The theology made far less sense and was even less consistent if you accepted an old earth. And by that point I was so disillusioned that I was critically thinking about Christianity itself and realizing just how ridiculous the beliefs were. I still considered myself a believer but was having serious doubts.

When I finally started thinking of myself as an atheist it wasn’t because of evolution or theology (this was only a few years after starting down the path of reason, but they were long and painful years). My parents got sucked into alternative medicine and I tried extremely hard to show them that they were being fooled by opportunistic charlatans. But I made no progress and was baffled at how people could believe something that had no positive evidence and was so obviously silly. And that’s when I became an atheist. I saw the clear parallel between religious belief and fake medicine, and I gave up my belief in god entirely. I’ve been religion-free for six years and my life has only gotten better. I am openly an atheist with everyone (except my parents, who might actually be killed by that news) and I really do think the future is bright for rationality and secularism.

Adam
United States

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

I grew up Catholic; my mother was a moderately religious Catholic and my father was a totally disengaged Lutheran, so Mom was more-or-less in charge of my religious upbringing. I attended Catholic elementary and high schools, mostly because the public schools in my city were so horrible. So I did get a fairly thorough religious education, but it was a distinctly liberal one; in the ’60s and ’70s California Catholics, and their schools, were definitely liberal. They taught me about social justice, and the “sanctity of life”. The former stuck with me. I first started questioning the latter in high school, because I couldn’t see a small bundle of cells as a human being, and I watched an aunt die bravely but horribly painfully of cancer. I began to see abortion and euthanasia as not universal evils.

In college I attended the local student Catholic center for awhile, then got busy and slacked off. I met my future husband, who came from a Nazarene background (though he wasn’t particularly religious) and he despised all things Catholic; he’d been taught from childhood that Catholics were all ritual and not True Christians. So we were non-religious together though the rest of college.

During all this time, from childhood, I was suffering from mild, undiagnosed depression. After we graduated and married, we started attending a non-denominational Christian church. Oh, how that church experience fed my depression! Every Sunday I was told what a sinner I was, how unlovable I was, how it was only by God’s grace that I could be saved. By this time the depression was progressing, and I was telling myself that I was no good; hearing it from the pulpit just confirmed it. By the time Husband insisted we stop going to church because every sermon made me cry, I was deeply depressed. There were other contributing factors to deepening my depression, too, especially work, where goals were always set that no one could achieve. I was baffled as to why they didn’t fire me. In truth, I was one of the highest-performing engineers in the department. But I couldn’t believe that then.

Finally, when I became unable to work, I was diagnosed with and treated for depression. It took awhile, but I began to see myself and the world in a reasonable way. My successes became things to celebrate, not deprecate, and my failures not catastrophic, but something to be learned from. I started re-thinking everything, including my religious beliefs. Gradually I began to wonder why I believed in a 2000-year-old collection of stories from ancient sheepherders, and why I believed in such a malevolent, narcissistic, sexist God. But I still had a soft spot in my heart for the death and resurrection of Jesus.

What really broke it for me was when I read a book (can’t remember the title) on archaeology that provided a reasonable alternative to Jesus’ death and resurrection, suggesting that his friends conned the Romans into letting him off the cross before he was dead and leaving medicines for him in the tomb. Then it was they, and no angel, who came and rescued him a few days later.

That was the end of my religious belief. It helped, too, that my husband had migrated to atheism a few years before.

Now I’m a reasonably happy atheist, glad that I no longer have to worry about an afterlife, and determined to make the most of the life I’ve got. That determination led me to abandon my original career, take care of my parents during their last years, and then go back to grad school (MS) to take up a new career… which, at age 52, is a very scary proposition. But once I figured out I’d regret NOT doing it on my deathbed, it was something I had to do. I want to leave with no regrets.

Oh, and I’m more of an advocate for social justice than ever.

Karen Locke
United States

PZ- you asked us why we’re atheists. Well, I’ve never been anything but an atheist, so that one’s no great mystery and no great story, but I thought I’d let you know why I’m the kind of atheist I am today; an active, informed, out-spoken one rather than an apathetic “live and let live” one.

I have the great fortune to be one of the “never indoctrinated” among the atheists of today. I was born an atheist, and my parents simply never mentioned religion to me. I grew up in Colorado Springs, home of Focus on the Family, and I barely knew that religion existed. I recall once my mom explaining that “bless you” was a polite thing to say after people sneezed, and that saying “Oh my god,” could be offensive to some people, but never did she explain why.

With no preconceived notions about religion at all, I got to meander wherever my growth and development took me. I quite naturally prayed once when my hamster was lost- not to any god in particular, but just to the general universe. When I was five I was convinced that I could fly (probably from a dream) and when I was seven I thought if I found the right muscle to flex and focused on it very hard I might develop magical powers. My mind and imagination were given room to battle as I was allowed to explore within the confines of my own intellect, and I very naturally (and through much observation, trial, and error) developed a sharp sense of logic and a tendency to think critically about everything that was said to me. Regardless of where my mind went, I was never led there or pushed there; rather I got to evolve there as my brain and body grew. 

A defining moment for my atheism happened when I was 18. I don’t think I’d even heard the term atheist by that point, but I unabashedly was one, and was happy to discuss it, but I wasn’t bothered by the existence of religion and hadn’t given any particular thought to it. My best friend was a Mormon at the time (she later became an atheist), and that meant nothing to me, and neither did any other religion. It was about this time that my dad, who had drifted more toward new-agey, yuppee crystals, affirmations, and Deepak Chopra kind of hoo-doo, enrolled me and my brother in a program called Rising Stars. It was NOT a religious program, if that’s what you’re thinking, but it was every bit as illogical, irrational, and cult-like in its design, and I will never until the day I die stop seething about the fact that this program ever existed. I’d always been happy to argue and debate when people were willing, but Rising Stars is what convinced me that it’s important to openly challenge bad thought processes where you find them.

Rising Stars had several different programs you could enroll yourself in. We were enrolled in the teen program, which is designed to “de-program” teens and free them from their “social contracts” so that they can be free and live to their full potential, etc etc. Insert buzz words here. It was supposed to help teens open their minds and know themselves better, I guess. My dad had already taken an adult class and was very impressed, so, despite my skepticism (I was already happy, knew myself well, had no problem being myself around others, didn’t feel peer pressure, etc), he pushed us to do it, and I decided that it was just for a few weeks and I could do it since it made him happy. 

Our first day we all sat in chairs before a small stage and were compelled to walk up on the stage to tell the group why we wanted to be there. Not why we WERE there, but why we WANTED to be there, a subtle distinction that was obviously important to the directory, Dorothy. There were a couple stock answers, a few “I just want to know myself better” answers which Dorothy praised, and then a girl came up and gave the answer Dorothy was clearly waiting for.

“Why do want to be here?”

“I don’t. I’m here because my parents made me.”

Dorothy leapt upon this answer; she’d clearly heard it before. Are your parents here? No. Then they can’t be stopping you from walking out that door, can they? No. Well then, the only thing keeping you here is you, so you must be here because you WANT to be here! The girl didn’t know what to say…I’m sure it didn’t ring true- she could tell that she really didn’t want to be there- but this woman had talked her into a box! If she didn’t want to be here, then why hadn’t she left? Could it be that she really did want to be there? She didn’t know where to go next, and Dorothy, radiating satisfaction, invited the next teen up there with a little admonishment that none of us would be there if we didn’t want to be.

What a load of crap! When it was my turn I walked up and gave the already “debunked” answer…I didn’t want to be there. This lady actually smiled condescendingly at me and said “haven’t we already demonstrated that that isn’t true?” No actually, we hadn’t! She’d taken a confused, inarticulate girl and wrapped her in a thread of poor logic that she didn’t know how to work her way out of. I addressed myself to the other teens in the group rather than to her. They were the ones who needed help. 

“I love my dad. This program really means a lot to him and he wanted me and my brother to go through it, enough so that he was willing to pay for it. I’m here because he asked me to be here, but that’s not the same as wanting to be here.” I explained that when we love people we will often do things that we don’t want to do if it will ensure their happiness. “What’s stopping me from walking out that door? Not a desire to go through your program, but a desire to make my dad happy.”

It was the first time in my life I’d had to defend myself on anything, and under the pressure of being on the spot, in front of a crowd and before an increasingly hostile adult no less! I was pretty pleased to find out that I could articulate a thought in those circumstances. It seemed that not many people could. What I’d said made sense to the teens, and Dorothy couldn’t say anything against it. What was she going to say? No you don’t love your parents? No we don’t do things we don’t want to do out of love? She had nothing. After me, there were a number of kids who simply said, “yeah, what she said.” This woman did NOT like me after that.

So there was incident number one. There were several others over the next few weeks, and though I didn’t always win every battle, it gave me the opportunity to cut my teeth under fire. I never knew when I’d have to defend my position or argue against some terrible line of reasoning. Ironically, she used peer pressure against us, she locked us into OTHER social contracts (hilarious since we were supposed to be breaking free of those), she used logical fallacies to trap us, and even used music to manipulate our emotions. The constant sense of manipulation was the most irritating and let me to be critical and outspoken whenever I had the opportunity.

They gave us a partner and compelled us to make solemn vows to our partners that we would never miss a class or be late. Of course we got stuck in traffic one day, we were late, and we were confronted by our partners. They had been taken aside, asked how they felt that their partner had BROKEN A SOLEMN VOW, and generally coerced into feeling awful, and then they were sent to tell us how we’d made them feel. After talking to my partner for seconds it was apparent that he didn’t feel bad at all. We both recognized that it was a bogus vow in the first place, but he did beg me not to be late again so that he wouldn’t have to have “the talk” with Dorothy or her minions.

Once we were supposed to be talking with a partner about a time when we felt like a “victim” and one of her minions- a Rising Stars Teen Graduate just a year older than me- came over, interrupted me, and asked me why I couldn’t let myself be loved…that one allowed me my first chance to look someone in the face and tell them that they needed to leave, a thing I was just too polite to do in the past.

There were maaaany other stories, but my favorite came toward the end of the program: We were told that graduation was being held two weeks after the program ended, and of course we had been made to VOW that we would attend. Well, they had admitted a 12 year old boy from Arizona…the kid tried to explain that he was going back home next week and wouldn’t be there for the graduation. Dorothy fixed him with her condescending smile and asked him one of her “coup de grace” questions-

“If I kidnapped your mother, was holding her hostage, and told you that I would kill her if you didn’t get back here for graduation, wouldn’t you find some way to get here?”

Yup. That’s what she said. She went on.

“Wouldn’t you hitchhike or sneak on a plane, or find SOME way of getting here? Well then, it must be possible for you to get here. Therefore, you CAN be here for graduation.”

She told this freaking’ 12 year old to run away from home, hitchhike if need be, to get to this stupid graduation, get piece of paper, and then find a way to get back home, all to fulfill the piece of crap “promise” he had been forced to make.

I had no chance to confront this one, and I had no chance to confront Dorothy the way I wished I could have, but I was given a crash course like I’d never experienced in watching someone use terrible logic to manipulate people who didn’t know how to follow a line of reasoning, let alone articulate it. The seed of anger that was planted in that program has steeled me. Critical reasoning and communication are THE most tools the human race has, and if you don’t know how to scrutinize information, come to a conclusion and communicate your thoughts effectively, you’re making yourself vulnerable to logical fallacies and manipulation by others who will take advantage of that fact.

Now I’m 27, a music teacher, married, and about to become a mother (just 4 weeks!). My opinions about communication have helped make me an effective educator, and my beliefs about critical thinking help me always try to improve in all aspects of my life. Over the past several years I’ve started paying attention to politics, religion, and the world around me; I listen to podcasts, read articles, educate myself, listen to others, and constantly practice my skills at coming to a position on a subject and then articulating that position effectively.

The teacher in me makes me want to help others improve their communication and critical thinking skills too- I like to help the person I’m talking with articulate their thoughts so that we can both see step by step where their logic is strong and where it is weak. I use every tool at my disposal in communicating my thoughts and helping others to see my line of thinking. I use humor, logic, evidence, anecdotes, thought experiments, Socratic questioning, gentle nudging, biting sarcasm, innocent unobtrusive inquiry, etc etc, but I do not ever stop a conversation so long as I feel like effective communication is going on.

Speaking of which, I believe I’ve talked enough about myself now.

Sarah Tullen
United States