There was exactly one time I went to a “serious” church. My parents took the family to the local Unitarian church every once in a while, but only because taught more lessons about tolerance than it did about Jesus. But my parents are also classical musicians. They have a hectic work schedule, and when I was five, they left us with the nanny on a Sunday morning.
I was born in Brussels (Belgium) in 1976. My family was catholic (but not overzealous) and I attended catholic primary and secondary schools where prayer was obligatory and religion omnipresent. I recall having been very religious until the age of about 13. I still remember bowing each time I was passing by the huge statue of Jesus that was present in the park surrounding the playground of my middle school. I was however also very interested in sciences but I did not see any conflict between science and religion at that time. Also, since Catholicism represented for me the ultimate truth, I did not understand why people were not more engaged in their religion.
Everything changed within a couple of hours at the age of 13.
Growing up I had a vague notion that we were created by a supreme being. I never really probed the existence question, so the “creator” answer suited my brian just fine then. However, the idea of God was something that wasn’t reinforced in my house. We never went to church, prayed or kept any religious symbols. What I did have reinforced, on the other hand, was the wonderful altruistic care of my parents. My upbringing was enough to let me know how rational, humane beings ought to treat one another.
I am an atheist primarily because I know of no evidence for any gods. I think that gods were invented by the human mind at some point in our evolutionary development. It was probably at the time when human intellect began to develop concepts arising from the elementary awareness of cause and effect, which I think behaviorists call conditioning. Some things happened seemingly randomly or without explanation or cause. When humans came up with the idea that events in nature could bring good or bad fortune to them, they probably attributed them to some unseen forces or power. Memory played a role as well. One thing that certainly helped develop the idea of spirits is the power of memory of persons close to us who died but whose presence lingers. In times when it was hard to distinguish what was going on in our heads from the events of the external world, memories and ghosts and spirits must have seemed quite real. Although we have evolved culturally since our first appearance as a species, our brains seem to be built pretty much the same was as our earliest H. sapiens ancestors. The reasoning function of the prefrontal cortex is a Johnny-come-lately. It seems to have progressed in fits and starts, but over centuries it has given us science, the best tool we have for understanding ourselves and the universe in which we live. Science has not as yet found any evidence for the existence of gods. Today’s struggle between faith and reason is really a battle between the more modern part of our brains and the more archaic areas that evolved to help us survive in a vastly different and more hostile environment.
How did I become an atheist? I grew up in a traditional Protestant family; went to Sunday school weekly. I could just never buy the silly stories I was fed every week. A talking, burning bush? A world-wide flood? (they hadn’t even discovered the western hemisphere yet!) A virgin birth? Wine to water or walking on water? By the time I was a teen, I was very skeptical. Then I was introduced to R.W. Emerson. His essays and his ties to transcendentalism showed me that I wasn’t the only one uncomfortable with traditional Christianity (too bad I’d never heard of Robert Green-Ingersoll until just a few years ago). Well, then I went off to college to study biology, archaeology, paleontology and the like. I added some courses on the Bible and the Humanities for good measure. That darn critical thinking just pounded those last nails into the coffin of my Christian upbringing.
I met and married a very secular guy (outdoors, with a J.P.) and now we have 3 little secular humanist tots. I discuss religion with them but steer them toward the path of science and constant questioning. Will they run off and join a cult someday, or worse–becomes Mormons?? Maybe…”god”, I hope not.
W.P.
United States
My first response would have been “I was born that way,” except that might inspire singing and dancing to a tune that includes far too much religion. So I won’t go there.
I was raised in the American Bible Belt by strict Catholic parents who were unquestioning in their support of Catholic Doctrine. I had two uncles who were Franciscan brothers and who spend their entire adult lives as missionaries in Africa. I went to Catholic schools throughout the week and to Mass on Sunday and Holy Days. Devoting your life in service to God and church was held up as the most worthy goal I could pursue. The only religious debate I was exposed to as a child was between Catholicism and Protestantism.
I’m an atheist because I noticed that what little evidence there is for gods and goddesses, more hearsay really, is equally valid for the lot of them. The problem is the claims made for the nearly 1,000 gods and goddesses are contradictory. Quite simply they can’t all be true, but they can quiet easily all be false. Factor in that we have well tested scientific explanations for much of existence and there is no need for any supernatural beings running around causing trouble.
Natasha Yar-Routh
United States
Unlike most former fundamentalists, I’m from England. It happens over here too. I went to a school that used Accelerated Christian Education, so I knew that the world was less than 10,000 years old. ACE schoolbooks say it is “not possible” that we evolved, and “scientific evidence proved the Darwinian theory of evolution was false.” On the contrary, they said that Creationism has “unquestionable proofs.”
I was born an atheist, just like every other child.
My very large and very Catholic family took it upon itself to change this situation, providing my life with priests, religious references and visits to churches aplenty. But apparently my case was particularly virulent, and the whole concept of the supernatural remained incredible in my eyes.
