Becoming an Atheist

I thought I'd write a bit here about my path to becoming an atheist.  This topic comes up frequently for me, both at work and at home or in social situations.  These conversations run the gamut from philosophical discussions and reasoned debates to condescension and vilification for my "heathen ways."  In all cases, it's a topic I enjoy exploring, even if I'm not always the most knowledgeable of the various arguments or logical fallacies one sees in these types of debates.

I was raised in a Catholic household.  Church attendance was mandatory.  So was CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine.  It's basically like Catholic bible school for children).  While we weren't so devout a family that our religion defined every moment of our lives, it was certainly a large part of my upbringing.  Something that I've always felt set me apart from most people is that I don't think I ever truly believed in any of it.  I tried to be pious because it was valued by other people.  If you show how much you love God and the bible and Jesus and all that, then people praise you for being such a good child.

I remember when I made my first communion when I was eight years old.  One of the gifts I got was an illustrated children's bible.  (The other big gift was an Atari 2600...which do you think was my favorite?  Video games ended up being a bigger part of my life than God).  I used to carry the bible around with me, and read it like it was a novel (and indeed, I do consider it to be a work of fiction, so it sort of is like a novel).  But did I believe what I was reading?  No.  I just liked all the praise lavished on me for being a good little Catholic.

This dichotomy of believe versus expectation actually caused me quite a bit of stress as a child.  I remember being told how important it was to say my prayers each night.  We needed God for protection, and it was important that I remember to include everyone in my prayers.  And I did all that.  The problem was, I always felt like I was just talking to myself.  And because I never would have thought it possible at that time to disbelieve in God, I just assumed there was something wrong with me.  Maybe I was praying wrong.  Maybe I was flawed in some way.  And these feelings of being flawed or broken both reinforced and were reinforced by my dawning realization that I was gay.

So, take my tumultuous feelings associated with being gay (which I realized when I was nine, though the suspicions about it were there even longer than that), and add a naturally obsessive compulsive personality, and it's a recipe for disaster.  I used to pray fervently for God's protection for myself and my family and friends.  But because I felt like there was noone listening, I began to feel like the people I prayed for were actually in danger.  And so I began praying obsessively, almost like a mantra that I repeated over and over in my head, hoping it would suddenly ring true.  And if I forgot someone I would start over.  And if I thought of someone else to include I'd have to start over too.  It really was a kind of hell, and I was all alone.  I couldn't discuss these thoughts with anyone.

Similarly, when it became clear that I wasn't going to be growing out of this whole gay thing, I began to pray obsessively for God to "make me normal."  There were times when I stayed up all night praying with everything that was in me.  Of course, nothing ever happened.  It never felt like more than thinking.  There was nothing there to hear me.

Those were the conditions that really eroded my ability to convince myself that God was real.  But it took a while for me release the guilt of disbelief.  That's the real damage done by religion in my opinion.  It sets you back on your journey to finding your own beliefs.  Some people never overcome their programming.  Most religious families raise their children in that tradition, and never explain to them that other beliefs are possible.  So, for me, there was a winding road of alternate beliefs before I felt okay with letting go of religion.  I flirted with Wiccan beliefs, but they just seemed silly.  It turns out that I was drawn to it because the mysticism of it felt like a game.  That's hardly a foundation to build a belief system on.

I went through a period around 13 or 14 years ago where I called myself an agnostic, but really I was just picking and choosing the parts of various belief systems that I found appealing.  I figured there had to be a god, because what created the universe?  This was, of course, before I understood the concept of infinite regress.  But the god I was choosing to believe in was pretty far from the Abrahamic God.  It was more of the detached watchmaker variety.  And karma seemed like a nice system, so I incorporated that.

Over the course of those 13 or 14 years, I began stripping away those beliefs to get at the core, which was my rational conclusion that there was no god at all.  I've been identifying myself as an atheist for the past several years now.  And I'm far happier for it.  I've been distilling all the extraordinary beliefs out there and finding the essence, which is a refutation of the supernatural.

Now, when people ask me what I believe in, I usually say that I believe in science.  I try always to find the reasoned, scientific evidence to formulate my stance on the world.  It's a process, and I'm not where I want to be yet, but I think with time, education, and the ability to step away from supernatural beliefs, I can get there.