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Sunday, November 23, 2008

«My Religious Search»

The question was raised about my atheism and where my parents stand with it.

When did I become an atheist? To tell the truth, I don't remember. I think I stopped believing in God before Santa Clause (despite the fact that Santa had the exact same handwriting as my mom). I didn't give too many hints of my beliefs for quite a while. With Santa, I was afraid I wouldn't get as many gifts if I said I didn't believe. With God, I wasn't sure what the reaction would be and it seemed best just to keep it to myself.

You know, you tell a child all these lies about Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy... You may think it's just all in good fun. But when a child starts to realize the truth, they may start to question if God and Jesus were lies as well.

My parents come from different religious backgrounds. My mom was raised a Catholic, had it forced upon her and hated it. She's basically rebelled against it. Whether she actually believes in God or not, I'm not sure. We don't talk about it much.

My dad was raised Lutheran, and although he's drifted away from the literal interpretations of the Bible, he does believe in God in the Christian sense. He feels the Bible was written by man, and thus has been exaggerated and had human biases inserted. Really, who can blame him once you've looked over the Old Testament (or even much of the New Testament).

My parents are fine with what I believe. I'm old enough to have my own beliefs. My grandparents, on the other hand, are not happy with it. I've had a couple of talks about it with my grandfather. But, they love me just the same.

I was never forced to go to church as a child. When I got a little older I did a fair amount of research on a wide variety of religions; for a while it was almost an obsession. It didn't take long to dismiss the major religions. Although I admit I didn't put too much time into Buddhism or Muslim. I found the more “occult” religions fascinating, particularly Druidism. I spent some time talking to a friend online that is a Druid, as well as a classmate in real life that was a Druid. I even spoke to a true Witch in real life (Wicca). However, I just couldn't believe the prayers (read: spells) had any power. No matter what religion I looked into, they all had some beliefs that were downright silly.

You may think I should have given the major religions such as Christianity more time. However, I don't believe in a God. Everything else was based on that belief, and all evidence they provided was circular logic back to the belief in God.

So here I am. If one day God should make himself visible and prove himself to infact be God, I'll be inclined to modify my beliefs. And he'd better make it good, because extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Until then, I am an atheist.

7 comments:

  1. I have a question for ya . . . if atheists don't believe in a god or higher power; do you believe in an afterlife? [°-°]

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  2. @ Naikou: No, I don't. I do not believe in an afterlife. (And, consequentially, I also do not believe in ghosts, spirits, or an immortal soul.)

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  3. Hi Marf,
    My mum was catholic and my dad was a protestant but neither practiced. I was sent to catholic schools but by the time I was about 12 or 13 I reckon I had lost any belief in God that I had as a child. It was no big thing at the time, I just realised I didn't believe it all. My mum and dad knew first because we always had great debates in our house about anything and everything.

    In religious classes at my high school I was quite open about my atheism which bugged the priests who taught me no end. It bugged them even more when I got a distinction in an external Oxford exam in religion and philisophy even though I was an atheist. He he.

    What you see is pretty much what you get in this world. Humans as a whole need to grow up and deal with that and stopped yearning for some msytical afterlife which ain't gonna happen. It's good that Atheists are speaking out in large numbers now. there have always been lots of us around but we tended to be quiet about it before.

    I think the rise in religious fundamentalism is promting many to start being more vocal.

    BTW Marf I just realised i don't have a link to you from my blog. Updating my blogroll now.

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  4. Hmmm philisophy? Thats the study of being a philistine I guess. Probably quite appropriate for me at the time.

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  5. @ Bunc: You know, I probably don't have a link to you either in my links section. I'm horrible about updating that thing. I'll see if I can remember to later tonight.

    There's a few other blogs I'll want to add as well.

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  6. @ Bunc: There, you've been added in my links section, under A.

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  7. That is really interesting Marf.

    As far as connecting God to the Easter Bunny, it's never been an issue in our house.

    "....does believe in God in the Christian sense. He feels the Bible was written by man, and thus has been exaggerated and had human biases inserted." Exactly.

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