«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.