I can’t remember when I decided that I was an atheist; I
think I just never had the talent to believe. I was never abused as a child or
exposed to any traumatic event that would cause me to stop believing in a god.
My family has never been a close knit one and going to church has never been
mandatory. I remember in high school
when I read Revelations I was terrified, literally, i am a skeptic and all I could
think about was not making it in heaven, been ruled over for a thousand years
by Lucifer. This is probably when I started questioning the bible and the idea
of the Judeo-Christian god. I kept asking myself how a loving and merciful
creator could allow all that suffering to his children, the details of the end
of days and the apocalypse are enough to make several Hollywood horror movies.
No self-respecting parent should even allow their kids to read that stuff! In
high school we were forced to attend church otherwise I would have never set
foot in church in the long hard years I was in high school. I never felt
anything during church services; other students would cry during prayers,
others would give testimonies of how god changed them etc. I always felt
spiritually indifferent no matter how hard I tried to pray or worship in the
church services. By then I was not even aware of the term atheism, I sort of
believed in god but my definition was vague and not very well thought about. In
campus it’s when I realized the bible couldn’t be the word of god, I was in a
bible study group, whenever we read and tried to interpret the verses it occurred
to me that people would read the bible and then try to make it fit into their
world views, whatever could not was re-interpreted to do so. I decided to read
the whole bible for myself, it was an epic journey where discovered the ignorance, the
threats and the inconsistencies that made up the bible, I am studying psychology
and that has helped me to understand what would make one want to believe in
such fairy tales as I like to call them. Freud’s “On the future of an illusion
offers a brilliant explanation on the belief in god, on my journey in atheism I
have come to encounter works of brilliant minds such as Daniel Dennet , Sam
Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens among others. Christopher
Hitchens remains my favorite to date, his intellect, rhetoric, humor and wit never
cease to amaze, I have made it a personal endeavor to collect and read all his
works, he has recently been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, he might
succumb to it anytime soon but his works forever immortalize him. Being an
atheist in an overly religious state has not been without its challenges, I
have lost many friends especially the religious ones, they seem to think that I
am possessed and that the devil is misleading me, some have even deleted me as
friends on Facebook ( you would think the religious would be tolerant towards
the ‘lost sheep’). On the positive side I have met wonderful people who share
my views on god and appreciation for rational thinking; I have met and engaged
brilliant minds who refuse to be mentally confined by religion and wishful
thinking. I have made it my lifelong task to attain enlightenment, to enjoy
every moment of my passing life, to gain knowledge even for its own sake, to
make bonds with those I cross paths with, that when I am gone the memories will
immortalize me in their thoughts. Every day I make efforts to improve myself as
a human being and to be a better person, isn’t that the whole point of
existence?
