Becoming an Atheist

I would like to start my first blog talking a bit about my background. My immediate family has never been particularly religious, although they do consider themselves Catholics (not strict Catholic by any means). My parents used to consider themselves C & E's which essentially stood for Christmas and Easter; the only two times a year they would go to church. My father attended a catholic school when he was a child, and I believe it was due to his rather negative experiences there that he never forced religion upon my younger sister or myself.

According to my dad, the Catholic School he attended was quite a joke, the children were all rather misbehaved; one even blew up the school phone booth (outside in the parking lot) with a bunch of gasoline and a tin of black powder. The nuns would also regularly discipline the kids using rather brutal means, such as smacking them with a yardstick or ruler anytime anything wrong was done. Unfortunately for my father, he was left handed, which according to the catholic church is the hand of the devil. Anytime a nun spotted him writing with his left hand it was immediately lashed at with a ruler. Now, I cannot possibly fathom how writing with one hand or the other can make you evil, but apparently this is the way they believed; crazy if you ask me (as just about all religious ideas are).

My mothers family was also Catholic, but they sent her to public school, the same school I attended many years later. Her mother and father were somewhat religious, not nearly to the extent of my dad's mom, but still pray regularly and attend Church once every few months. It was my mother's grandmom, my great-grandmother, who was an absolute nut-case when it came to Church. She went as far a buying a house next-door to the local church in Bridgeport, PA, and attended church everyday. Every Single Day. Rain, sleet, snow; it didn't matter. Nothing would stop her from going to church. The upsetting part of this is that her husband went a bit insane after finding their daughter dead after being ran over on the nearby train tracks. After that he was never mentally right, and regularly abused their children. The upsetting part about this is that my great-grandmother who could have easily put a stop to this, instead went to church and prayed that he would no longer brutalize their children.

Ok, enough about my family. Here is my story. I was forced into CCD around the age of 7 or so, cant remember exactly. I went for about four years. All I can say about CCD is that it is truly a form of child abuse. They were constantly bombarding me with questions of who Jesus was, who his father was, and just relentlessly forcing you to believe their illusion of what reality was. In many ways, it was truly a brainwashing class. At this age, I was not capable of determining what was real or fake, and not able to make choices for myself. So the nuns automatically made you believe what they wanted, much in the same way militant radical Muslim groups brainwash their children to take up their beliefs.

After my four years of CCD, I relentlessly complained about ti to my parents, and luckily my dad sympathised with me, since he knew the horrors of Catholic teachings. I thankfully withdrew from CCD, and instead began using my time for useful things, such as entering science fairs at school, and doing all sorts of projects in my home, such as the crystal radio kit and whatnot.

When I finally entered High-School, I tested well enough in Science to enter an Honors Biology class. I really do owe alot to this excellent class, since it taught me the basics of evolution, natural selection, the scientific method, and many other incredible things. At this point, I began withing the Science Channel relentlessly, learning about the formation of the Universe, and really began to question how true the religious claims my family and CCD instilled upon me as a child.

At the age of about 18 I was in my Senior year of High-School when in History class we had a religious debate. I have always been a conservative libertarian, and was one of the few more conservative kids in the class. Throughout the entire year, a kid who sat adjacent to be, who was very, very liberal argued with me about everything, we'll call him Alex. Then came this debate. My teacher asked us our opinions on God, and Alex quickly raised his hand saying that the idea of a god is both primitive, and naive. Then my teacher turned to me, assuming I was just the opposite, being conservative and all. When I replied "I think the Bible is pretty much a 2000 year old bedtime story, and load of bull crap" just about everyone in the class went "wow". They were all shocked that I was what I considered to be an Agnostic, since after all, I was one of the few conservative kids in the class. The discussion went on, my teacher being slightly erring to the side of God asked us how animals could have ended up on different continents, when they have been separated from each other. It was strange to finally be on the same side of argument with Alex, but we both simply replied "Continental Drift". Which my teacher stated may not be true. To this my friend Alex replied "Oh yeah. Its alot more likely that the animals parted the sea and waled to the other continents." To this statement the entire class burst into laughter, and I believe that statement may have knocked some common sense into many of the more religious of them. It was at this point that I really knew that I was an Atheist, but I was honestly a bit scared to tell people, since after all, my CCD learning's taught me that Atheists were the spawn of Satan, and I was worried my family would hate me for it.

Ill finish up the story as soon as I get a chance.