I think I need to define, especially for my Christian friends, who I am in terms of my lack of  belief in a deity. I grew up in a bible literalist environment.

As an inquisitive child I frequently questioned anything that didn't make sense to me. Although I believed
in the concept of hell I could never, even as a child, make sense of an all- loving "God" who would create such a ghastly chamber of horrors.

The belief that this all-loving deity would banish non-believers and unrepentant "sinners" to this eternal fiery torment
created an ongoing conflict in my mind..

"Do I really and truly LOVE
this vengeful God or am I simply terrified not to?"   I questioned the divinely inspired biblical stories of an all powerful God who displayed such shallow human emotions as anger, jealousy and revenge.. .a God who narcissistically demanded worship and destroyed
all who failed to comply with his demands.

The stories of Sodom/Gomorrah and the Flood demonstrated God's
uncontrollable rage. Along with the evil-doers who should have been
his obvious target, he destroyed children, pregnant woman, the
handicapped, and the elderly.

In light of God's monumental ability to "create", it seems rather
petty of him to be so bent on demanding our undivided attention in
the form of adoration, worship, submission, and compliance to rules.
How did this great omnipotent and omniscient creator become so
emotionally immature?

Having always been extremely compassionate and empathetic, I have
volunteered my time and money to the local child abuse center, abused
women's shelter, humane society, homeless shelter and animal rescue
groups. I cried when I read John Howard Griffin's "Black Like Me" and
Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation". I have been a vocal and active
defender of the rights of the oppressed all my life. A turning point
in my belief in god came with the realization that all of my good
deeds were meaningless in the eyes of God if I continued to question
his existence. .. I would burn eternally in hell for my lack of
devotion to him. I could actually have been a serial torturer and
killer of babies and invalids, having never committed a kind act in
my life, and still have earned a ticket to heaven by asking for
forgiveness at the 11th hour, just minutes before the lethal
injection.  Good deeds don't earn nearly the high marks with God as
belief, worship, guilt and begging for forgiveness.

My suspicion that religion was a social control became solidified
after taking a World Religion class at the local college.  Religion
has played a huge role in legislating "Christian" morality which is
based on ancient texts that teach far more hate than love.

If I seem angry, it is the result of connecting the dots between
religion and oppression of human rights. I believe in the beauty of
nature, the complexities of life, the wonder of exploring the world
through travel and the internet, the beauty of my grandchildren, the
evidence presented through science ..but most of all I believe in
reason, logic and truth.

How I Lost Religion Forever More.

    It started for me in the late 60’s, I was a hard-core Christian.   One day I set out on a quest to prove all the naysayer’s wrong.   My first task was to read the bible from cover to cover.   That was a first step on the road away from religion.   Knowledge is a double edge sword and once you learn something there is no road back.  

  You can deny what you have learned, you can even put what you learned aside for a time, but you can not unlearn.   I would soon learn that the more I tried to hack away at the nay-sayer’s arguments, with the sword of knowledge, the more I ended up cutting away at my own belief.  

  I found hundreds of contradictions and problems in the bible, but that alone did not sway my faith.   Next I started looking for archaeological evidence of the Jesus character and other bible events.   Of course there is none for the alleged Jesus, there is some for some of the other bible events.   This did not ease my conscience any at all.  

  I began to suspect that it was all a hoax.   It was at this point that I began to look at every religion, past and present, to see if there was a pattern, and find out which was oldest.   The oldest religious works seem to come from China.   This of course makes sense since it has the oldest civilization on the planet.  

  All of the religions claim they were first but history itself does not support this conclusion.   I found some long-dead religions that I would have supported if I had lived during those times, but that is only because I am somewhat of a quirky person, always have been since birth, but that is a story for another time.  

  I found many religions that seemed to borrow heavily from one another.   The Christian’s are one of those who seem to have gotten most of theirs from Mithraism.   The more I dug the more I lost my religion.   I went through a period of time where I was very boisterous against religious people of all types.   Over the last twenty years however I have learned to mellow out.  

  Now days I have no problem with religious people as long as they keep it in church and do not try to push it on others.   When they get in the way of law making and human rights that is when I get distraught.   I was awarded two PhD’s, one for psychology and one for parapsychology.   I saw that those with higher intelligence were the ones with the least belief in any type of god.   This has been confirmed by several independent polls over the years.   Ihad long suspected as much anyway.   If religion keeps up with its current decline the USA will be religion free by the year 2050, nine years before my death.   I look forward to that day.


                        Rev Dr Alan FCD Prime

I was raised Episcopalian—altar boy and all.  But after leaving home, religion was never a part of my life.  It just wasn’t important to me.  The traditional religious indoctrination of youth failed on me.  Not sure why.  Perhaps because I’ve always been logical and inquisitive.  My undergraduate degree is in mechanical engineering and I am a former member of Mensa.  Religion just never made sense to me, particularly the idea that each religion claims to be “the” religion and anyone who fails to toe their line is condemned to eternal damnation.  But I didn’t really become a committed atheist until I returned to the Joplin area and was faced with the likes of Rita Crowell and her Joplin Globe editorials.  The ignorance, self-righteousness, and hate exhibited by her and others shocked me.  This really is the buckle of the bible belt.  So I started writing letters to the editor of the Globe and got a few published before they seemed to lose interest, though they continued to publish Rita’s drivel:  Here   is one of my last.  I guess over-the-top intolerance like Rita’s is good for circulation while measured responses like mine that include evidence are just no fun.  I canceled my subscription and moved on.  I think I need to try again.

 

There is no moment of revelation in my story.  What has driven my desire to become a part of something larger is my perception that religion, in addition to being illogical, has entered into government and may impact my life or corrupt that of others.  Aside from Rita Crowell and her ilk, my concern probably started with G.W. Bush and his religion-based edicts, many of which Obama is thankfully reversing.  One of my pet issues is evolution vs. creationism and the push by religious fanatics to have creationism (they call it Intelligent Design now) taught in the schools.  It boggles my mind that any rational human being can believe that the universe is 6,000 years old or that the bible is unerring truth.  I want to fight for logic and reason and separation of church and state.  I noticed several interesting quotes by Obama in the video posted here: “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values…it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason…”  There’s more good stuff, but that gets the basic point across.  I may not agree with all of Obama’s politics, but I appreciate his understanding of science and appeals to reason.  

 

Most religious groups do good things, but I don’t want them cramming their beliefs down my or anyone else’s throat, particularly with government sanction.  Another pet issue is the idea that morality requires a religious basis.  There’s more; come to a meeting and talk about this stuff with us.

 

I will never be religious or have faith in a supernatural god.  What I will do is try to prevent those who are religious or hold other delusional beliefs from imposing them on me or anyone else.  As I finished writing this, I watched the documentary “Jesus Camp”.  Wow.  As a reviewer stated:  “Funny, sad and horrifying…”  Yes.  It’s the kind of indoctrination I mentioned earlier, though this variety is truly frightening.  Religion really has so much in common with cults.

 

Finally, I believe that a lack of a belief in the supernatural does not preclude a spiritual existence.  I look into the night sky and get goose bumps.  I study astronomy and physics and am in awe of the wonders of the universe.  As Carl Sagan stated: “It is far better to see the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”  The universe is amazing and awesome as it really is.  No god required.

 Ok. I never believed in supernatural things, and I don't believe anyone else really does either. I went to church as a child about three times a week for years. When I was about seven years old things started to develope for me. 

 I remember going to church in the church van, and thinking about the Bible. I thought of some logical flaws, and couldnt wait to get to church and tell the preacher and my teachers. I truly believed at that point, that they were all pretending, and my intellegence was going to impress them. I was wrong. They acted like they didnt follow my logic, but I knew they did. I couldn't figure out why they wouldn't break charactor for even a moment. '

 That's when I realized that some people took this game very seriously. I let everyone pretend, and went on with my life, eventually convinced my mom that I didnt want to go anymore, and she finaly agreed to let me stop going to church.

 I took a great interest in interpersonal communication as I entered my teen years, and studied a lot about that and philosophy. I have a love/hate relationship with psychology. Like most Atheist, I have studied the bible, religion, history, science, and all types of other interesting things. I have since concluded that the Bible is of the most irritating things to study. It is like trying to read without thinking, I just can't do it.

“Momma Was a Blasphemer” – How an Atheist Gets Right with the World


I was 13 years old when I accepted that I did not believe in God, gods, Allah…or any of the Greek or Roman sort for that matter. At the time, it really was the only thing that made sense to me; any sadness I felt at losing the half-formed hope of eternal life was far outweighed by relief at being spared the chance of burning in eternal torment for disappointing some invisible father figure. I wouldn’t have to be judged for my every misdeed by an entity that seemed pretty selfish (“OK, I created you…now worship me! No, you aren’t doing it right, go to war! More sacrifice! Mooooooooooore!”), and at the very least, impulsive…see countless Biblical examples…anger management problem, perhaps? I wouldn’t have to go through life emulating religious people I knew who were just as confused as I was; they had just taken the more traditional and popular view shared by confused people, passed on to the by their own confused parents. It was hard, but not any harder than losing anything else that matters in life.

I believe I will just be dead, which is only slightly more reassuring than the alternative. Sure, it was hard, losing the exciting prospect of having wings and hanging out with the loved ones who passed on before me. Believe me; I started trying to believe in something as soon as I realized that everything dies. But, ultimately, instead of convincing myself of what I knew to be untrue, I took comfort in the knowledge that I could live my life and am a good person without the intervention of supernatural outside forces that, even to a young mind, seemed to cause as much harm as they appeared to do good.

So, I had to square with the idea of not getting an afterlife. I gave up the hope of flitting about for all eternity with those I had known and loved. I lost the ability to truly beg “Oh please God, let me live through this…” when life gets difficult. But, I also got to give up the guilt of being born a sinner. I no longer felt bad for killing some nice carpenter 2,000 years ago. I didn’t have to feel the ever-watchful, omniscient, disdainful eye of God glaring down upon me.

I notice people who ‘let go and let God’ still suffer right along with the rest of us. Why? All is chaos. We are born to die. I can live with that. Then, I had children, and my belief in man as god’s creator rather than the other way around has only become stronger, due in no small part to the wonderful, empowering, unimaginable joy of having three healthy babies. A miraculous, momentous, life-altering experience? Yeah, I got that, too. Am I thankful? Absolutely. Thankful for good genes and the evolution of science and medicine that made such positive experiences possible. There are those that would say “without this there can be no that”, and they are free to believe it; but placing my faith in labor nurses and vaccinations has worked just as well for me so far though..thanks anyways.

I remember being eight or so and catching a scene from a film about racism in the south, the KKK, lynchings…all I remember are the ghostly white figures, burning crosses, and black boys hanging from trees. It made me physically ill. I had never conceived of anything like it before. I didn’t know people really did that to each other. It was like something out of Hell. Then I learned about the Holocaust; supposedly there is a “devil” worse than Adolph Hitler. To my mind, if there is a god and he did not stop the Holocaust, he is not worth worshipping. Maybe I’ll get struck down for saying that. We shall see. More blasphemously, since I’m going all out here, look at it this way: God isn’t powerful enough to prove his own existence. “Oh, but that’s where FAITH comes in, he doesn’t have to…”

Well, that’s convenient.

Meanwhile, children are trying to believe you when you say there are no monsters, nothing under the bed, no ghosts…”but there IS a whole host of invisible dead people in Heaven, who passed the test and are obviously much better than you, looking down on your every move and reporting back to the one who created you, the One who made his own son go kill himself because you are so bad...that’s why you go to that massive building in your nice clothes on Sunday with the others, to atone for it..pay up..Now, sleep good.”

Sadly, when one loses their faith in god, it is often assumed that their faith in humanity and their moral fiber goes along with it. In my experience, the opposite is true. I feel that because of my absence of faith in god, I feel an urgent, ever-present, moral responsibility to enjoy my life and try to improve the experience of everyone around me. All I believe is that this is all there is. Maybe if there were more atheists, there would be an exponential increase in humanitarian efforts the world over, because people would not suffer from the bystander effect, always assuming that some everlasting someone else will take care of it all in the end. I realize that many religious organizations have gone to great lengths to provide humanitarian relief the world over. I appreciate them for that. Anything to help our fellow man…

F. Forrester Church said, “Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die.” I agree. I wouldn’t want everyone to suddenly lose their faith: quite the opposite, I want everyone to be free to believe what they want. I think that all the things people ascribe to god are actually a result of the human capacity to be good, not because of any divine intervention. I personally have a special aversion to war and violence because it destroys people and I don’t believe that those that sacrifice themselves enjoy any sort of retribution or reward in the afterlife. I don’t have any holy purpose fueling my hatred for the other side. I look at the victims on both sides and reflect on how everyone was a baby once, and how tragic it is that this is how the poor things ended up.

So I don’t get an afterlife. I don’t get to comfort myself with the idea that someone else is watching out for my children even more than I am. I have to live knowing that they will die, and that is hard. But, I don’t have to live with the knowledge that suffering is an integral part of some omniscient and omnipotent being’s plan. My friend’s 18 month old daughter was killed in a freak hayride accident last semester, on October 24th, my birthday. My point? If letting a child live for only 18 months before having her be ran over by a tractor, in front of her mother, is part of your plan…?! I would rather believe, and it seems much more realistic, that all is chaos and chance; this and worse, can happen to anyone, at anytime. So, good luck out there, guys. Call your mother.

I can’t discount natural disasters as god’s plan. I can’t call untimely death god’s will. I can’t pray for the safety of my children. I do anyways. Because honestly, I don’t believe any one is listening, but just voicing my will makes me feel better. Like I’ve done what I can. I’ve let the universe know where I stand. I pray for my own selfish reasons and peace of mind just like everyone else does. It’s not a prayer to my creator; it’s more just an entreaty to the gods of chance that I’ll at least get to die before any of my children do.

So, why should you care? Why can’t I keep my beliefs, or lack thereof, to myself? Well, I usually do. Everyone else should, too. If you are going to insist on him praying at snack-time, please be prepared to explain to my 5 year old what a cross is…what a crucifixion is…how he could sin before he was born…Don’t want to? I don’t either. Answering questions honestly is a big part of being a good parent. So, I love feeling confident in my knowledge and ability to tell him that there are no monsters under the bed, no ghosts, no devil…to just be good to others, and…hopefully…he will have a good life. Treat others as he would like to be treated himself. Being good feels good. End of moral story.

In the meantime, let’s have no damnation in public education. Keep your god out of my school. Yes, back to that whole pesky “separation of Church and State” argument we godless heathens usually resort to. Like it or not, our Constitution grants us freedom of and freedom from religion.

Viva Richard Mullen!