Because I’m a nosy bastard, that’s why. I can’t leave anything alone. As soon as I spot a loose end I’m picking at that thing to see what unravels, and there are a lot of loose ends in theism.
I must have been about five when my brother and I built what we thought would serve as a handy container for Santa’s collection of assorted vintage beers. Apparently we got it into our heads that he was an avid drinker. It was a cardboard box with a cut-out reindeer head taped to the side, a feat of what seemed at the time an achievement of artisan carpentry that could have provoked Jesus to throw his messiah badge away in lugubrious defeat. In retrospect it was probably a bit naff. Our parents were now faced with the question of what to do with it on Christmas Eve. In the end they settled on the plan to forge a note from Santa claiming that he thought is was so good, he didn’t want to separate us from it, and so had it magically duplicated, and kept one of the duplicates for himself.
Because all of that time-wasting god-bothering is a load of old bollocks.
Julian
Yesterday my father died.
It was a cruel way to die: a stage 4 glioblastoma tumor was pressing on the speech centre of his brain and robbed him of his speech for most of the past year. For a university professor who communicated science passionately this was adding insult to injury. But he generally faced his illness and advancing death with a calmness and acceptance that most would expect from those that know they will be heading off to a better afterlife. And yet he was an atheist from beginning to end.
I grew up in a small village in the country, and so I had the great fortune of being a kid surrounded by nature. I used to play outside everyday and catch frogs and insects – and soon I was completely fascinated by the animals and the plants that lived around me. I took interest in them aided by the lot of books my parents provided me with, and by watching all the documentaries by David Attenborough that aired on the Italian TV (my parents recorded them, so I was never deprived).
So as a child, I knew all about freshwater animals and could identify almost every bird I saw, and though now I’ve forgotten most of those notions – since I later took the Humanities path instead of a scientific one – I guess my self-taught natural history background has played a big part in my actual worldview. The concept of evolution is something I’ve been familiar with since I can remember, I never had trouble accepting it because it made perfectly sense to me, and the evidence for that was just outside the door.
I come from a Colombian Catholic middle class family. I was enrolled in a Franciscan school for girls when I was 4. All the women in my family had attended, were attending or would attend Colegio Alvernia. It was a family tradition.
At school, we weren’t allowed to go to mass until we were 7– the age of reason. In the meantime, they would teach us about the Bible and Saint Francis of Assisi’s life. I didn’t like the holy book very much because God asked people to sacrifice animals and children. The tales of the Bible were worse than the stories from Der Struwwelpeter that my parents used to read to me to dissuade me from being bad. However, St. Francis was cool and his awesomeness made up for all the crap in the Bible. He treated animals with respect and kindness and had super powers that I wanted— like talking to wolves and having birds do stuff for him.
Hello. My name is Quinn, and I am an atheist.
I am also a (not very anonymous) recovering alcoholic, which makes the aforementioned atheism difficult to maintain in the face of fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it requires a fair amount of mental contortion and gymnastics if one intends to put into practice any of the principles on which most recovery programs are founded, while maintaining one’s non-belief.
My upbringing was a little atypical – my parents never mentioned religion at all that I can remember. To this day, I’m only 50% sure they are also atheists, the other 50% is that they straddle the line between atheist and just-don’t-care. Though every year my dad says the Singularity is only 10 years away (he’s been saying this for the last 20 years), so they do have their little oddities. As a child, religion for me was no different from other bits of make-believe or the fantasy books I was constantly reading.
That started to change in high school – I was talking to people my age that were religious, and generally trying to figure the universe out. I went to church once or twice with my grandmother, but found the sermons pretty offensive. I stumbled into paganism after a blow up in a star trek email discussion group (long story), and thought that it sounded nice.
I’m a Native North American, Ojibwe, grew up in Canada. 34 years old now. Family is Catholic, and went to Catholic school for my education.
Though the schools were there to continue indoctrination, I do have to admit the teachers were quality teachers who genuinely cared about the well-being of the students. They practiced their craft well; helping those who struggled and offered challenge to those who excelled. They put up with us teenagers doing teenaged things like getting drunk, smoking, and skipping school, and taught us when we were ready to learn. So I learned.
I suppose the easiest thing to say is “because there is no evidence for the existence of any super natural being.” Ultimately that’s what it comes down to.
Notice that “Santiago” in my name? That’s because I am a semi-professional magician and “Santiago” is my performing persona. This is relevant. You see it was my research in to magic that put the final nail in the coffin of religious and supernatural belief for me.
