Why am I an Atheist?
Why am I an atheist? I don’t know how to answer that question but I guess I should tell my religious history. I was raised Catholic, and I truly believed it until I was eleven or so. When I was younger I believed in God and felt that everybody did. I had been taught from an early age about God and like everything else my parents say, I took it for granted. I was aware that people didn't believe in God but I simply thought it was because they were either denying it or hadn't been properly told about him. I felt sorry for them because they would burn in hell. When I was a baby my mother had breast cancer but she went into remission until after my brother's birth. Then the cancer came back. Although my mother had been a Catholic all her life when the cancer came back she became devout. My father was never religious and avoided attending church but he's only non-religious and still believes in God, he's only against organized religion. So every week my mother would take my brother and me to church. I was preparing for my first communion and joined my mother in this religious fever. My Sunday school teachers adored me and would often use me as an example for the rest of the class. My mother and I studied this book she got about first communions. I have always liked the taste of communion wafers for some reason and she got some unblessed ones that I loved to practice on. At church my mother had to stay in the cry area (a special area my church has for young families with small children) but I would go into church and sit in the back where I could look out at her and my brother. I had my first communion and my favorite part of the mass since then has always been communion. Shortly after my first communion, I found out from a classmate the truth about Santa. I don't know why but from that day onward I always had a bit of question in God's existence because if my parents could lie to me about Santa then why not God too?
My mother's cancer wasn't getting any better. When I was eight, only a couple months from nine, she got even sicker and became bed ridden. My mother dealt with her upcoming death with religion. I often joined her in this and would often sit for a good hour and pray with her because she had so many prayers to say, all these little cards she got from somewhere. She lost her rosary for some reason and so I lent her one that I had received for my first communion. I remember when the priest came to read her last rights to her and kneeling down beside her bed as he did so. I hated seeing my mother so sick and one night I prayed for God to do SOMETHING! The next morning she died. The next while that would always make me believe in God but now I realize the fact that she was extremely ill and close to death anyways.
My father continued to make me attend Sunday school but after her death I rarely went to church. My grandmother moved in with us to help my father out (my brother had only just turned 3). My grandmother is the most religious person that I've ever met. She's a born again Christian but not Catholic so she didn't take me to church with her because I was a Catholic and she was a Lutheran. My aunt took me to my first confession and I remember that was the first time I felt I should be feeling more. After confession I didn't feel cleansed or relieved because nothing had changed! I had still teased my brother and confessing that to a priest didn't make it go away! I felt that I should be feeling something and that night when with my grandmother and brother I said my prayers, I pretended to pray for an extra long amount of time because that was what I felt I should do.
When I was in sixth grade, I had the greatest Sunday school teacher! He would split us up into teams and have us answer bible questions! I really worked hard and read the bible so that I could get the answers because the winning team got candy! I was the best and everybody always wanted to be on my team. The next year my teacher was a real idiot! But she really liked me and would have me express my feelings though drawling things and stuff. She would say how she could tell I had a lot of faith. The funny thing was that I no longer did. I was riding in the car with my dad one night, going shopping I think, and we were talking about religion. My dad mentioned used the word "atheist" and I said something like "how can anybody not believe in God"?
I don't remember my father's exact response but it was something about how there is no real proof in God. I guess before then I had never thought about God because suddenly I realized there was no proof in God, and how were we to know if there was or wasn't a God? I went on to be confirmed. I had fiery debates with my confirmation teacher on many subjects and made my lack of faith and respect for Catholism known in every way but directly saying it. When we were asked to make up a piece of merchandise that showed our faith, I came up with pants that had "WWJD" written on the butt. But my whole class wasn't very interested, one day we had a sub and we tried to convince her that we got out earlier then we were supposed to and everybody went along with it except one boy. He most outwardly religious person in class. He and I were the only people to answer questions from the teacher most of the time. We had to take a test to be confirmed and one of the questions was "What does God mean to you"? I copied word for word off that religious boy and still they confirmed me!
After my confirmation, I've been to church twice both times with my mother's parents who would be heart broken to know I was an atheist. It was shortly before my confirmation that I became an atheist, before then I'd been an agnostic. I visited Govteen's religious section and posted a topic called "Agnostics" asking if there were any other agnostics. It was then that I realized that I wasn't really an agnostic but an atheist because I was more then ever leaning to no God because there was no proof. My dad was very unhappy and tried to convince me that I was only an agonstic. At first I was a very anti-religion atheist and wanted everybody to wake up and realize the truth. But over the years as I've gotten older, I've calmed down my views. In fact I don't think I'd mind marrying a Christian or raising my children Christian. My best friend is a Christian and we both respect each other's faiths so we have no problems. She says that if I were to raise my children with out any religion it would be brain washing them to be atheist just like I am against children being taught Christianity from an early age (although I will NEVER do anything about it none of the kids I baby-sit for know what I believe because it isn't important for them to!). So I told her that when I have kids (it'll be at least 10 more years) then she can take them to church. Although I will teach them to question and not just to agree with everything they hear and not expose them too young, a little boy I baby-sit for and who goes to my church has been able to recite full prayers since he was 2!
Sorry for being so long! I wanted to make it clear how I came to be an atheist.