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Jeffrey at atheist nexus
Jeffrey at atheist apex
"Either god wants to abolish evil and cannot or he can and chooses not to then he is impotant. If he can abolish evil and chooses not to then he is malevolent. If he can abolish evil and wants to why is there evil in the world?"
Epicurus
"To be godless is probably the first step to innocence, to lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost. An absence of need for illusions. A love of and respect for what is right in front of your eyes."
Anne Rice - The Vampire Lestat
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
Stephen Weinberg Physicist, Nobel Prize Winner, Atheist
One of the most common questions I'm asked by theist(mostly those who believe in Yahweh, the christian god of the holy bible) is why I chose to be an atheist. The question is posed most likely because I seem more hostile towards religion than most atheists. I'd like to put this question to rest once and for all for anyone viewing my profile. Did I choose to be an atheist? Yes I did. In fact many atheists at some time or another chose to become atheist. Very few people have the good fortune to be born atheists. A wide majority of us have some religious background. My descent into atheism started when I was young.
By the time I was in the 2nd grade I was a quiet and inquisitive child. I am still rather curious and inquisitive but by now I claim to have all the answers. When I was at the grocery story I saw a classmate or acquaintance of mine buying at soda from a vending machine. He asked me if I had Jesus in my heart and if I knew god had created me. I told him yes to be polite but I really didn't understand the question. Of course now I understand it was a metaphorical question but at that age I didn't have a very good understanding of anatomy and reproduction but one thing I did know was that Jesus wasn't in my heart, he was in my mind and soul. The heart was just an organ that pumped blood into my body, the only thing inside of it was cholesterol arteries and blood. Even as naive as I was at that age I knew my parents created me not god. But I still went to bible school every week even though I forgot or lost my bible half the time and had to share with someone else. I'm sure those of you who know me and those that don't find it hard to picture me in bible school or even going to church but it's true. At one point I was a very good god fearing christian boy. At that time I probably had more faith than anyone in my family and had aspirations of becoming a preacher.
The next time I questioned my faith was in bible school on summer vacation at my grandmother's in Illinois. It really was like cheap babysitting for her while she was at work, for me now it was more like indoctrination. One of the preachers was trying to explain the choices we choose and the paths they lead us to. Once again I got confused. He took a magic marker and drew on a large pad of paper a two lane road. He told us at some point in our lives we have to choose to go up or down. Not understanding this was a metaphysical question I thought I wanted to go south(it was quite possibly a subconscious thing. I never liked visiting my grandmother during the summer she lived in the north, we lived in the south). This was an indoctrination exercise designed to scare good values into us. It didn't work because boys will be boys and my brothers and I loved raising hell... so to speak.
I didn't doubt my faith again until years later when I was 17 and started wondering why I prayed before I went to sleep every night. Then I just stopped altogether. At 18 I started wondering why bad things happened to good people. I lost my faith in god and was toying with the notion of satanism. At 19 my anger towards god subsided and I became a full fledged atheist. By 20 I had come out of the closet to a very disapproving catholic mother. She told me I was going to hell, I told her that was going to happen regardless. Unlike some atheist I didn't come to this conclusion through scientific reasoning. Because of apathy and a poor education I had a very vague grasp on evolution, instead mine was a more personal and emotional journey.