Why I don't believe........

I was recently asked why I decided to declare myself an Atheist. This answer is very complicated but I will try to be concise in my response.

I was raised Catholic. I remember sitting at the pews during mass, looking up at the huge painting of the crucified Christ before me, his mangled body, his suffering, and wondering if my father would allow the same thing to happen to me. I could not reconcile even at that early age how a loving god could let the suffering of his only son take place? To forgive our sins?

I recall that almost every evening I would find myself downstairs at my grandparents; listening to my grandfather, father, and whomever else came by arguing about philosophy, religion, or the news. These conversations would get quite heated and loud, but they thought me a very valuable lesson and that was to think, to use my brain.

Skip to High school, where I had some friends convince me to attend a local Baptist church. I was baptized and went on my merry way, attending Sundays and seminars. At this time we were living in poverty and as a result I did not have the finest clothing to wear to church. I remember the looks from the fellow worshipers, the distain on their faces. I thought to myself that even Christ hung around the poor and downtrodden, how they dare judge me for my clothing!

In the following years I continued my search for god. I became a Wiccan, almost converted to Judaism, Dabbled in Bahi, looked into Taoism and Buddhism, I even attended a service at a local Mosque.

All I found in these was contradiction and people willing to kill for their “faith”. They were not even practicing what the tenants of their religions prefaced.

And then I found the two loves of my life, history and science. History taught me that there were no less than 6 messiahs during the time of Christ that all were born of a virgin birth, raised the dead, professed to be the son of god, were sacrificed for humanity, and rose from the dead. This list also includes the Roman God Hercules (whose virgin birthday falls on December 25th). This didn’t stop there. Much of the book of Psalms was taken almost word for word from the Egyptian Pharaoh Akanatan. The story of Noah and the flood was taken, again almost word for word from the Babylonian texts, The Epics Of Gilgamesh. In fact the 4 gospels of the bible were written at least 4 decades after the death of Christ, and were only included in the bible by a committee of Christians 2 hundred years later (other books were thrown out at this time such as the Gospel of Thomas, The gospel of Judas, and the gospel of Mary Magdalene). History also taught me the almost unbelievable atrocities done in the name of god.

Science taught me that the universe is 14+ billion years old, that we evolve over time, and that there are 100 Billion stars in our Galaxy and over a 100 Billion galaxies out there. It also taught me just how precious we all are, how unique we all are, and yet how linked we all are to everything else. I learned that we are almost identical biologically to all the other primates on the planet. Most important it taught me how to think critically, how to argue logically and how to identify the fallacies in other people’s arguments. To me these concepts seem so much more profound than a myth of god or the threat of eternal damnation.
Both taught me that the functions of religion were Law and to explain the nature of the world around us. In modern times the law is the realm of government and the search for truth has been taken up by science. So what does that leave religion? Control? In the case of Fundamental Christianity and Islam that is most certainly true. One could argue that without religion we would not have the crusades, witch burning, the inquisition, the massacre of the native Americans, the holocaust, or 9-11.

But how can I be a moral person without god. Well, I believe that morality is both a taught behavior and a inherited one. Morality is the glue that holds our society together. I was raised by two very free thinkers, and I have never been in jail, never stolen a car, never had a drug problem, never ran away from home. I don’t obey the law because I am in fear of god. I obey because it is the right thing to do for me to function in society.

I no longer live in fear of offending a jealous god. I just live in fear of what his followers are capable of in his name.