How to Become a Nonbeliever

A friend and I were talking and I mentioned that I was once headed for seminary. She knows I am an atheist, or minimally an agnostic, and asked "- -why a young man headed for seminary then decides there's no God." Good question. The story begins in my teens. I went to University and persued the dual pastimes of raising hell and being religious. There I had a conversation with my mentor/priest in which I said I had a problem, and that was I was becoming convinced there was no God. He said something like "Hmmm. That could be a problem. Maybe you should take some time to reconsider your options." I did, and stand here now not a priest. Why, though? That is difficult. I was raised in the Church (Episcopal, the other Church), and did all the things you do. Lessons, confirmation, first communion, Sunday school, choir, poems about Jesus. The whole nine yards. But somewhere in the late days of high school and the early days of college I just changed. First I came to understand that the trinity was a fabrication of men, that Jesus,if he existed at all was a good man hard put upon, and finally that the God needed man more than man needed God. From there it was not a long step to atheist.

Lately, though, I have seen developing a biological explanation. This centers around the tendency to be a "believer" or a "non-believer". In any population and in every time we have records of there is always a subset of people that eschew the concept of the Divine. Period. The majority believe in some Divine, and 10% or so do not. And cannot. I am in that 10%.

I don't need any supernatural constructs. I don't rely on some absent landlord to look after me. I follow my own understanding of the rules to live by and live by them. They are much like the Golden Rule, and from that all others devolve. I don't believe that the 10 commandments are at all Divine, and some, like honor your mother and father, are nonsense. I honor those that deserve and earn it, not some accident of birth. Should a child molested by her father honor him? Pure nonsense. And not killing? Ha! People have always and will always kill. Any serious god would either forget that commandment or enforce it.

So there you have it. An early recognition that God isn't necessary for anything besides the control of churches, and nature has all the answers anyone needs. I do agree, however, that the 90% of you who are believers are comforted by your beliefs. I just don't understand how you can be so blind as to not see the truth as I see it. Of course, the converse is also true. And when I die, I will be dead. Period. Or to borrow a line from Flanders and Swann "- - and out went all the lights." (1)

Image:http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/attachments/LWR_Image.JPG

1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyeMFSzPgGc