What follows is my first diary on Dkos, go easy on me...or be brutal, I don't know what tradition requires.
I was asked recently, by an online acquaintance, on a different site, why I am an atheist, how I became an atheist. You see this acquaintance is religious and we have had occasional heated debates about one subject or another. I gave him the pithy response, "Like everyone I was born an atheist, I just skipped the indoctrination bit".
Well you can imagine that answer, ok non-answer, went over like a lead balloon and to be fair rightfully so. Well I had penned an answer to a similar question some time back for another website..
So follow along below the (insert favorite colorful metaphor) and see how I answered that question.
To be honest I can’t remember when I became an atheist, in fact I still maintain I have always been one. My Father was religious, but I cant honestly say just how much. In any case, because he was in the Navy he wasn't home enough to really influence my belief, my Mother was the opposite. Both of them came from religious families and my aunts and uncles on both sides of the family to this day are quite religious. That my parents divorced when I was young probably spared me from much religious influence.
I do recall when very young I was sent to Sunday school, I can’t recall how often that occurred, be it every Sunday or just an occasional one, for that matter I couldn't tell you with any conviction which particular denomination of christianity that Sunday school was but I do recall being asked one day by my Mom, "Do you want to go back?"
My response was no of course. In all fairness, my response probably had less to do with some intellectual conclusion about religion I had come to, than with my desire to hop on my bike and play with my friends on Sunday morning as opposed to dressing up and going to some boring school.
Through adolescence in the 60's and 70's it really didn’t come up much, and I never thought about it. My family went on with its day to day business never thinking one iota about Jesus, the Pope, Mohammed or any other religious icon, my only exposure to Mother Mary was from a Beatles song.
As a kid I went to Easter egg hunts, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas like every other person I knew. Some of my friends’ families said prayers before thanksgiving dinner, we didn’t, and it didn’t change the holiday for us, nor did it occur to me that it mattered. I of course was aware of the religious significance of Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas but it never mattered to my family and so I paid no attention. Such holidays have always been about getting together with friends and family and enjoying their company over a good meal or some killer x-mas loot.
As a young adult in the 80's I began to think some about religion, mostly because it started to come up from time to time, the most common occasions were when Mormons would come knocking on our door to proselytize. There was also an invitation I received, and accepted, to attend a vegetarian feast at a nearby Hare Krishna temple (which was excellent by the way). To be honest that experience is probably the most positive experience I've had with any religion that I can recall, there were the saffron colored robes and the many pamphlets on a nearby rack, but never once did one of them ask me what my beliefs were, or tell me how I should embrace Krishna, all there was, was a neighborly attitude and a nice lunch. I recall telling people at this time in my life, that yes indeed I believed in god, I knew full well that I didn’t, but I also knew that somehow it was socially unacceptable not to.
I remember one day, while my roommate and I were puttering around the garage preparing to move, for the fifth time that year, more missionaries arrived at our doorstep and started proselytizing. Not Mormons this time but local evangelicals who spouted out something like "Don’t you agree that Christianity is the one true religion?" and both I and my roommate descended on them pelting them with reasons we disagreed, well mostly my roommate, he was always smarter than I.
This particular friend, has since become quite religious, I still think of him as a very close friend and I am gratified that even though we now live thousands of miles apart that on the rare occasions we manage to get together religion doesn’t come between us. In fact, it never comes up. I have other friends who over the years have become more religious than when I first met them, It hasn't changed the way I feel about them, they don't try to convert me, and I certainly don't try to convert them. Mostly it just never comes up.
That’s a recurring theme for me, in my daily life, religion just doesn’t come up. Maybe that’s a function of living in California, we have plenty of churches and mosques, and even BRIT (Buck Rodgers Institute of Technology) which is my name for the Mormon Temple in San Diego, I swear it looks like Space Mountain at Disneyland, (dont just take my word for it, google earth it) but it doesn’t seem terribly religious here to me.
This theme of course has changed over time, clearly since the Reagan administration, religion has become more and more prevalent in its influence on both local and national politics. It’s that influence that has cemented my atheism. I can easily accept that people take comfort from religion, I by no means wish to take that away from anyone, for the life of me I cannot fathom why that courtesy isn’t reciprocated by many (here in the States by mostly Christians) towards atheists.
I can honestly say, the machine has yet to be invented that can accurately measure my indifference to the religious belief of anyone. Provided that belief doesn’t get forced down my, or anyone else’s throat who doesn’t want it there, provided it’s not used as the basis of legislation that applies to believers and non-believers alike, provided its not used as an excuse to teach their dogma in public schools and provided it isn’t used as an excuse to deprive anyone of their rights. Within those limits, I couldn’t possibly care less what a person does on their particular holy day or who they pray to.
I have to admit that recent years (decade or two) have made me less tolerant to organized religion, between the tea party, the increasing influence of Dominionists, the exposure of decades, perhaps centuries, of rampant child abuse by the Catholic church, a massive increase in Republican attempts to enshrine xian doctrine into our laws and schools, what seems to be increasing distrust of science and the abhorrent way the LGBT community is treated nationwide, I've found it difficult sometimes to be as gracious as I've been in the past.
So why am I an atheist? Ultimately I think for the same reason so many people are religious, I was raised that way, I personally have no need for religion, that other people do is fine, I just don't. In addition, as I've learned more about religion, the more I am turned off by it intellectually. No soul searching required, no epiphanies, no difficult breaks with family or friends just a life without need or desire of faith in the supernatural.