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Name: Daniel
Country: United States
Metro: Rogers
Gender: Male
Interests: German, Music (Rammstein, Dresden Dolls, Franz Ferdinand, classical), Playing Bass, Atheism, Looking back in movie theatres, Fast-paced action sequences narrated by a calm voice, philosophy, debates, Movies (Star Wars, Kung Pow, Kill Bill [Quentin Tarantino in general], Stanley Kubrick films),TV (Desperate Housewives [laugh all you want, bastards], Kids in the Hall, Adult Swim, Food Network) Video Games (Guitar Hero, Devil May Cry, Tekken, Halo, GTA, Fable, etc)
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
AIM:  whitestormy2021
Member Since:
3/12/2005
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We were in a zombie movie.
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| Evolution of an Atheist
I was in elementary school when I stopped believing in God. No, there wasn’t any traumatic experience or dramatic revelation; I simply quit believing. To some that may be shocking, but to me it wasn’t that important. As I grew up, however, my reasons for being an atheist would mature, and I would struggle against the church and my own family in order to become comfortable in my beliefs and achieve self-acceptance.
I do not come from a very religious family. When I was young, we lived in Wisconsin, and we—like many of our fellow Northerners—were Lutheran. I went to church regularly, but I never understood it. The whole concept of worshipping some mystical being who created the whole universe and was keeping a constant eye on us confused me, to say the least. The first time I went to church, I remember seeing the pastor and asking my parents, “Is that God?” “No,” they responded. I then saw another pastor, so I asked, “Oh, is that God?” Again, “No.” If God was not there, what was the purpose of us going there to worship Him? Throughout the years I grew comfortable singing the songs and following along with the prayers, but I still did not have a full understanding of what religion was.
When I was seven, my family moved to Arkansas (what better than the Bible Belt to serve as a backdrop for my theological revelation?), and I was soon going to a new Lutheran church. Through Sunday school and more church services, I learned the basics of Christianity: God, Creation, Sin, Jesus, the cross. Despite my new knowledge of religion, I remained rather apathetic towards it, and never bothered to really get involved. That is, until the third or fourth grade, when I first heard the theory of evolution. I instantly accepted it. Even though the version of the theory I knew then was only the bare essentials of Darwin’s hypothesis—that humans had evolved from apes—it still rang true for me. I did not know how evolution would have worked or why, but I still believed it, and I wanted to brag about what I knew. I told my friends that I believed in evolution and did not believe in God. One day, I was sitting at a lunch table when an acquaintance was talking to some other students I didn’t know very well, and he said with more than a hint of ridicule, “Daniel thinks we came from monkeys.” This was the first time someone used what I believed in against me. Being called out like that made me feel vulnerable and embarrassed, so starting then I tried to avoid those types of situations. It seemed as though not believing in God was unacceptable; it was something to be ashamed of. I became less outspoken of my views.
Evasion characterized my behavior towards religious confrontation from then on. When my sister somehow found out I didn’t believe in God, she tried to confront me, but I ran away from her, literally. A few minutes later I ended up cornered in my dad’s bathroom. When she demanded of me why I didn’t believe in God, I had no real answers for her; I just didn’t. I tried to explain how the Bible’s version of creation was wrong, but I could not come up with a sufficient argument to support myself. That wasn’t good enough for my sister, who said she was going to tell Dad that I didn’t believe in God. That was the last thing I wanted to happen. I knew that Dad would get mad and start interrogating me. Unable to explain myself, I would just have to sit and timidly respond, “I don’t know” to his questions. She wouldn’t tell Dad—that would be going too far; why would she? But sure enough, when I heard the door close behind my dad as he came home from work, the next thing out of my sister’s mouth was “Daniel doesn’t believe in God.” I was angry, embarrassed, but most of all, ashamed. I tried to appear deeply involved in a video game so as to avoid talking to my father, but I still saw him walk past my door, look at me, and shake his head in disappointment. Starting then I entered what could be called a latency phase, and it was a long time before I again pushed my Atheism.
I attended church, joined the youth group, and even began Confirmation in the sixth grade. At our church, Confirmation was a four-year program leading up to the Confirmation ceremony, in which students would have to declare their faith in front of the congregation, as well as write a “faith statement,” an essay declaring the same thing. I did not want to go, either out of laziness or rebellion I do not know, but my brother and sister had both been through the program, and I wasn’t going to get out of it. The classes didn’t seem that bad for the first two years: sitting in church or at another youth-group member’s house, eating food, and occasionally discussing the Bible. Yet, as the Confirmation ceremony loomed closer and closer, I grew increasingly nervous. I tried to tell my dad that I did not want to be confirmed, but I could not explain why. Now that I was forced to go to Confirmation, my Atheism resurged. I wanted to know for certain that I did not believe in God; and once sure of myself, I would need to be able to convince others that my reasons for not believing were legitimate. Currently I could do none of those things, so I turned to the greatest source of information available: the Internet. I researched Atheism as much as I could, learning the details of DNA mutations, punctuated equilibrium, the Big Bang, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, intelligent design, moral relativity, Pascal’s Wager, Nietzsche, C.S. Lewis, Deism, Humanism, and metaphysics. I read essays about evolution and creationism, inconsistencies in the Bible, and religious satires. I poured over arguments for both sides, but one theory clearly made more sense. I armed myself with a wealth of knowledge, faults in religious thought, arguments and counter-arguments for every possible debate; I was firmly entrenched in Atheism.
The continuing Confirmation process, the process of shoving Christianity down my throat, produced a gag reflex. I no longer attended Confirmation with a resigned but open ear; I took everything I was being taught and used it against itself. In my mind, lessons of “The Ten Commandments” reeked of the exclusion of the very different Ten Commandments written in Exodus 34; “Why Jesus Died for Your Sins” became “Why Jesus’ Dying Does Not Make Any Sense.” When given the opportunity, I would sneak in remarks reflecting my true thoughts. I submitted an anonymous question to the pastor that read, “Why did God have to sacrifice Himself to Himself to change a rule that He made?” Another remark I wrote pointed out the discrepancy between the caring, slow-to-anger New Testament God who proclaimed love for the world, and the wrathful, barbaric Old Testament God whose wrath was “quickly kindled” (Psalm 2:11), who killed a man for gathering sticks (Numbers 15:32-36), allowed and encouraged the keeping of child sex slaves (Numbers 31:18), advocated genocide (Deuteronomy 7:1-2, 20:16-17), sent a bear to maul children (2Kings 3:24), and even ripped the unborn from the womb (Hosea 13:16). Needless to say, my pastor’s responses were less than satisfactory.
I was in the 10th grade, the year of the Confirmation ceremony, and I was determined not to attend. For the first time in over five years, I made my Atheism known to my family. My sister was once again upset, and tried to convince me that I needed to be confirmed. Smarter then than I was before, I was able to stand up for my beliefs and refute her arguments. I gradually brought it to my father’s attention that I was an atheist, and I did not want to be confirmed. He wouldn’t let me get out of it, not because of some fear for my soul or other spiritual reason, he merely said it was tradition, and I should “do it for him.” It was in this atmosphere of forced religious participation that I became my most anti-Christian, and bought my very own copy of Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible (which, by the way, is not about worshipping Satan, only about hating Christianity). I was running out of options and time. I wrote a scathing note to my youth pastor, leaving little doubt as to my religious affiliation. I hoped that this would be an easy way to get out of Confirmation, but very unluckily for me, the youth pastor quit just a few weeks later. I then had to tell the church pastor himself that I was an atheist. The two of us soon had a meeting in his office regarding my beliefs (or lack thereof). We each expressed our beliefs, brought up theological points, and quoted verses of the Bible. After what could only be called an uneasy conversation, he agreed that I, as an atheist, could not be confirmed. When I told my father this, he was not happy, but with no other choice, he eventually accepted my beliefs. By escaping a Christian Confirmation, I became a confirmed member of Atheism.
All my friends and family, including my grandparents, know I’m atheist. My dad’s work schedule has changed to include weekends, so I am no longer forced to attend church services. Outside of the occasional youth group letter or awkward running-into a member of my old church, I have cut off all ties with religion. With no real motivation or opposing force to provoke me, I have for the most part stopped researching Atheism, although there are a few books by LaVey and Nietzsche I’m still interested in. Atheism works for me, and I have grown to be very comfortable with it; I no longer attempt to hide or temper the extent of my beliefs. I do try to avoid bringing it up, since I find it wrong to push my beliefs on others, but if asked I will proudly declare, “I’m an atheist.”
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| My birthday is on Monday.
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