If you were ever a theist...

[Excited Penguin]

I've told this story many times, but here goes.

My belief got challenged in a major way when I was in seventh grade, barely a teenager. It was around the time when I first started having deep thoughts about various things and began reading more serious literature and even a little philosophy. A classmate of mine, a girl, was an atheist, and when I first found out about it I was a little surprised. We were a tight group of friends so it was natural to start talking to her about it. I was at first arrogant in my approach but then I liked our talks so much we started chatting online as well(yeah, I know, I'm a pup who grew up with the internet). So I was in the middle of writing a long letter to her, as per her request, giving my best arguments as to why to believe in God was the most logical thing ever, more or less, and I deconverted myself in the process. I was literally thinking about an argument I was about to make when something clicked. Something was wrong. I went back and read everything up until that point and the last thing I wrote still didn't make sense. So I realised there's no obvious reason why God should exist, in fact there was none that I could think of.

I later learned she had an older brother who was either a physicist or studying physics in the U.S. at the time, if I'm not mistaken. I never asked her about it but I suppose that's where she got her skeptical side from. Whatever the reason, I'm grateful I talked to her. I might still be a believer to this day. It suited me. I was a happy moron, more or less. Right after I let go of it I realised what a different person I would have become if not for my sudden awakening. It changed me completely. I was suddenly aware of how I had lived in a fantasy world. I had been the wrong sort of idealist, the one that is so dogmatically tied to his unjustifiable beliefs that they become an unquestionable part of his worldview. Today this old side of me disgusts me, despite the fact that I was just a kid and couldn't have necessarily known any better.

I came up with a lot of theories of my own for why people believe in God over the years. A universal longing for some sort of authority where one is either lacking or inadequate; a failure of using and understanding language; a malfunction of the psyche caused by misery and suffering that forces one to believe impossible things in order to cope with the world around him; and so on.

I still find it amazing that people believe it, though. A part of me thinks they know it's a fantasy, deep down, as well. The hold it has on them is frightening, nonetheless. Especially since we can objectively say it's as ridiculous and unjustifiable as anything ever can be(Hogwarts, ghosts, Zeus, invisible ponies, etc.). We live in a world where people believe in fantastical creatures that they think created them and the world around them, and not only that, these creatures somehow have a personal connection with them, influence their lives and watch over them. It's a perverse thing to believe and it's incredibly dangerous both because of how much people believe it and how little reason they have to(none). You can't tell how much harm a false belief can do to you(or others) or how terribly it might affect your own actions, especially not if you're not able to be honest with yourself about it, no matter how "moderate" you think you really are.