I was brought up in a traditionally Catholic country, Portugal.
People never shoved the thing down my throat, but there was the overlying sense that everyone believed in the existence of a god, the christian god.... and I was oblivious about other gods...so... that was the one worldwide god, as far as I knew...
Then, one day, listening to the radio, they said they had footage of something that happened on some remote Chinese village... and I thought "wow, they have cameras everywhere, nowadays" (this was way back in 1990... so imagine now!)... "hey, you know what else they say is everywhere? god.... how come the two never meet?".
That was the spark.
About 2 years later, I find that there's a name for people like me: atheist. And up to some 20% of the world's population are atheists?! wow... I'm not alone, anymore!
My mind then set out to make sense of why people believe this stuff.
Well, I'm still trying to make sense of it... but most of it is clearly from childhood indoctrination.
People never shoved the thing down my throat, but there was the overlying sense that everyone believed in the existence of a god, the christian god.... and I was oblivious about other gods...so... that was the one worldwide god, as far as I knew...
Then, one day, listening to the radio, they said they had footage of something that happened on some remote Chinese village... and I thought "wow, they have cameras everywhere, nowadays" (this was way back in 1990... so imagine now!)... "hey, you know what else they say is everywhere? god.... how come the two never meet?".
That was the spark.
About 2 years later, I find that there's a name for people like me: atheist. And up to some 20% of the world's population are atheists?! wow... I'm not alone, anymore!
My mind then set out to make sense of why people believe this stuff.
Well, I'm still trying to make sense of it... but most of it is clearly from childhood indoctrination.
