I am a person who simply does not believe in God. The word Atheist is used as an insult by most Americans. Here is my brief story.
I was born to an Irish-Catholic mother and a third generation Atheist (from a pre-Revolution family.
To please my loving mother, my dad allowed her to send me to Catholic Parochial school in a predominantly Irish neighborhood. My mother and my aunt taught me a bit about God but left out all of the blood and gore. At age 6 in first grade, I learned that Santa Claus was not real. The Easter Bunny was not real. Leprechauns were not real. Vampires and Werewolves were not real. So by the second grade, I more or less assumed that they would finally tell me that God is not real. I really expected that.
Then we had a child cartoon Bible and Catechism to study religion. I remember the first time I heard the story of Noah's Flood. Cartoon Elephants, rhinos, lions, and cattle walked two by two up the wooden plank into a wooden boat. Then God sent torrents of rain to kill every human being in the world and all of the animals (non-human) in a world-wide flood. Most of the kids simply accepted it. However I was horrified. Oh, the miracle was that God spared Noah and his family and two of ea.h animal kind. Everyone else and all other animals were drowned in the flood. One cartoon showed the boat floating while men, women, and children were splashing and drowning. God's reason was that some adult humans sinned.
I was enraged and stood up calling on the Nun to explain why God murdered so many innocent people and almost all animals on Earth. "It was because people sinned." I spoke rather loudly, "how could babies sin? How could animals be punished because some adult humans sinned?" She told me I do not have full understanding until I am older and to stop the conversation.
I was left with the impression that God was a cruel monster and I hoped that he was not real. He was too evil. He must be made up. So I was approaching agnosticism.
As time went on we learned of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone while Lot's wife was turned to salt or stone for looking back. Again I was horrified. Unlike my friends, I figured that in two cities there must be besides some bad people, there were likely babies and children who did not even know about sin. They were burned to death?
By then I was thinking in third grade that this God cannot be real. He must be a made up monster invented to scare kids like me. There were the Egyptian Plagues, the Israelite storm troopers invading city-kingdoms of Canaan killing men, women, children, and babies in the most brutal way condoned by or ordered by God.
Shorter version is that I read, studied science, learned about evolution, and developed an intuitive sense of morality. It looked like the natural world showed no sign of a God stomping about. Further education and examination of the Bible convinced me that there was no evidence supporting God.
I now simply do not have any reason to assume a god, and a god is unnecessary.
Gorgonopsid
I was born to an Irish-Catholic mother and a third generation Atheist (from a pre-Revolution family.
To please my loving mother, my dad allowed her to send me to Catholic Parochial school in a predominantly Irish neighborhood. My mother and my aunt taught me a bit about God but left out all of the blood and gore. At age 6 in first grade, I learned that Santa Claus was not real. The Easter Bunny was not real. Leprechauns were not real. Vampires and Werewolves were not real. So by the second grade, I more or less assumed that they would finally tell me that God is not real. I really expected that.
Then we had a child cartoon Bible and Catechism to study religion. I remember the first time I heard the story of Noah's Flood. Cartoon Elephants, rhinos, lions, and cattle walked two by two up the wooden plank into a wooden boat. Then God sent torrents of rain to kill every human being in the world and all of the animals (non-human) in a world-wide flood. Most of the kids simply accepted it. However I was horrified. Oh, the miracle was that God spared Noah and his family and two of ea.h animal kind. Everyone else and all other animals were drowned in the flood. One cartoon showed the boat floating while men, women, and children were splashing and drowning. God's reason was that some adult humans sinned.
I was enraged and stood up calling on the Nun to explain why God murdered so many innocent people and almost all animals on Earth. "It was because people sinned." I spoke rather loudly, "how could babies sin? How could animals be punished because some adult humans sinned?" She told me I do not have full understanding until I am older and to stop the conversation.
I was left with the impression that God was a cruel monster and I hoped that he was not real. He was too evil. He must be made up. So I was approaching agnosticism.
As time went on we learned of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone while Lot's wife was turned to salt or stone for looking back. Again I was horrified. Unlike my friends, I figured that in two cities there must be besides some bad people, there were likely babies and children who did not even know about sin. They were burned to death?
By then I was thinking in third grade that this God cannot be real. He must be a made up monster invented to scare kids like me. There were the Egyptian Plagues, the Israelite storm troopers invading city-kingdoms of Canaan killing men, women, children, and babies in the most brutal way condoned by or ordered by God.
Shorter version is that I read, studied science, learned about evolution, and developed an intuitive sense of morality. It looked like the natural world showed no sign of a God stomping about. Further education and examination of the Bible convinced me that there was no evidence supporting God.
I now simply do not have any reason to assume a god, and a god is unnecessary.
Gorgonopsid
Mythology and superstition shackle the brain, distort rational thinking, and promote harmful behavior.
