My first memories of church occurred when I was about three or four years old. I was with my great grandparents and my most vivid memory is not of the beautiful sanctuary, but of the ladies restroom. My family was raised Catholic. My great grandparents, grandparents, and my father all attended Catholic schools. My grandparents went to church every Sunday no matter what. They were very devout. However, my father never went. And my mother refused to let them baptize me as a baby into the Catholic Church. She thought that should be my decision.
My next memories of religion occurred in elementary school. I was very close to my cousin and often stayed overnight with my aunt and uncle. They were Baptist. On several occasions I attended church with them. My cousin and I attended Sunday school and learned bible stories. I remember learning about Noah and his ark and about Jonah having been swallowed by a whale. I remember distinctly rationalizing that these stories were just that...stories. They didn't sound like anything plausibly real and my young mind dismissed them as such. I liked reading the stories and coloring pictures they gave me, but I wasn't quite old enough to grasp the concept that others believed these stories to be in fact real.
My next Sunday school school experience came around the age of twelve or thirteen. My best friend attended the same Catholic Church as my family did and I was invited to accompany her to church a few times and Sunday school classes. In church, when it was time to receive communion, her mother had asked if I had been baptized there. I'll never forget her reaction when I answered that I had never been baptized anywhere. Things suddenly changed. I wasn't allowed to receive communion with everyone else. I was made to feel that something was wrong that needed to be fixed. She couldn't believe my Catholic family had failed to baptize me. I was told I would need to be baptized to get into heaven. Wait....what? Some old man had to dunk me into water in front of a bunch of people in order for me to go to heaven. I couldn't believe what I had heard. It was unfathomable to me that an all loving Jesus Christ would allow me to burn in hell, even if I was a good person, simply because I didn't have some water thrown on me. This was the beginning of years of confusion I felt within.
I attended Sunday school with my friend a few times and became even more confused. We were taught about Jesus Christ and then allowed to discuss what we had learned with the teacher. I was shy and often didn't speak out in class. However, there was one boy in class that asked a lot of questions. He was skeptical of some of the things she was telling us and he questioned her about them. They were some of the same questions I had myself. She very quickly became noticeably flustered by his examination of the scripture. And I began to realize something too. She didn't have answers to the questions he asked. She would simply say, "That's when it all comes down to faith. You just have to have faith that Gods word is always right." Even as a young person, I thought this was odd. Why could she not answer some pretty straight forward questions? That young boy was eventually asked not to come back to Sunday school because he was causing problems.
Years later, when I was in high school, I started dating a really nice guy whose family also attended the same Catholic Church as my family. He had even attended the same Catholic school until the eighth grade. It worked out at first because religion didn't seem to be an overwhelming part of his life and he was ok with the fact that I had not been baptized. Once we started college, he met some evangelical Christians who held weekly bible study classes at each other's houses. We would sing and read scripture. I really tried to accept Jesus during this time because I really loved my boyfriend and wanted to be with him and I wanted to go to heaven. During these bible studies, guests would share what God had told them. I was so lost during this time because God had never told me anything. These people claimed that they would ask for Gods guidance and he would answer them and guide them. God never answered me or offered me any guidance. Was something wrong with me? Did God not think I was worthy of speaking to? I started not only to question myself but began to question if they were being truthful with themselves. They never could provide any proof that God had said anything to them. It was basically just their word and I should just have faith that God was talking to them.
My relationship ended when my boyfriend spent every dime of his savings to buy bibles to give away. This was money he needed for other things like school and a car. If he was wanting to help people, I thought a better choice would have been to buy food and clothing for the needy, not a book. About this same time, he told me that he was going to be baptized again. I couldn't understand why. Did Jesus not think once was enough? On top of that, he was going to do it with several other friends from bible study in an apartment complex swimming pool...in the middle of winter! I finally said enough is enough. Blowing his savings and putting his health in danger in order to please a God who never bothered including me in his conversations was more than I could take.
I live in the Bible Belt and nobody that I knew questioned the existence of God. It wasn't until the murder of Madeline Murray O'Hare that I had even heard of the word atheist. I was immediately intrigued that there was someone else that thought like I did. However, it was something that I kept to myself because people spoke hatefully about her and atheists. I was scared to express my true beliefs. After all, she had been murdered.
During my last year of college, I took a class on World religions. I'll never forget the first time I read the Epic of Gilgamesh, a work of literature older than the bible. It unmistakenly contained stories that were extremely similar to the bible. We began to learn of other texts that contained other biblical stories. I was introduced to Gods who had lived long before Jesus Christ, yet contained strikingly similar bios. I realized the bible was simply a rehashing of much older stories that had been around long before. It was like a ton of bricks had been lifted from my shoulders. I no longer feared hell, I no longer yearned for heaven. I realized that this may be my one shot at existence and I should make it count. I felt a greater responsibility to be a good and loving person and to make the most of my life. I no longer felt threatened. I no longer felt afraid of death. It was a natural part of life that everyone would experience.
The rise of the Internet was responsible for my coming out of the closet as an atheist. In the last several years, I have found groups of atheists who can speak to each other about our disbelief and strengthen and perfect arguments that are often presented to us from believers. I have become much more knowledgeable about the bible and other religious scriptures and that has only cemented my atheism. You see, most atheists don't wake up one day and say "I reject God." It's a journey that all atheists have had, a process of discerning information we have received over our lifetimes and coming to a conclusion about it. Like Benjamin Franklin once said, "Once the mind has become enlightened, it cannot again become dark."
Lisa J is a teacher and blogger in Fort Worth, Texas
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