Virtual Illusions

Via Crecy

I think you’ll find that Christians will be pretty accepting if you tell them the truth: You an atheist, you don’t believe in God, but for the family’s sake you willing to come and listen with an open mind. Tell them you want to take it slow.

Allow me to share the one event that had the greatest long term effect of eventually leading me to atheism. It wasn’t until many years later that I became an atheist but this is the event that freed me to do so. I was raised pretty non-religious. I think my parents always assumed god existed but were pretty anti-establishment at the time. The upshot was I was never baptized or went to church.

When I was about 13 my father converted to Roman Catholic, my mother’s historical faith and we were supposed to become religious. I went to church and remedial Sunday school so that I could get baptized. When I finished the Sunday school course I believed in the sense of didn’t question (I was pretty credulous back then). So I was shuffled in to talk to the priest and in my recollection of the conversation I told the priest that I believed in god but I wasn’t willing to dedicate my whole life to him. You know I was a 13 year old with other things to do. This supposedly accepting and understanding priest told me that I was going to hell and refused to baptize me. He said if I was baptized my torture in hell would be worse because I had god’s mark on my soul. I haven’t been inside a church since then except for weddings and funerals and it is always with a deep seated unease.

If that’s what you mean by accepting I’ll skip thanks.

I always have to complete this story. Some years later this priest who judged me got in trouble for child molestation. I don’t know if the law was involved or he was quietly moved to another parish as happens in Boston. I always remember who it was who sat in judgment and said I wasn’t good enough to be Christian, and I take pride.

–Zafkiel

Philosophy/Religion