I had little use for religion when I was a boy. I went to a Southern Baptist church, but the pastor there was a nice old man who never worried with things like "Hell" or "damnation." I only went occasionally, when I was at my grandmother's, or with my father. I had little use for religion when I was a boy. I went to a Southern Baptist church, but the pastor there was a nice old man who never worried with things like "Hell" or "damnation." I only went occasionally, when I was at my grandmother's, or with my father.

However, my father died when I was four, after only being married to my mother for less than a year. (I later realized that I was born during my father's SECOND marriage, and not in between like I had once thought.) My mother took it pretty hard, and so we quit going to church, as it was HIS church, not hers.

I went through, believing in God, but mostly not caring. I was occasionally upset by the idea of evil, and of good non-Christians going to hell, but I did not worry about it much.

I got involved with fantasy and mythology when I was 7 years old, and for a while believed in Zeus and Demeter, but then realized they were just stories. I also believed in evolution and dinosaurs, while at the same time believing in Adam and Eve. (Cognitive dissonance means nothing to a seven-year-old.)

My mom's grandmother took me to church with her for a while as well, to a fairly Pentecostal-type church. However, even at seven, I knew more of the Bible than my Sunday school teacher.

Then, however, we moved in with one of my Mom's friends. She went to church at a VERY fundamentalist church, a Church of Christ. No instruments were allowed, women never led anything other than Sunday School, and all boys and girls had to behave.

Here I learned of why evolution was wrong. Here I learned that any sex outside of marriage was bad. Here I learned that the Bible has all of the answers. And it is from here that I went to Bible Camp. Here, I was becoming a religious boy once again.

I loved Bible camp. We got to go, sing, read the Bible, pray, and go to Chapel a total of (roughly) three times a day. I think I went a total of three times to camp. Here, though, I had the worst revelation of my life.

My father is in Hell. During a lesson about the evils of sex, I realized that. Then, I realized that my mother was going there. Both had committed sex outside of marriage, and dad had divorced two different women. And, oh no, the Sermon on the Mount says that to marry someone who has divorced is the same as committing adultery. (I still didn't know what had happened.)

This really depressed me. So, I went on to school, but all the moving around made me more withdrawn. I had fewer friends. My own family called me "antisocial." Mostly, though, I refused to deal with it. I just let it rest, and retreated into my world of fantasy, science fiction, and religion, though inside a battle was raging.

When I had just become a teenager, I started going to church occasionally to a Lutheran church with my older sister (by my father's first marriage). I came to hate parts of it. One line threw me every time. "Father, forgive us, for ALL are worthy of Hell." I could not believe that everybody should go to hell. At the same time, I met a guy by the name of Danny Weinstein, who introduced me to atheism, and left doubts in my brain.

My freshman year, I started to realize that I was not really a Baptist boy any more, nor by far a Church of Christer. I soon quit believing that really all that many were going to Hell (something I never deeply believed anyway).

By early sophomore year, I came across Unitarianism. The concept of there being no eternal hell appealed to me. Wouldn't everyone be able to eventually repent? Couldn't God use the fires to cleanse people, instead of just punishing them?

However, I soon realized that to get rid of Hell meant chucking the Bible with it. If any part of the Bible was wrong, than it was not infallible, thus all of it was suspect. However, I could not believe in an uncreated cosmos. I became a Deist, in the grand tradition of Jefferson and Paine.

Again, though, I realized that such a deity was just a way of my avoiding what I did not want to confront. I came to the conclusion that an uncreated universe made as much sense as an uncreated God. I became agnostic in principle, but soon was atheist in practice. I believed (and still do believe) that there is no God, but I cannot prove it.

I am now seventeen, and almost out of high school. I have spent much of that time researching religion, as well as philosophy. My beliefs have changed much, but I am as firm in my atheism (which means not very) as I was when I changed. I am rather unsure about there being a God. I am just sure that most religions are wrong.

I can look at religions in a better light now, though, especially now that I know that not all religions are fundamentalist. I can look back on my life, and remember, mostly, what it was like to be like that. However, it is rather hard most times. It seems a long time ago. But it was only a few years. . .

Details