I was raised a moderate/liberal Catholic, and I bought all of it from day one. It never occured to me that there was a whole world out there that beleived completely opposite ideas with just as much vigor as I believed Christianity. I took it for granted that I was immortal, that God and Jesus were real, and that my prayers would be answered. I thought Sunday mass was boring, but I still believed. Public school in the U.S. is crap and never gave me any reason to actually enjoy learning, and hence any intellectual growth was stifled.

When I started college my beliefs were still intact, until I took a film class. We watched a movie by and starring Woody Allen called "Hannah and Her Sisters." Woody plays a Jewish hypochondriac who is scared of death and is worried that there might not be a god, and hence, an afterlife. He begins trying other religions, like Christianity, Hare Krishna, etc., and never really finds the happiness he seeks. In the end he realizes that if we only get one life, he might as well make the best of it while it lasts.

That got me thinking. "You can't just change reality by converting to a different religion." Reality is objective, not subjective. This is when I went through the usual crisis of faith; many sleepless nights; worrying about the possibility that my entire worldview was wrong. I prayed to God to give me answers. And the answers were always ambiguous. Never anything concrete. And the internet was just getting going about this time, so I read dozens of websites, both critical and supportive of Christianity.

And one day, like magic, my worries cleared up. I was an atheist. And I was happy with it. I realized that Santa For Adults wasn't real, and it didn't bother me. And that's how I've been ever since.

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