(Alert: This is likely one of the longest posts in the history of Susan's Place. But please bear with me, OK?)
Well, technically I am a former atheist (whole history: started out at 4 years old as Protestant Christian, became atheist at 8, became Vilaqaren at 16) but I suppose telling about the time when I was one, and how I became one, gives me the right to post here.
So, as I said, I started out as Protestant Christian. My first contact with religion in the first place was....I don't really remember what the event was exactly called, but my family never went to church or anything. Anyway, I was 4, and it was this kind of event that mainly involved singing. Or at least in theory, mostly it was the adults singing and trying to get the kids to sing along. It didn't involve any parents, however. The songs were pretty much all about God and Jesus as someone to turn to when you were worried, and things like that. Back then, I didn't really understand the concept, but I kind of liked it as according to the songs, God was a kind of like the ultimate parent and friend at the same time.
Fast forward to primary school. As it was written in the official papers that I was Protestant Christian, (and technically it still is, but that information is worthless, as the same paper also states that I am male.) I had to study religion, and back in the early grades that meant a selection of stories from the Bible. Now, that wasn't so bad, and I kind of liked it due to how easy it was. You just had to memorize some details, and you automatically got a good score with that alone. Now, as for how I became an atheist.....well, there were the sermons. A priest from a nearby church showed up and held a sermon on a Friday morning twice a month. Those sermons were among my least favourite times at school, and I wasn't alone with my opinion. It had started out as a potentially cool new thing, then quickly became old, then boring, then annoying, and soon we were at the point where we sang along with mock lyrics or tried to discuss our latest video game accomplishments without the teachers noticing. And that is how I stopped caring about God, Jesus, the Bible, or Christianity in general, and started declaring myself an atheist.
At the point I reached secondary school, the whole class was unofficially atheist, mostly because we felt that Christianity was being forced upon us. We outright envied those whose official papers stated that they were atheists, because they never had to attend those sermons or any church-related events. We had those, too. Sermons for the advent, Christmas, Easter, the beginning of summer, all held at the local church.
My opinion towards Buddhism, Jainism, Shinto and the like was more positive, as those religions were different, exotic, and I learned about them without having to believe in them. And then there were the "pagan" religions, which I (at the time, of course) thought of more as mythology than religion, not something one could believe in, but still interesting stuff that one could even look up on their spare time. We didn't really have much about those in school, it was still all very Christianity-centric in our school, though none of the teachers was a fanatic, so we could even openly voice our dislike of religious studies, and really didn't have to care about anything involving religion outside religion class. Though there was a time we pretended to be a human-sacrificing cult during recess, and somebody's fundamentalist parents tried to raise an outrage over their kid having participated in that.
Yeah, back then religion really didn't mean much to me. Religions were either something bleak and hypocritical that was being forced on me and others, or interesting, but trivial knowledge about cultures that were either dead or on the other side of the world. As such, I was an atheist, for all intents and purposes, and back then I wouldn't have traded that independence from religious rules, restrictions, fears of divine punishment and all that stuff for anything.
As I matured up, I started to realize that maybe a negative attitude towards Christianity was not exactly the right thing to think like. Sure, it was being forced upon me, but in its core, the point of all that wasn't trying to harm me. The religion's attempt to "convert" me was misguided and frustrating, but the religion as a whole didn't really deserve all that hatred I had for it. Sure, I still have some resentment towards Christianity, but that is mostly because of how it is negatively affecting the world for me and others, and not because it was being forced on me as a kid. And that resentment is not exactly towards the religion in itself, but towards the people who use it as a reason to harm others or make their life difficult.
Same thing with all other religions. I never hate the religions in themselves, and most I actually find quite interesting, but I do still have my share of hatred for the people who use their beliefs for harmful purposes.
That includes people from the religion I follow (technically, me and the majority of the religion of Sala'i Vilak are no longer in speaking terms because I tried convincing them to finally re-introduce themselves to the world and become officially recognized as a religion. That, and they didn't really respond well to my personal beliefs about our gods, or to my opinion that every single Christian in the world isn't an evil fanatic who wants to see us all burn on a stake. Well, at least I tried.) and atheists, too.
As for how I ended up choosing an obscure, virtually unknown and officially nonexistent religion over atheism, something completely new and unknown over what I had been able to rely on most of my life.....that is another story, and doesn't really belong under this topic.
Anyway, I think I'm done for the night. I really need to sleep after writing this much stuff.
