Jay P Posted March 16, 2005 Report Share Posted March 16, 2005 If by "atheist" is meant: one who has no belief in God, then I've always been an atheist. I grew up in a mostly secular environment, and the first I ever even heard that there were people who believed in something called God was probably when I was about 5 years old. I can remember thinking at a very young age that it was incredible that adults actually believed in such a thing. (I also knew that some people thought 13 and black cats were unlucky, and I put religion into the same category.) Growing up, religion wasn't an issue at all, since all of my friends were either not religious, or else didn't talk about it. And I was always very interested in science, and the idea of a mystical creator didn't fit with what I knew about the world. I couldn't have believed in God if I'd tried, because I would have been unable to integrate that belief with my increasing scientific knowledge. I also always had a good deal of resistance to Christianity on an ethical level. I could see that it was a set of beliefs that was used to take money from productive people and give it to "unfortunate" others who were supposedly more deserving. Guilt inducing. And I wanted no part of that. I also always wanted to very much be in control of my life. This was in conflict with what I heard from various born-again Christians about having God in control of one's life. So the whole religion package never had any attraction for me at all. To this day, it still seems strange that adults actually believe some God exists. I know some do, and I know that rejecting such a belief is difficult for some and can in fact be a tremendous achievement that takes a lot of courage. When I started reading Ayn Rand (I read her non-fiction first) I was quite happy to discover that she was an atheist. Here, finally, was somebody who was morally defending capitalism, which I've loved ever since I can remember, without using religion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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