My parents were both atheists; the main influence on their thinking was the Marxist propaganda of the party state. I was about three or four when my father first told me that there were people who believed in a so-called “god” and I clearly remember that my first reaction to it was to liken it to the superstitions I had heard about before and to think that it was very stupid and ridiculous. Throughout my childhood, I positively hated religion.
My father also told me about what he (or rather, the propagandists he had listened to) thought were the merits of socialism: “If I produce something worth 100 forints, a capitalist boss would give me 80 and keep 20 for himself to buy things like yachts and big houses and so on. Under socialism, the state keeps 80 and I only get 20, but the state uses those 80 forints to build day care centers and things like that. So that’s why socialism is better than capitalism.” At that young age I lacked the sense of proportion to recognize why this was…not just ridiculous but actually funny, and I was completely unaware of the moral issues involved, so I sort of accepted it as something that must be true, without feeling very strongly about it one way or the other.
Nor was I aware of how socialism related to the first thing I remember admiring–the United States. (See my introduction thread.) Other things I admired as a child were the bus and railroad companies (which were the best examples of human achievement I directly experienced) and the Soviet space program (which I read a lot about). I remember what a conflict it was for me when my schoolteacher took my class downtown by bus–the school stood for languid stupidity, while the bus company was the symbol of strength; how could these two things ever mix?!
At the age of 6, my mother had taught me how to travel by bus to my grandparents, so that I could visit them alone. Being alone and achieving something alone was a new kind of experience for me, but I found that I absolutely LOVED it. From then on, I traveled alone a lot. A year later, I stopped staying in school in the afternoons under the supervision of grown-ups; I would go home and cook myself some food alone.
As part of the Communist education program, we had to form small groups–“brigades” of sort–in school and organize various kinds of get-togethers. I always hated those, and my classmates weren’t very enthusiastic either. Our teacher told us it was “all about the community” and that we had to “participate more in the community life.” Somehow that failed to make us more enthusiastic. :lol:
When I had some minor conflict of interest with other people, my mother would often tell me that I had to “adjust.” Similarly to my teacher’s preachings about “the community,” I didn’t find this talk of “adjusting” very convincing either.
In 1988, when Hungarians were first allowed to travel West, I went to Holland. I was incredibly impressed by what things looked like in Western Europe; everything was so much better, shinier, and more technologically advanced than at home. It was like a blend of a fairytale and a sci-fi movie for me. I became enchanted by capitalism, and I was very glad to see Hungary abandon Communism.
I was puzzled by the prevalence of Christianity in Western nations, though. I had always thought that religion was for losers and I didn’t really understand what use the inhabitants of those wonderful countries had for it.
As I grew up and learned about economics, I became an even more devout adherent of capitalism, and I was disappointed to learn about the statist encroachments in Western Europe and even the U.S. The semester I spent in Austria and my subsequent stints in Germany made me completely disillusioned with Continental Europe, so I turned my attention towards the United States. I quickly learned to hate Democrats and I often found myself in enthusiastic agreement with the things I read on conservative websites, some of which were quotations from Ayn Rand. I had acquiesced in a sort of Deistic view of the concept of God and I even began considering myself a Christian in the American sense–a “non-loser” Christian–without giving the matter much thought.
I participated in a lot of discussion with conservatives and libertarians; the latter group helped me realize that all taxation was theft, that banning drugs is not necessarily something I should support, and that anti-trust laws were bunk. I had never needed any convincing about the morality of assisted suicide, but this was another area where I found myself at odds with some of the conservatives and in agreement with the libertarians. But the rabid anti-“imperialism” of the libertarians always kept me at a safe distance from them.
I began wondering if there was an ideology I could really agree with. I looked at the websites of various churches; I checked out www.deism.com; and I took a more careful look at the Ayn Rand Institute’s site, where I had been before.
Well, you know who won. 
