I grew up in a small town in Scotland and like many of my peers I was imbued with a sense of Christian values. Given that my home town was a mix of Protestant and Irish Catholics I was fed a slightly conflicting view of the world. My own upbringing was as an atheist, although at the time I was unaware of this - I think whatever decision I made was up to me.
Now, at the tender age of eight I was presented with, "God loves you", "God will smite you!" etc, I found this very confusing for a start and my young inquisitive mind could not square this nonsense with my own research into the solar system, stars and universe (a subject I found fascinating). My first question was "Where is this heaven place then?" and I received a bunch of weird answers including "In the heavens!". Now I knew enough to know that above the clouds were some distinct layers of atmosphere, each with its own exciting and descriptive name, above that space, the moon and a bloody long journey to the next planets. So I could not locate this "Heaven" place I was being told so earnestly about. I asked my teachers and to be honest their answer was no better than the kids.
I had learned the scientific method at an early age and knew that one should come up with a hypothesis, test it and see if it stands. I asked, "What happens if I deny God exists?", to one of my fellow pupils. I remember him looking alarmed and telling me that I would be "Smited with lightening!". I asked what a "smite" was, he told me "hit". It sounded bad and a bit of a harsh way to test an idea, but I had read quite a bit at that point and knew there had only been a couple of people struck by lightening in my part of the world over the past few decades. I decided to give it a go, on the balance of probability I was correct.
It was a sunny day (deliberately chosen by me because I knew that lightening was extremely unlikely) , I stood in the middle of the playground, surrounded by about twenty kids and shouted "There is no such thing as God!". Half the kids looked alarmed and immediately took a step back in case they were splattered by my exploded body. Obviously, nothing happened. Hypothesis proved (as far as I was concerned). My young mind contemplated the result and decided that unless I could get past the fundamental stumbling block of the existence of God, there was little point in wasting brain cells on listening to parables that seemed to have bugger all relevance to me. Why the shit should I be at all interested in bread and fishes?
Now as time rolled on I started to see the influence of this thinking making less and less sense. I saw kids divide themselves into tribes based on whatever flavour of God they considered to be correct, based on football teams (as is the way in Scotland). I've never liked football, neither to play nor to watch, it frankly bores the arse off me, so when some snot nosed red faced kid asked me what team I supported (a thinly veiled question over whether I was Protestant or Catholic), I would respond with a shrug and say I did not like football. I had created my own allegory and it seemed to make sense.
I read more about the stars and was in awe of the vastness of the universe, I started learning about the constellations and then learning about the names - it was a logical step to find out where the names came from and I discovered a whole bunch of other gods, with fascinating names and weird behaviours. By the age of ten I had realised that there were lots and lots of Gods that nobody gave two shits about any more. By this point I made the small yet logical step from being an agnostic to being a confirmed atheist.
Being a young atheist is a strangely lonely place in Scotland in the very early 80's. The majority of people around you are apparently believers. I was told to keep my opinions to myself, at exactly the same time as teachers were pushing this onto the pupils without their consent. I started to feel a bit annoyed by this and when the final day of school was supposed to be spent in church I refused. At the time my school had no mechanism for dealing with this and the more I was pressured the more I resisted. Eventually I was asked for a letter from my parents giving consent for me to not go to church. With some trepidation I asked my father for the letter, fully expecting a lecture on the benefits of compliance. Instead I received praise on the power of principles and how the world is changed by leaders and not by slaves. A letter was duly written, not only asking for me to be exempted from enforced church attendance, but also as to why a state run school was enforcing orthodoxy that was not within their remit.
The first time I did not attend I was put into a classroom on my own, with a teacher who gave me some maths questions. This was supposed to be a punishment I guess, but I like maths and finished the sheet in ten minutes flat. The teacher was utterly bored and told me to go home. I remember sitting in a football field on my own waiting for the other kids to be released. When they did turn up I was asked lots of questions on how I got out of school early and some of the kids decided that they would do the same. God was loosing his grip. No lightening fatalities occurred.
Once you become an atheist you start to see the world in a slightly different way. God, pixies, faeries, ghosts and unicorns are all classed the same way - complete claptrap, horseshit and nonsense. When you see people arguing over the finer points of theology it becomes really difficult not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the discussion.
It has remained with me through my life and as I get older I am less worried about offending the devout - they offend me on a daily basis. The attitudes towards women, foreigners, non-tribe members; all driven by a weird interpretation of old books. I decided at one point to read the Bible, figuring that it must be bloody good since it had so much influence. What a piece of garbage that is, horrific stone age attitudes wrapped in contradictory mysticism and expounded as a was of living life. According to this book I can sell my wife(s) and daughters to pay my debts - really? Utter bilge and not worth the bloodshed that it has caused.
So these days I move towards antitheism. I object when it is enforced on my kids, I have had a supply teacher sacked for sending my child home with "Easter homework" featuring a picture of a man nailed to a cross and what it meant to her. It meant fuck all and she was in tears because she was supposed to write five things she was grateful to God about. I immediately went to her school and had it out with the headmaster. The teacher's contract was not renewed. What a spiteful bitch, assuming that the kids in her care were young Christians. I knew for a fact there were two Hindi kids, a Muslim and a Jew in that class, along with the agnostic/atheist mass.
The last census in Scotland put the number of believers in the minority, meaning that I am no longer alone. When pressed the average Scot will reply "Jedi" when asked for a religion he has to follow. This is significant because it changes the tax status of the churches and then the walls come tumbling down. The burden of prof now lies with the religious - God does not exist and the onus is on you to prove otherwise. Along with the systematic sexual abuse of children, the weird attitudes towards sexuality and a moral framework that is utterly irrelevant; there is also a growing distrust of people that claim to be Christian. I would not leave my kids around them, just to be on the safe side.
So, I look at my chums in the USA and wonder what the hell is going on there. Is it their press (or mine) that portrays them as a bunch of god-fearin' lunatics? Really, the citizens of the USA need to take a step back and see what is being done to them, in the name of God.
I recognise that if you are a believer and you have managed to get this far in my essay your teeth must be grinding in righteous fury, I make no apology for that but I commend your tenacity in challenging your values. I have one simple task for you - imagine if God did not exist, how would it change your life?
