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How did you come about your non-beliefs?
I went to a nice little Anglican Girls School. The thing about the Anglican church is that it isn't that much of a full on religion as far as the dogma and the ritual. Its a bit hard to be to serious when you know that your religion was founded so some guy could get a divorce (Henry VIII). We had Chapel 4 days out of 5 and a few Eucharists a year, the receptions year 1s and 2s went to chapel on Wednesdays and they were the best days, we sang the songs with the actions (the Butterfly Song). We also had R.E. (religious education) once a week, all the way to year 12 and in the beginning it was singing and colouring in and being given little books that told bible stories with picture, so God was associated with fun.
I didn't really question it too much. It was only really later when RE got more serious, we started having to do actual work and reading the bible, we quickly found the dirty bits (one student in about year 6 asked the teacher what a concubine was hi-larious) and I started thinking the bible was a) a bit dull when not being dirty and b) kind of silly. We were never told that the stories were true they were stories that teach us God's lessons or something like that. I became more sceptical, the moment when I realised that organised religion was shit was when (again looking for the dirty stuff) I look up homosexuality in the part where if you were having personal problems you could look up passages of the bible to help you. The passage about homosexuality said something about how evil it was and how you were going to hell. Now I had been told all my life that God was loving and Jesus was forgiving, but the book that people were basing this on was advising young people struggling with their sexuality that they were evil? That didn't make sense.
A few years later when my grandfather died after a long illness was when I was certain that god didn't exist. He was a good person who believed in God and lived his life well so why make him suffer? And why, when he died while I was on school camp and had to be driven home by a teacher did I not feel God's presence with me? Recently my cousin and his wife (who are very devout Lutherans) have been trying to have a baby, she miscarried, their IVF failed and they've been through hell trying to adopt a baby from China (They've been approved now and the baby will be here soon, YAY!). They would make excellent parents, but have been through hell. Yet 15-year-olds get knocked up, people abuse and even kill their children. There is no sense and there is no justice and if there was God there would be some.
Well that's my story.
I didn't really question it too much. It was only really later when RE got more serious, we started having to do actual work and reading the bible, we quickly found the dirty bits (one student in about year 6 asked the teacher what a concubine was hi-larious) and I started thinking the bible was a) a bit dull when not being dirty and b) kind of silly. We were never told that the stories were true they were stories that teach us God's lessons or something like that. I became more sceptical, the moment when I realised that organised religion was shit was when (again looking for the dirty stuff) I look up homosexuality in the part where if you were having personal problems you could look up passages of the bible to help you. The passage about homosexuality said something about how evil it was and how you were going to hell. Now I had been told all my life that God was loving and Jesus was forgiving, but the book that people were basing this on was advising young people struggling with their sexuality that they were evil? That didn't make sense.
A few years later when my grandfather died after a long illness was when I was certain that god didn't exist. He was a good person who believed in God and lived his life well so why make him suffer? And why, when he died while I was on school camp and had to be driven home by a teacher did I not feel God's presence with me? Recently my cousin and his wife (who are very devout Lutherans) have been trying to have a baby, she miscarried, their IVF failed and they've been through hell trying to adopt a baby from China (They've been approved now and the baby will be here soon, YAY!). They would make excellent parents, but have been through hell. Yet 15-year-olds get knocked up, people abuse and even kill their children. There is no sense and there is no justice and if there was God there would be some.
Well that's my story.