It's taken me the past 6 months to a year to settle into the realization that I am an Atheist. It's a testament to the strength of the mental brainwashing that it's taken this long to shake the remnant guilt my religion left in and accept the fact that I do not believe in any god of any form.

Growing up Atheism wasn't unknown to me. My mom's friend married an Atheist - but at the the time it was a whispered dirty word, and she was somewhat rebellious for doing it. I knew it meant, quite simply, he didn't believe in god. I couldn't grasp the idea though.

I grew up in Catholic schools, went to Catholic church, and was active. Over the course of the years I was an altar server (when they finally allowed girls to be them anyways), a choir girl, a cantor (lead singer for the mass), an a lector and commentator (the person who does all the readings during the mass). I went to religion class, I went to confession, and I was even confirmed. However by the time I was preparing for Confirmation I was having doubts about it all.

I've tried to pinpoint where exactly the doubt began, but I still can't. It was the build up of many events - mostly because as active as I was in the mass, I saw the inner workings of the priests and began to see things that didn't add up. It didn't add up, because the Pastor was an out and out hypocrite. There was the big controversy over allowing girls to be alter 'boys' - they broke down because there weren't enough boys volunteering and they desperately needed more servers. I remember one friends father declaring he'd change churches if they let girls be servers.

Then there was the Sister, who was a nice lady, and wanted to be more involved. She over stepped her bounds, encroaching on the priests positions, and the pastor had her removed. I remember that this especially upset me.

I remember that I specifically hated all masses lead by the Pastor. He inevitably politicized the sermons, bringing in all sorts of world events and preaching on them. I remember growing angrier and angrier at the hypocrisy I heard from the pulpit.

I left the Church, to the chagrin of my parents. To their merit they let me go without too much of a fight - they thought I'd grow out of it. I remember the first Sunday morning, alone in bed, in the house, after some yelling that I wasn't going to mass. I laid there in the half lit room and felt the guilt wash over me - was I going to go to hell because I wasn't in mass this morning? I watched the clock, I knew what part of the mass they would be in at each moment.

Each week it got easier though, the guilt faded. I dabbled in some Pagan religions - but I thought of magic as 'active prayer' - even dabbling in Pagan religions it was still drenched in the Christianity I had been raised with. I just couldn't get into it though, I couldn't believe any of it worked. I stopped even that after a few months.

I began to think I was just lazy. I was too lazy to work hard to find this Faith I was supposed to have. I didn't question the root of the problem - the existence of a god - I merely assumed a god of some sort existed, and that I just failed at properly understanding Him and worshiping him.

I pushed my troubles with religion out of my mind for most of highschool, and event college. I didn't question that something existed, although just what IT was got less and less clear. From the defined Christian god, it faded into some sort of "Higher Power" that may or may not be conscious. Looking back now I realized that the more I've learned the less clear it's become.

It wasn't until last year that it dawned on me - I don't even remember why. I wasn't lazy. I wasn't failing miserably at having Faith, I simply didn't have any to begin with. I remembered suddenly what my problem with the spells and witchcraft of pagain religions had been - I just didn't believe any of it.

I didn't believe any of it.

It was like suddenly seeing the big picture when you've onlyl had fragments of it before. I didn't beleive any of it, at all. Not in the Bible, not in the saints, angels, demons, the devil, or god. Nothing. I couldn't bring myself to try harder to find faith because part of me knew there was nothing there.

Even realizing this though, it's taken months to shed the mindset that I am too lazy, or too stupid, or not trying hard enough, to find some magical god. It's taken a lot more reading, and a lot more thinking, to discover what I do beleive in is humanity. I believe in people, and their power to be kind, their power to reason and think. That I don't believe, but rather know, that life is short, and it's the little moments that count. That time spent with family and friends is the most valuable, because it will all come to an end, and we'll return to the cosmic dust that we came from and fade from the memories of the living, and that life will go on.

Life will go on. Science has shown that Life has gone on for millions of years. It'll keep going on. We're just a little piece of that larger puzzle, and it's not demeaning to Humanity to say it, but uplifting. We're here to enjoy life, to marvel at the universe as no other species that we've yet discovered can, and to pass on. It's beautiful because it is ephemeral.

And I refuse to be guilted into feeling like a lesser being, guilted into thinking I'm lazy or a bad person anymore. It's wonderfully freeing, I realized this summer, to truly appreciate the moment for what it is, and because it will be gone in the blink of an eye. There is no perfect heaven awaiting us, there is no punishment for the wicked or reward for the good. Life and the Universe are only as fair as we make them.

I'd rather strive to make a sort of heaven on earth while I'm here, than to spend my life on my knees waiting for someone else to hand it to me.

I've never ben a fan of labels. I've been called a lot of things over time, some of which are not really repeatable. Sometimes they're based on appearances, attitudes, or personal believes. Some labels are more accurate than eithers. Some labels were once accurate but they're not anymore. Words change, meanings and definitions change, and thus so do labels. Words are strongly influenced by actions. So a word that defines a group of people is defind by the actions of those people - and it changes as their actions change.

But there are soooo many silly labels abounding that using them just falls short.

( all about me (again!) )

[This post originally appeared on Rekindling the Inner Fire on Dec. 29, 2005.]

“Finding God” is often a religion event in which someone has some sort of “miraculous” – and most importantly – positive experience in which they suddenly realize that some Higher Power (H.P) existed. They’ll tell you all about it too, just look at the Born-Agains.

However I don’t hear a whole lot about positive reasons that people Lose God. It’s always assumed that some negative experience leads to a loss of faith – you didn’t really lose God, he still loves you, you’re just angry with him right now.

Of course, being angry with something that doesn’t exist is just plain silly!

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