Before I get to the post, I’d like to announce that this is my 300th blog post! I figured that I would make this post very special. There’s only a handful of people that I’ve actually told this story you’re about to read in its entirety. I never really have said this completely from start to end, so bear with me. This is an expanded version of the Formspring answer I gave a few months ago. I think that every coming-out story is worth telling, and that is why I am telling mine.

My family was always Jewish in a secular manner. We never were “crazy” with religion. I did, however, go to Jewish day school until 8th grade. We celebrated the holidays, and once in awhile went to Synagogue on Shabbat and holidays. When we moved to Cincinnati, I went to a private school that was not parochial. I had a hard time meeting friends, and I found a Jewish youth group where I made a lot of friends. When I was about 15 or so, I started to question fundamentals of the Jewish faith itself. Being in the Jewish tradition, this is a fairly normal thing that happens. They claim it’s okay to question things and it isn’t a big deal. So with that thought, I became a Communications VP in the Jewish youth organization. I was looking for answers, and I thought maybe this was a vehicle to do it.

When I was about 17 I was starting to really lose faith in the religion. I remember on the car ride for a college visit at Purdue with my Dad, we had a very long discussion about religion. I asked him why he believed. He said that being a doctor there are things that happen that he can’t explain, and there must be a God or something like it. It was around that time that I found upset about religion for the first time. Same-sex marriage was made into an issue in the 2004 election, and basing it on the grounds of God and dogma was really bothersome to me. Also at a Jewish youth group convention I was told how John Kerry (who I was favorable to) was pro-Palestinian. I couldn’t buy into it, because I didn’t think Bush was overly helpful in the Middle East. It also seemed like people were basing their vote for Bush on the fact that he was “stronger on the Middle East”. At my last convention, we were in a prayer service and as we were getting up to say a prayer over the Torah, and I thought to myself: “How is this not a cult?”

When I left for Purdue, I was thinking that I didn’t really want to be overly Jewish anymore. I did go to Hillel a few times originally, just to give it one last chance. I went, and I really didn’t feel comfortable about being there. I felt like all the people there were in the Jewish fraternity or sorority, and just used the Hillel as a recruiting tool. I didn’t like this, and I was done with Judaism. For awhile, I was identifying myself as “Jewish, but I don’t care” or not talking about it. My sophomore year, I had an RA who was very into CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ). He was widely regarded as a jerk, and he really pushed his religion hard on everyone. All he would advertise in the floor newsletter was the CRU events he was going to, and I took offense to it. I had a hard time dealing with his pushing Jesus, and we butted heads a lot.

In that first semester of that year, I changed my major and became a bit depressed. I realized that I didn’t want to go to Hillel, and that I really didn’t like Christianity because of my RA. I was starting to think that they’re all going to sell me the same solution. So that second semester right around the end of February 2007, I realized I didn’t like religion enough that I didn’t want to ever go back to it. I came out to my roommate (who is still a great friend) as an atheist. The friends I had on that floor were very supportive of me and my decision. It was awesome to have that support network. My RA on the other hand, was not overly happy. I had always been the “trouble resident”, but he would never write me up, and he told me once that it was because he respected me too much.

I drunk dialed my super religious cousin on Purim, which was soon after my coming out to my roommate. I ended up coming out as an atheist to him. He called me back the next day, and confronted me on it. This, I realized, was a bad idea. Firstly, he was considered somewhat of a hero in the Jewish Community because he had moved to Israel at one point. I realized that he also had a big mouth, and that I perceived my secret was now out in the Jewish Community. I figured I had some PR to do. I then called a few other people close to me from back in High School and told them, including a now ex-girlfriend. A few were supportive, others I have not talked to since. I came out to my mother over the phone about a week after this. She was supportive, and I was really scared to tell my Dad, who grew up a moderately Jewish home. I later told him, and he still thinks it’s a phase. I told them not to tell anyone in the Jewish Community, and they’ve been fairly good about it. Overall they’ve been supportive.

I wasn’t fully comfortable with the thought that I was an atheist at first, but I had realized after reading a bit about other religions, that I didn’t fit into any of them. I was in fact an atheist. I met Rachel Tobias in fall 2008, who is now one of my best friends. She was a part of Purdue’s Society of Non-Theists, and was trying to convince me to go to an event. In September 2008, I met Jennifer McCreight, and the rest of the Purdue Non-Theists at the Talk-Like-A-Pirate-Day event. Jen, Lauren, Shawn, and many others I have met through this organization have been some of my closest friends since then. As I’ve gotten more involved, I’ve realized that that atheism is right for me. I think going back to a religion in a full capacity would be too difficult and too conflicting for me.

There is another part of the story that I’ve been withholding details about, and have never really told anyone. It has a lot to do with why I got more involved. In August 2008, I became an RA. The first year I was an RA, I had a co-worker who came out on the second day of training as a hard-line Christian, and took a lot of pride in it. Over the next few days I got very annoyed with it, and even told him, that I felt very uncomfortable. Since the question had come up, I identified myself as an atheist. Things just became extremely uncomfortable, because I was a noticing a lack of neutrality with religion in general on staff. I was more or less the token non-Christian. I kept trying to tune his proselytizing out, but I couldn’t because I still worked with him, and needed to keep an open line of communication. He periodically made comments that made me feel very uncomfortable. At one point in the year, it got so bad, that I reported him to a superior for chewing out a Jewish resident for not knowing why Easter was important. I then went to my bosses and told them that if he returned (which he was originally planning on it) the following year, that I would not. He did not return the following year, and things improved dramatically with the job. I had a lot more people that cared more about me as a person, and could put religion aside to work with me. As far as residents, they really respected me for being an open atheist, and many came to me to ask me questions about it. I still keep in touch with residents who were active in CRU in the hall (from my second year), because I consider them friends.

I felt that I needed to get involved, because what happened to me likely happens to others, and I want to help them. I’m much happier not believing in supernatural things. It really took a big stress off my shoulders to get out of religion. So in the past year, I’ve become much more involved in the atheist community. I really enjoy being involved and meeting other atheists. I really feel that since I’m now holding an officer position in the Purdue Society of Non-Theists, I can help people even more. Even if I’m just the Secretary, I think that I can still be an ambassador for the Non-theist community at Purdue, the surrounding area, and the community as a whole.

Over the break, I got a lot of e-mails asking me about my de-conversion story. To be honest, my story isn’t that interesting. I was never a fundamentalist nor did I have a lot of family pressure to stay religious. But it’s a new year, so I guess I’ll tell the story.

First, it is important to understand the demographics of the area I grew up in. I grew up in a small suburban town in Northern Jersey just outside New York City. The area is very diverse and liberal. More importantly, there are no fundamentalists. I never met a fundamentalist until I went to college. On Sundays, Christians might go to Church and on Fridays, Jews might go to Temple. But not everyone did. My family only went to Temple on the holidays.

My parents are Jewish and I grew-up going to Hebrew School on Saturdays and for a few hours after public school two days a week for about 8 to 10 years. I learned about God the same way I learned about science. I accepted that God was real and never even thought that it was something to be questioned.

Shortly after my Bar Mitzvah (13th Birthday), I started to have a rough time in school. I saw some kids in my school doing some illegal things and told my friend what I saw. My friend blabbed and as a result, I started to get harassed by those kids and their friends (many of whom probably didn’t know what was going on). The harassment really got to me and made me a social outcast. Looking back on it, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but for a 13 year old it seemed like my whole world was being destroyed.

I remember asking God why this was happening. How could God allow these people who were doing illegal things to prosper? I was a good person and yet God did not seem to be on my side. Maybe God just doesn’t exist, I thought. That was the first time I ever even conceived the thought. I remember telling someone (can’t remember who) that I wasn’t sure that God existed. The person told me that I must be an atheist then.

However, when I told people at school that I was an atheist all of a sudden everyone got very religious. No one in my area was religious really and so this really surprised me. But I really didn’t think much of it at the time. Religion wasn’t that important to me and it really didn’t come up much in my small suburban town.

When I went to college in Pennsylvania that all changed. Early along, I met my core group of friends, but within the first few weeks I also met a group of people who were so nice. They went out of their way to be my friend and spend time with me. After hanging out with this new group of people for about a week or two, they asked me to come with them to their Christian meeting. I told them that I wasn’t Christian; I was a Jew. But they didn’t really care. They said that they thought I was open-minded enough to listen to new ideas. Nothing gets an open-minded person more eager to do something than challenging their openmindedness. So of course I went.

The group was called CIA (Christians In Action). When we got there, I saw about3 or 4 people doubled over each other outside as if they were all tackling a football or something. The thing is that they were all shaking. I asked one of my friends was they were doing and she told me, “Jesus was moving them through the Holy Spirit.” I had never seen anything like that and I have to say that it seemed really wacky to me at the time and even today. So I was already on my guard when I went into to meeting.

The meeting was a typical fundamentalist meeting. There was a rock band playing Christian music, everyone was waving their hands around and dancing in their seats, the Pastor gave his sermon, and then there was more singing. I just sat there and took it all in. Toward the end of the meeting, the Pastor asked everyone to stand. He then said that everyone who has been saved by Jesus should sit down. Now there were only a handful of us still standing and all eyes were on us. The Pastor then stated that he felt the Holy Spirit in the room tonight and that if anyone else felt it and has become saved this very night they can sit down too. The room was completely silent and everyone stared at those still standing until one by one they all sat down… except me. For about 5 minutes the room was silent, everyone staring at me, and it was very uncomfortable. Finally, it became clear to the Pastor that I was not going to sit down, so he told me that perhaps the Holy Spirit will save me next week and then the band started playing again and everyone broke out into song.

After the meeting, a bunch of us went out to a diner for a late snack and conversation. I loved talking to these people. They wanted to convert me so badly and I had a lot of fun discussing life’s issues. I of course went back to CIA the following week and became a regular at their meetings. I even started to go to other Christian groups too. I had never met anyone who made religion the center of their lives and it was fascinating to me. While I believed in God at one point in my life, I never really made that belief the center of my existence. In fact, I never really thought about religion all that seriously except that one time when I was 13. When I did think deeply about religion, religion just seemed silly. While in college, I was able to think deeply about religion all the time and I had a lot of religious people helping me. Yet the more I thought about it, the more silly religion seemed. But it was fun to talk about and I really was interested in learning more about why these people believed these crazy things.

It wasn’t long before I switched my major to Philosophy and started learning about other religions and other philosophies. It didn’t take long to realize that most of the points that my Christian friends would bring up had already been answered by philosophers hundreds and even thousands of years ago.

I still enjoy discussing religion with my fundamentalist friends.

I am not able to be classified as an atheist in light of such ideas, but this is irrelevant in any case. At any rate I do not limit myself to being “godless” or “atheist”, as these are very much not any better than what religions provide us. My only concern is what is here right now, this very moment, and discovering all that I am able to of such things. Any study, as long as it provides a means to Truth, Knowledge, and an increase to my Being is a valid study at this point. Fantastic or not, religions have spoken of what we call scientific truths for thousands of years. We quite simply do not see it typically these days because of all the shrouding the ancients did upon the words and stories. Be sure though, that as I conduct my investigations, I am focused upon science heavily. The only difference between the science I use and the secular society, is that I boldly study EVERYTHING under this light, rather than a common tendency I see of casting things off as “superstition”, “myth”, “occult”, “fantasy”, “illusion”. For anything that exists, of which everything which we can refer to exists in some fashion, there is something there and the science I use is all about finding out what is happening, how it is happening, and why it is happening.

Now on to my story…

I grew up in a home which half advocated Christianity and of which the other half advocated free thinking and self-discovery. For the first many years of my life I supported Christianity as I was told horrifying stories that if I did not I would be banished to Hell. Feeling oppressed and not actually gaining any insight to the questions which raised in my mind from the free thinking avocation I had been receiving, I decided to break with church all together. A decision which would prove to lead me down a long and complex road of the human mind and the universe itself.

I remained silent to my Christian mother for many years as it was to be necessary for me to have formulated my thoughts well on religious manners before speaking of such departures with the church.

My first inclination was towards Wicca. This was inspired after a meeting with now one of my most treasured friends who is Wiccan. I never actually became a practitioner as the religion seemed to me just as void as the one I was looking to leave, but it did leave certain marks upon my mind. For the first time I had researched a faith outside of my own, and I started to notice commonality between faiths. As I was only 15 and inexperienced I did not formulate much theory at that time though.

My next steps were towards researching anything and everything I could get information on for religions and spirituality both common and hidden. Druidism, Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, Masonry, general Pagan thought, and so much more were all on the list of research.

Around the age of 17 though, I had a brief encounter with Satanism (like any proper rebellious teen would go to when seeking a departure with Christianity), which left another mark upon me. This was the first time I had encountered literature on practical magic. I very quickly saw the commonality this “magic” had with all the other faiths and how it also had very distinct psychological characteristics.

During this encounter with Satanism, another important happening occurred, I began reading some of the myth of the Hindu faith. When I read the story of Arjuna and noticed how it is virtually identical in every way to that of the story of Moses, my mind began to race. My first discourse was to say that surely the Jews or the Hindi plagiarized. As the study of myth, magic, and religion continued however, I found it quite improbable that plagiarism was the solution. All of this investigation did depart me from Christianity for a time, as it was simply a vague concern to all other research.

Having had all this prior experience, I managed next to find Carl Jung and Quantum Physics. Jung’s theory of Synchronicity and the strange facets of Quantum starting giving me enough of a foundation for me to form my own belief system, which I had been searching after for literally years by this time. I was just as lost for a time after finding this foundation as I had ever been. This being due to stepping into a territory of self-responsibility I had never had before. I was suddenly responsible for the contents of my mind and how I viewed the world and I finally knew this fact!

What ended up developing (to hurry this story along a little bit), was a theory which is somehow both devout to deities of all varieties and at the same moment atheist. How this works is as follows: 1) God is but a title to the very real and verifiable objective truths of the universe. 2) The exact name of this title (e.g. God or otherwise), is irrelevant until much other work has been gone through. 3) Based on the previous two points the idea of God and the Universe itself are identical and either name can be used based upon one’s personal preference. This theory is steeped deeply in mysticism and spirituality, magic, and what is perhaps most important of all science! The only difference between the science of so much of the world and the variety I use is on a matter of empiricism. I accept Jung’s theory of empiricism, meaning that I accept the subjective experience which I have as a valid form of study. The goal is objectivity of course, but the system of science I use gives recognition to the imperfection of my perceptions, and that by also studying these imperfections I may get closer to actual objective truth which I would hope is the goal of any scientist!

It’s that merry time of year once more when churches morph into a placid haven for every simple soul haunted by baseless illusions of broadway grandeur and a soapbox for off-key musicians of every kind. Indeed, for the humble admission price of lending one’s ears to bronze age drivel, and the timeous surrender of hard-earned pennies into a refashioned sock, the theatre has literally come to a house of worship near you. For those of you misfortunate enough to have observed the “the Starry Messenger”, one can rest assured that one’s dose of churchly drama will not provide quite the same length of dreariness however, the central message is of course eerily similar. In the many generations since the non-event of the virgin birth, adults of our species can still be observed donning their fake wings and re-enacting the preceding non-event of a young woman being confronted with a heavenly creature boldly announcing the magical expropriation of her womb. So enthralling do adherents of the christian faith find this tale that it is of course the standard fare of December sermons and has been for as long as one would care to investigate. So enticing are the economic benefits of its reproduction that to the extent that playstations and sugary treats have not usurped its once unquestioned dominance, the fairytale is rehashed, rephrased, reproduced and stamped into the starry eyed innocence of the young with wanton abandon.

Were I a man of superstition, prone to wishthinking, I would long since have come to the unavoidable conclusion that in a deviant act of heavenly, or hellish, tomfoolery, a power greater than I has assigned dark comedy to haunt me wherever I would rather not go. Indeed, how else but by black magic is one to explain the fantastical comedy of events that I had the pleasure of witnessing at one such theatrical production. Deep into the very midst of this churchly affair, with the communal act of cannibalism having been completed and with the usual misconstruction of the Isaiah prophecy having found its way into the liturgy, a veiled maiden appeared from behind a curtain with the name Mary. Young and beautiful she was, humming to herself in blissful ignorance and youthful naivety, quite unaware that her fertility and features were such as to tempt the very gods into a pre-marital sexual affair. Suddenly, from the behind the same curtain, accompanied with the customary burst of special effect smoke, appeared a heavenly minion, winged and blonde, dressed in the very whitest of robes, truly an angel of the most high. In a raspy voice, intermingled with the tell-tale fuzz of an amateur sound director, a promise was made, a prediction of a holy and immaculate conception of a child, as so selectively told in the Gospel of Luke. Predictable, as all prospective teenage mothers would be hasty in doing, notice was had of the fact that such reproduction is quite uncommon and Mary, rightly so, queried “how is this possible, I am but a virgin”. To which the angel of god responded in shameless fashion, “That’s OK, God will come on you”.

Any godless heathen with a certain degree of experience with any combination of sexual relations would of course be hard pressed not to exploit this exchange for one’s own amusement in so serious a setting but from various corners of the house of God, the grunts, grimaces and giggles were audible, and whilst it began with what were no doubt a bunch of bored adolescents, the rumbling quickly spread and the cast of actors were struck by a moment of stunned silence as they realized the implication of their poor choice of words, no doubt berating the biblical scholars of the latest rehash of the New International Version for retaining such phrases in so sexually enlightened an era. Noticeably Mary’s cheeks took on a bashful red hue, suggesting but for a moment that this particular actress may have been more knowledgeable of earthly matters than the simple Jewish maiden she had been asked to portray, god’s will notwithstanding.

Naturally, quite instinctively, one is drawn to the enviable dilemma of how best to regale future generations with the happenstance of this fateful day. Does one cite the colorful antics of Trevor Nunn’s “A comedy of errors” in comparison, or does one gather the jovial amongst you around one’s favourite barstool repeating by way of annual tradition this story until it becomes a legend in its own right, a pro-fairyism if you will? Then it struck me, yet again, that in the midst of this serving of infantile humour and comedy one is confronted with the stupendous ignorance and idiocy of it all. The merriment in this tale is not one of language or circumstance but rests on the absolute absurdity of the tale itself. Here I was, drawn once more into the religious company of my fellow men and women, many of whom seek to maintain that the creator and heaven and earth, the loving patriarch and ruler of all, based on a mistranslation of an ancient text, and in correction of a wrong he himself had created and could have erased at a whim, sent himself as himself to be himself as a man, to be born of a virgin in the backward waters of primitive Palestine for no other reason than that he sought to have himself crucified to satiate his own thirst for a human sacrifice. Not only that, but that this magical manifestation of a god walked the earth justified by nothing but biological impossibility and cheap trickery and who by deed or revelation alone would leave nothing in substantiation of this alleged supernatural endorsement.

The infantile humour is not to be found in a moment of awkwardness, a flash of hypocrisy or the pitiful insistence by believers to impregnate each other and their young with this shameless concoction, it is to be found in the entire construct of the christian faith, the rank idiocy of its founding principles and the communal madness which still haunts our species to this day. This Christmas, when the faithful speak of good tidings, heavenly hosts, magical stars and god incarnate I beg but a moment of reflection upon a due and appropriate challenge, that as queried by David Hume, we ponder briefly the challenge of the more likely: That the whole natural order is suspended or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?

I went to Sunday School, in a Reform Jewish congregation, but always thought there was something missing in my Jewish identity. My family did not practice the traditional rituals ie Friday Night Prayers nor dietary prohibitions against mixing meat and milk. I was a teenager before I even knew about the Holocaust. I went to a French film, with a friend of mine who’d grown up in Israel, that had footage of the concentration camps, and said to him, “What is this?” My family had never discussed it. When I asked about it later, they just shrugged. It was not a part of their reality. My father’s family had migrated to the US before WWII, from Poland through Great Britain and South Africa, then to Canada and then into the US. And my mother’s grandfather on her father’s side had come as a teenager from Russia or Ukraine to avoid the 25 year army draft imposed on Jewish men, and prospered in the midwest… belonging to both a Conservative and a Reform temple. My mother says she remembers that they joined the Reform temple because it had a nicer cemetery. It sounded funny at first, but now I understand that old fashioned cemeteries have depressions in the ground and become overgrown, so a new cemetery can look “nicer” by comparison.

Anyway, I also now understand that migration is an engine of change… the surnames in my family are inconsistent. The very act of landing in America speaking a different language meant that some guy with a pen and a clipboard gave you a name you didn’t have when you left the old country.

In any event, as I was learning about my family background, as a Jew, in my confirmation class, the instructor taught comparative religion. I think it was supposed to show us that Judaism was the best of all possible religions, but I was a child of the sixties, and so-called Eastern Religion was soon on the horizon. I remembered the visit to the Buddhist temple when my friends were experimenting with Zen and hearing about the Beatles and their visits with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi… all the practices that constituted variations on spirituality.

Frankly, my generation was all about exploration into what boiled down to superstition. Astrology, ESP, gods, angels, UFOs, aliens, astral projection, time travel; it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the stories of the bible and religion were no less fantastic than the ones in Sci Fi. They were just somehow branded into a formal and “accepted” respectable format.

I still have not fully figured out why some people buy it… and others don’t; why some people insist that they have a direct and palpable connection to the Spirit in the Sky, and I think there is nothing there but sky.

When I finally had time to go to college and take some anthropology classes and a couple of semesters of sociology and critical thinking, then called Argumentation…. it was refreshing to find out that it wasn’t just me who thought the world was all screwed up. The tension relaxed a notch or two when I discovered that there are political and sociological reasons that religions have power; that the hierarchies lie to their congregations, and that they rely on people’s fears and insecurity to control them. Those things have nothing to do with a supernatural being that answers prayers and runs things.

Finally, one day, my dear ex mother-in-law and I were getting ready to take a swim. I had been married to my ex-husband for only six years, but I’d remained friends with his mother, a very nice Jewish lady, for over 30 years after we were divorced. We used to go to get Jewish deli together, and she made the best chopped liver I ever ate. One day I decided to tell her how I feel. I said, “You know, I don’t believe in God.” She looked over her shoulder, and all around… we were alone in her apartment, but she whispered, “… neither do I.” And it started an important dialog. I think there are a lot of Jewmanists.

Probably it takes great courage to admit this in the face of the Holocaust… I don’t know what it means to be anything else other than a Jewish atheist. One of my best girlfriends is an atheist who grew up going to Christian school, and can quote chapter and verse of New Testament, but doesn’t believe; I’ll have to ask her more about it. But for me, it’s just the truth. I like being Jewish, but I don’t need, want or have to have a supernatural being who answers prayers and runs things.

This is just an abbreviated version of my “coming out” story… there is so much more because it is unfolding every day. I am happy to be able to be human unencumbered by superstitions, unfrightened by fear of stepping on a crack, or not waving my hands the right way. I don’t want to feel superior to people who have not made the decision to come out yet… maybe they are about to emerge from their cocoon soon. I was delighted to find out that my grandson’s confirmation class was very non-spiritual :-)

my ascent to a humanist perspective has been a very slow and painful journey. raised independent fundamentalist baptist (IFB), i very deeply believed in heaven, hell, jesus, literal creation, virgin birth… if it was in the christian scripture, i soaked it in. i was baptized at 7, led my first convert to christ at 10, and attended bible college at 18.

after bible college, it made sense to me to learn about scriptures from the jewish perspective; so i enrolled in the judaic studies program at UCF.

to avoid deceit, i must confess that a big part of the draw was to learn how to better convert jews. don’t listen to what other evangelicals may tell you, we totally get extra points for the chosen people.

instead of finding a community of people lost and empty in their own self-deceit, everyone seemed totally normal. what’s more, a lot of them were atheists, and no one seemed to have a problem with that.

i had been brought up to believe that “humanists” and “atheists” were under literal demonic influence and part of a vast evil plot by satan to destroy humanity.

imagine my surprise when the exorcisms failed.

so i’ll spare you the details of my lengthy discussions with professors, rabbis, pastors, physicists, and my cosmically important friendship with a reformed jew turned atheist.

intellectually, the evidence was clear. A fundamentalist view of the world stops working the minute you look beyond the few resources approved by your tiny sect.

emotionally, this was all very hard to accept. in order to give myself the freedom to objectively assess the situation, i had to take the chance that this was all some elaborate scheme of satan’s to deceive me.

in the end, it seemed to me that a religion worth believing in should stand up to a little objective scrutiny.

from beginning to end, it took me 5 years to drag myself out of fundamentalism completely… and another 2 years to tell anyone about it.

i was 27 when my mother found out. she cried, fumed, prayed, and kept my atheism as her shameful secret. i led a double life to save face for her.

the election in November changed everything. for the first time in a long time, i cared about something. i liked that feeling and decided it shouldn’t stop.

i refuse to feel like an outcast because i’m no longer religious, and i refuse to be quiet about gay rights, stem cell research, evolution, abortion, or anything else i’m passionate about because it may offend someone else’s beliefs.

it seems to me that there’s some unspoken rule i had agreed to. that because i don’t have a g-d or imaginary elf associated with my beliefs, they’re somehow less important. that’s simply not true.

i do not need a g-d to validate me. i do not need a hell to scare me into being a good person. i handle that all on my own. i’m out, and i’m proud.

My own atheism developed not so much out of enlightenment or disillusionment, but out of annoyance. The novelty of Hebrew school wore off after the first year (Hebrew School is where well-meaning Jewish parents send their malleable Jewish offspring, just as Christians send their children to Sunday School). Contrary to what many non-Jews think, Hebrew school’s purpose is to teach about Judaism; learning Hebrew itself is further down the list of priorities. I was required to go Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays for two and a half hours each day, in addition to services many weekends and holidays (holidays accumulated a lot over four thousand years or so). Since I didn’t want to be there, I began to ask questions to express my irritation at being forced into this particular after-school activity.

“How do we know these Bible stories really happened? Did archaeologists dig up video tapes or something? If God is everywhere, is He in the toilet? Why does God care if we pray if He can read minds? What did Noah do about all the sea animals?”

I was nine years old. These are the kind of questions any smart-ass, red-blooded American kid might have felt compelled to ask her religious and spiritual instructors, except that I came to think about them seriously. My teachers were kind and patient and explained to me that the point was to have faith, to be close to God, and that the stories themselves were not important so much as the spirit of the message. I remember a lesson we read about how tellings of events, such as the ones in the Bible, changed over time, even though the kernel of truth remained. Or did it?

Religious activities had some pretty bad associations for me, anyway. My mom reprimanded me for yawning during Saturday morning services. We had a couple of pretty bad fights after synagogue, and one time at home she ordered me to recite a prayer I was learning in Hebrew school. I just stood there, cowardly, unable to recite– I suppose I did not want to be ordered around that way and was worn down after years of “shut up and pray.” After a few endless minutes of me standing there, speechless, she prodded, “Well?” I felt berated and humiliated. If all this stuff was supposed to endear me to God, it did not; it drove me further and further away…

My mother, the religious parent who made me go to Hebrew school in the first place (my dad had a laissez faire attitude about the whole thing and my parents were getting divorced around this time, anyway), wasn’t well-pleased when I told her that I didn’t think God or the Torah were true. I started to think that scientists did not believe in God. She argued with me on that point, saying that Albert Einstein believed in God, and the more he learned about the universe, the more he believed. As an adult, I learned that that was not true, or at least it was hotly debated.

Time went on; I still resented Hebrew school. For what it was worth, many of the kids did. Kids who quit to make time for other extra-curricular activities like gymnastics were held up to us as bad examples. We were warned not to quit after our bar/bat mitzvahs, as did so many other kids, counting their money once the party was over, feeling that they had done their time. One particularly resistant kid, a year older than me, started Hebrew school and they let him start in my year, ketah dalet (fourth year), to be among his age-mates. That was not fair; if he could skip years like that, why couldn’t I? But the worst was yet to come.

My grandparents (on my mother’s side) arrived from Poland through Ellis Island during World War One, and immediately upon arrival had their names changed (by others) and dropped their religion (by themselves). They were Communists with a capital C and lived their whole lives devoted to the ideal of everyone contributing what they could to the common good. On my father’s side, my grandparents paid lip service to a form of Reform Judaism but didn’t observe any rituals or holidays. My father dropped his religion when he entered World War Two at the age of 18. My mother was raised Atheist. All four of their children were raised Atheist from birth.

For me there has never been a question, and never been a problem. It’s quite clear to me that religion stems from a massive failure of imagination – the inability to perceive the enormity of space and time or the tininess of individual creature-lives on any one particular spinning rock in space. I don’t mind people believing what they like, as long as they don’t force it on others, but of course, most of the monotheistic religions have evangelism as one of their core principles, so they do impose themselves on others. This is to me the evil of religion – the coercion of one group’s madness on others. The same held true for Communists with a capital C, so this is not something inherent in religions. It’s foolish to condemn religion for the weaknesses of humans.

Religion is not “bad”. Atheism is not “good”. “Each person only knows what they have seen and experienced for themselves, yet each imagines to have perceived the whole” (Empedocles).

I say, take it easy, and forgive all those who know not what they do :}

I grew up pretty much secular/agnostic, but essentially went with the flow growing up. Looking back, I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in school (public) and now resent it. I never gave any thought to religion or spirituality until I started doing drugs (namely LSD) in college (Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale). I’ll add that I haven’t traveled down that road in quite a long time.

Religion was always a non-issue up until that point.

I’ve dabbled in mostly new age and pagan stuff; Wicca and Qabala for the most part. With all seriousness I was considering Qabala to be a system I could believe in, down to getting the robes, athame, and accessories. Then, I met my wife and all that dwindled away being replaced by agnosticism.

My in-laws are church-goers and I went to Christmas with them for a few years (Methodist). I didn’t care for it and knew it was a bunch of crap, my wife knew I felt that way, but I just didn’t care about church. It didn’t matter whether I went or not. I was just there.

Later, the in-laws decided they wanted to change their denomination to Episcopal (after some “goings-on” within the Methodist church there). My wife wasn’t happy. She wasn’t angry, she just didn’t like the change. Anyway, there was a little bit of friction regarding this “change”. Needless to say it all kinda ticked me off, I guess because of the whole situation in general, and I said, “To hell with all of it, no more.”

Since. I have only gone to church once, and that was a Christening, which I would not attend today. Note: I had not “come out” to anybody yet, but only in general conversations whereas I never said: “I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God.”

A couple years down the road my father-in-law is over and we are partaking of some beers (I rather enjoy having a few beers with him and discussing politics and current events). Most of what I remember is just flat out telling him “I’m an atheist. I don’t believe…”, after getting into some debate about a secular issue. His answer was “I feel sorry for you.” My retort: “I feel sorry for you.” And I honestly do. That was the first time I ever came “out” and told somebody. Him and I are still on speaking terms and we still love to engage in political discussions. He’s pretty open-minded about that. Though he’ll never change his stance as a true-blue Blue Dog Democrat.

I might add that the whole religious issue arising within the political spectrum in the run-up to the 2000 presidential election really got me riled up. This prompted me to find out what these particular people stood for. And I found dirty truths that drove me further to disregard such jack-asses and…to tell the truth, this (religion and politics/separation of church and state), above all else drives me ideologically.

NOT whether a god exists or not, I could give a rat’s ass about that debate. I get so incensed reading blogs written by ex-Christians debating with Christians about the existence of god. What the hell is to be proven? Or disproven? One thing remains untouchable: faith. If one wants to believe in some fairy-tale, then so be it. One other thing remains untouchable: Don’t frickin’ shove it down my throat. Because I am free to believe what the hell I damn well please to believe.

Sorry, getting heated. Why am I getting heated? Because Christians (and I am lumping them altogether) do not see the cultural implications. They don’t see that the “foundation” of religion has influenced almost every aspect of society. That their inaction and complacency enables the problems that arise from putting trust into the hands of “faithful” politicians. I don’t know how to put it any other way. When our president starts speaking in code about a “crusade”, that should tell you something unless your brain-dead about history. When our dumb-ass president says “I looked into his eyes and saw a kindred spirit.” (speaking of Putin), the same man who said “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” Who does he think he is? The messiah? Seems some people do.

reading some of the stories of courageous and deliberate action posted here, i find myself embarrassed at the mundane quality of my story. it has been said that most people grow up with the same beliefs as their parents, and i guess that’s all i did. oh, i’ve rebelled in countless, occasionally beneficial, usually self-destructive, ways. but as far as religion; opposing the worldview i was born into would have meant becoming a catholic nun or perhaps a born-again fundie!

i was born jewish to secular jews. my folks were both perhaps agnostic, probably atheist, in terms of belief in a supernatural god. (mom’s gone, dad “admits” now that he is an atheist.) however, the sense of our jewishness, our identity as jews – as a culture, a heritage, a POV, the tastes in foods, home-centered (not much synagogue-centered) family traditions, the larry david sense of humor, a feeling of being “apart”, and a slightly arrogant view of our own smarts – prevailed and colored everything. i guess – i know – i did not fall far from this tree.

my life has not been conventional or easy. as i alluded to above, i’ve spent most of my life rebelling in other ways – underachievement, dropping out of college when i was “supposed” to become “at least” an optometrist like dad, years as a hippie, drugs early on, one interracial marriage, domestic abuse, two divorces, eating disorder battles, never wanted kids, social activism, whatever…but the fact remains i’m, religiously-speaking, much like my folks – a culturally jewish atheist.

i’ve never had the slightest experience of, or need for, supernaturalism. my long-ago 15 minutes of baba ram dass “be here now” stuff was peer pressure; new age was play and decorating with candles. christianity seems dangerous to the health of both my jewish and non-believing aspects – though i thank them for so much of the world’s wonderful art and architecture. i love to learn and experience: having enjoyed a christmas eve celebration at the magnificent anglican basilica, st. john the divine, in my beloved new york city, i marvel at the artistry and beauty and majesty that humans can create.

the natural world and the mysteries of science work for me. the experience of a magnificent sunset, the profundity of looking at the exquisite specialization of a spider or sequoia and seeing evolution at work right in front of me – how can supernaturalism or superstition compete?

it was through technology – on the internet, starting especially at myspace – that my “coming out strong” as an atheist grew. reading the works of richard dawkins, sam harris, david mills,et al., being introduced to atheist groups and bloggers, joining the brights, atheist alliance, etc., enjoying the churches of the flying spaghetti monster and the invisible pink unicorn – all this has created a proud sense of community and changed me from an atheist to an Atheist…