The stench of bronze age prejudice and sexism that permeates the entire bible is overwhelming, and grotesquely so in the ramblings of the Old Testament. The supposed revelations allegedly codified by the bearded raft rider Moses reveal a male fascination with property ownership, a concept which included anything which did not possess male genitalia. It also reveals a patently bronze age male preoccupation with self-worth, self-importance and a gnawing sense of insecurity, matched only by the ability to regurgitate the same immoral and outrageous demands throughout the opening books of what we know as the Old Testament.

The widespread ignorance among believers of the contents of their own holy book is at the heart of the persistence with which the average believer will shrilly proclaim the moral and divine truth of the bible. Such ignorance shields the utter immoral drivel that is the Old Testament, and for that matter the entire bible. It is amusing to consider that should any publication administration be required to consider an age limit for its content, the tales of the incestuous threesomes of Lot (Genesis 19:30-38), who had earlier offered his daughters as objects for the sexual gratification of a town mob, the brutal butchering of the corpse of a gang-raped innocent concubine condemned by the callousness of her master (Judges 19) or the utter immorality of the bible’s position on equality, democracy, science or any modern moral or political standpoint, would render it undesirable fiction with a considerable age restriction. Indeed, it is ironic that in the midst of the puritan insistence on family values, children are allowed to read the stories of the bible but are vilified for purchasing a copy of Playboy under the convenience store counter. If anything, the moral virtues of worshipping the female form in the manner found in such magazines is a considerable improvement on what the bible has to say on the subject.

On the subject of children, one can only be mesmerized at the degree of indoctrination that is required for thinking adults to accept even the demand for child sacrifice as godly instruction. Whilst the average believer will howl in indignation at the mere suggestion that Yahweh would call for such nonsense, even this damnable instruction is contained in the bible (Exodus 22:29) indeed, Yahweh, being a gentleman, had the common decency to apologize for his exuberance through one of his assigned spokesmen years later (Ezekiel 20:24-26), although this admission was backtracked on when it came to his own firstborn.

The willingness of fellow members of our species to accept the patently false claims and self-apparent fraud of religious institutions, generation upon generation, is something peculiar. It appears not to matter to the believer that the concept of god as the bible portrays it, is a thoroughly immoral one. A vile god of child-sacrifice, slavery and child abuse, who enjoys an unquestioned entitlement to our worship, fear and obedience for no other reason than that he chose to create us to satisfy is own insufficiency. Logically the claim to entitlement over one’s own creation is of course diametrically opposed to any concept of free will or choice, and directly contradicts the kind of god most believers will gravitate towards when pressed on the matter.

Yet what typifies all of scripture can be reduced to the insistence of jealous entitlement, the notion that by virtue of being god, God need neither justify his conduct nor his treatment of salient souls. What typifies religion is the exploitation of this ideal to human ends, for by claiming divine origin in relation to scripture, theology and in particular the claims of religious leaders, religion insists that it is exempt from having to justify its claims or rationalize its conduct, but at the same time enjoys godly rights of entitlement. Whether by deceiving small children into believing one of the bible’s versions of creation, threatening the impressionable with eternal damnation in order to secure obedience or by vilifying science and reason, the ultimate desire of a modern religion, which has lost its position of power, is to achieve a balance between keeping the flock contained with the walls of its intellectual pen, whilst retaining sufficient justification through claimed good intent, alms to the poor and professions of goodwill.

What we cannot lose sight of is that beneath this forced façade, the bronze age demands to kill witches, stone children, oppress women and own slaves are not exceptions to some otherwise sterling work of moral teaching, they are the underlying foundation for the existence of religion. We too often tolerate religious ideals out of some misplaced notion of respect, even when in the 21st century religion rambles on about the evil of homosexuality, the inferiority of women, the will of god concerning political decisions or claims to have authority to determine what children can or cannot learn. As a practical example ask a local congregation to provide its mission statement, its position on homosexuality, female equality, evolution or the destination of your eternal soul. This widespread acceptance of the perpetuation of ignorance and patriarchy in a modern setting reminds us of the root cause of religion identified by Napoleon Bonaparte, that it is founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.

This is precisely why the hypocrisy of religion is so grotesque, so self-serving and so damaging to the human psyche. The god of the bible is not a benign well wisher, but a jealous, demanding, capricious and frightful being who thrives on the sexism, oppression and forced indoctrination of those whose minds are too vulnerable to resist the shrill threats of this torturous dictator or too ignorant to recognise the fallacy in biblical claims. A being designed by the clever to keep the many ignorant, submissive and eternally fearful.

The only thing worse than an unjustified and unquestionable sense of entitlement is such a sense attributed to a mythical figure. It is worse because we have so convinced ourselves that the evil of religion is not of humans by humans but of god abused by humans. To leave room for man-made religion’s claim of a jealous god whose right to power and entitlement is both unending in eternity and unquestioned in the present, is to facilitate a witch-hunt. A witch hunt of all that is objective, reasonable, fair and most importantly, justified.

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.

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…

For most I think they had to fight out of the claws of a Christian family, for me it was different. I always was an atheist, even when I didn’t know what one was. My mom tried to raise me as a Jew but it didn’t take and after my Bar Mitzvah I told her I was done with this religious stuff.

In my late 20′s I became a Buddhist which was pretty interesting and I still retain some Buddhist ideas, but really, Buddhism shouldn’t even be called a religion though it is often practiced that way. It is also completely atheistic. The type of Buddhism I was in required faith which is something I was never good at, my natural skepticism just kept coming out and I had to give it up. It really is quite a relief to no longer need to make sense out of nonsense. With a rational and skeptical world view everything just makes sense and there is always new amazing knowledge – real knowledge – waiting just around the corner to discover.

But I’m very glad to say I was never a Christian.

I wasn’t raised in a religious home. My parents divorced when I was five and my dad, my little brother, and I, moved to OK in 1990. I can’t say that I ever thought about a god or religion, at least not until I started dating a girl who went to church. Since I really didn’t fit it socially to any group I had a lot of fun at church, and so I got saved at 14.

Looking back I think if I would have had better critical thinking skills I never would have bought into religion, in the same way my dad didn’t. Unfortunately, I didn’t have those skills, and I bought into all the fascinating claims about Christianity right off the bat.

Thinking that it all was real I couldn’t think of anything more important to pour my life into. From the beginning I was hardcore and lived the life. I also dived head first into reading my Bible, or reading only books that supported the Bible. My world view focused to the precision of a laser, I narrowly blocked out anything else.

The next year I told my dad that I believed God was calling me to be a pastor. It was one of the few times my dad voiced his extreme disappoint with me. He later came to accept it, but we never talked about religion.

For the next few years, especially during high school, there was no doubt that I was a ”Jesus Freak”. I occasionally did suffer a few questions after experiencing cognitive dissonance. There were some things I couldn’t wrap my head around, but that made me want to dig deeper.

I started in the United Methodist Church, but couldn’t get over the fact that they were about to condone homosexuality in the leadership. I moved to the Assemblies of God after getting ”baptized in the Holy Ghost” and started speaking in tongues.

I was there a few years until I felt that they weren’t doing everything that God had wanted them to be doing, so I moved to a non-denominational Word-of-Faith church that was starting up in my town. I got plugged into people like Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, John Hagee, Joyce Meyer, and Jesse Duplantis.

I was there a few years until the new pastor and me just couldn’t get a long. I thought he was a bully, so my wife and I went to another similar church 45 miles away.

It was during this time that I began to have some serious cognitive dissonance. It got to the point where I couldn’t stomach any sermons anymore, it all just sounded ridiculous. I loved the praise and worship (the music and the emotion), but everything else just got obnoxious.

I basically started thinking that the only ”real” Christianity had to be how Jesus and his disciples lived in the 1st century. They lived Jewish, so I started looking into Messianic Judaism. We dived into that for about two years until I started questioning the deity of Jesus and how the Jews of Jesus day, and even today, viewed him and what they were expecting in a messiah. I also started looking more into biblical criticism and early church history.

I ended up doubting that Jesus could even be the Messiah, and so I left Christianity and started considering Judaism. I still believed that there had to be a god, so I figured since I went back to the roots of Christianity I should keep going back, back to the roots of Judaism. I ruled out Orthodox Judaism, my wife wouldn’t go there, and thought about Reform Judaism, but it seemed too syncretistic so I didn’t go there. I also found out that Judaism had hidden polytheistic roots.

It was during December of 2006 that my whole worldview came crashing down. I don’t think I ever felt so hollow and numb in my life. I didn’t believe in any gods and was confused about my purpose in life. I wanted answers to some really tough questions about my existence. So I turned to the internet, and started reading about atheism, since I knew that was what I was now. This lead me to all kinds of different places and resources. I changed drastically not only religiously, but politically and socially as well.

I would have to say that I have a deep appreciation for science and reason. I consider myself not only an atheist, but a secular humanist, philosophical/metaphysical naturalist, objectivist, freethinker, Bright, scientific skeptic, and even a libertarian to a degree.

My wife, though no longer a Christian, takes an agnostic theist position….for now. She has told me that she thinks that I am so much a better husband now. That makes me glad. It has been difficult for our extended family, but so far it has been okay. I am glad we have made this change since we are expecting the birth of our first child next month.

The only challenge now, now that I have slowly settled into my new found position and am not so angry any more, is how much should I be active in atheism/secular humanism? I am looking for that balance, but I am interested in start going to the monthly AOK meetings, especially since there is so much that needs to change in Oklahoma.

I left out quite a few details, but I’ll keep it short. The longer version is on my blog. Thanks.

In March of 1979, after reading a Detroit Free Press article about a local “atheist rabbi” named Sherwin Wine, I visited the Birmingham Temple (Farmington Hills, MI). As soon as I saw the Torah in the library and the Hebrew word adam (”humanity”) in large stylized letters on the front wall of the main room, I knew I had found my spiritual home.

I met the brilliant, charismatic Rabbi Wine, joined the congregation, and for the past 30 years, I have studied, practiced, and written several articles on Secular Humanistic Judaism and, of course, my book on the Torah from a humanistic perspective.

Unlike most people who write about the Bible, I have a PhD in linguistics, which enables me to define and explain the key difference between Torah translation and rabbinical inferences about the text. My motivation for writing the book is a sincere desire to let others know what the Torah really says, so that they can decide for themselves what its place should be in their lives.

I consider the fact that I am not a Biblical scholar to be another asset. It has often been noted that real innovations typically come from outside a field, because the practitioners pursue only the accepted lines of reasoning and inquiry.

That may be the case here. Only an outsider would dare to challenge two millennia of established tradition, taken-for-granted thinking and Torah-centric Judaism.

I bring no awe or reverence to the Torah – only a sincere desire to know what it says, with no interpretation, spin, or clerical filtering whatsoever. This knowledge is what I offer the reader.

I am not a nonconformist by nature. I seek above all the truth. I would love the security that comes from being part of a large group of believers. But if I find what they believe (or profess to believe) to be “ego-dystonic” — not resonant with who I am — if I find it in fact unbelievable, then I can’t go along.

The decision to be a secular humanist was for me a realization of who I always was. As a youngster, I waited for God to show up and do something, as he did in the old stories. But after a period of wait-and-see, and especially after the Holocaust, I gave God his walking papers.

It would be such a better world if people could unburden themselves of gods and their many demands.

A few posts ago, I attempted to put myself in the theist’s shoes by going back into my own journey of enlightenment and godlessness. I admit it’s “too arduous of a task for me to think like a theist. I just don’t have it in me; moreover it would be an insult to theists.”

But I can go back to before I knew I didn’t believe.

Back to a time when I wasn’t sure what to believe; but considered myself closer to that of an agnostic theist. When I stood in my parents’ backyard (at about 17) staring into the night, I imaged the pure blackness of the universe. In awe of its beauty. I wondered what “god” could mean to me. My definition was rather Einsteinian, feeling the depths of such a vast place flow right throw me. I was a part of it all; it was all a part of me. I was possibly more of a pantheist. But what is pantheism anyway? Just one step closer to atheism?

I was never really a theist, I believe I meant deist. I never prayed or expected intervention. I was raised Jewish with more emphasis on Jewish heritage as opposed to religion. My mom prays; my dad doesn’t believe in a supernatural being or the afterlife but refuses to go by anything other than Jewish. I always had a hard time making the leap that my mom makes. It’s just not in me.

I started cursing at an early age (occasionally) just because it got under my mom’s skin. I didn’t understand; words are words. What the f*&k’s the difference? I remember on several occasions exclaiming “goddammit” after stubbing my toe or bumping into something (I was a clumsy child). I was only taking after my dad. My mom would laugh because she saw my dad in me while saying to me, “Look up and say you’re sorry.” To which I’d reply, “Why does the ceiling care what I say?”

By this time I wasn’t sure what to call myself or what to believe. I just knew that I didn’t believe in an old man with a beard in the sky dressed in white. It just seemed silly. And I watched all the bad animated shows of the time (late 80′s, early 90′s); all the bad sitcoms and dramas. I love(d) science fiction and fantasy. I just knew that I was Jewish and it made me “chosen” somehow. Sure some of the family get-togethers are nice for children but to me they were about family and food, not god.

Religion was just never an issue…until high school. My parents like to shelter me; they raised me in a suburb of Miami where I had many Jewish friends to play with. They liked me sticking with “my own”, though it was never a requirement. I never had the issues my father had in grade school, though he did attend in the 1930′s (he’s much older than my mother). Being called a “dirty Jew” and getting into fights often isn’t fun. No, for me, the girls found other reasons to pick on me. And it made me a better person because of it!

Now onto high school. I posted a personal experience story on how religion does poison everything. A hypocritical Catholic boy I dated in high school showed me just how intolerant someone can be. I can only imagine if I was a declared atheist then. I was an agnostic Jew who was guilty of killing his savior but he loved me enough to verbally abuse me. I believe there were other matters involved, yet religion played a huge part.

In college, my roommate (who I was randomly put with) and I declared ourselves “nothing”; I suppose we were still scared of the term atheist or hadn’t been exposed to it enough. My college experience played a large role in me coming into my own. My roommate, a girl from North Carolina, was raised Baptist. Growing up, she got her parents to stop going to church as much. Somehow. She got them to start thinking a bit. And they listened. Actually, in college, I had far more free-thinking friends than ever.

I moved out to Hollywood after I graduated. Less than a year later, I met someone who would change my life forever. I saw something in his eyes at a party and tracked him down. Note that I was generally a single girl; I didn’t like being tied down (especially after that horrible high school experience) to anyone who wasn’t worth it. But he was. And is. I went from “agnostic” to “atheist” since I’ve been with him, though have always godless within. I have never been more fulfilled, more in awe of nature than when I was able to admit the word “Atheist”. I finally feel a purpose in this big machine; a link in evolution and a part of the wonders of the universe. He’s opened my eyes in a way I never knew; I have always been pretty damn open-minded. We are now happily married.

I came out to my parents by accident. In conversation with my parents and boyfriend, my mom asked straight forward if he believed in god. He answered “no” and somehow the pressure turned on me. I told them how I felt. And we’ve discussed it a bit. In a way, it doesn’t even matter anymore.

I briefly thought that I would marry Jewish and raise my children as such (which is what I told my parents years and years ago). I suppose I lied to my parents, as they once said. Perhaps after the few bad experiences, I knew I didn’t want to marry a Christian and I didn’t know of anything else. I’ve always know that having kids just isn’t for me. I may or may not change my mind, who knows?

I’m not ‘out’ to everyone at work; the topic of religion doesn’t come up much. I’m not that great of a debater so I try to not be put on the spot. Occasionally, I’ll lob a quick one: Once a coworker referred to Friday as “Act of God Day”. I simply replied, “What would you call Monday then?”

Most people who are born into strongly religious families are raised with their parents’ beliefs and hold them, unquestioned until death, although not before passing them on to their own offspring. I am glad that I was not born into a deep, religious environment because I doubt that if I had I would be an atheist today. In terms of simple probability, it would be a pretty safe bet that this blog would not exist.

My father was (and still is) an agnostic of Jewish background, his own father, my grandfather being estranged from the religion in his early teens. My mother was a devout but liberal Catholic. They agreed to raise my brothers and me as neutrally as possible, with the intention that we would make our own decisions when the time was right. For this, as well as everything else they have done for me, I am eternally grateful to them.

I remember a brief spell of fascination with Christianity when I was about 9 years old. It was at a slightly difficult point in my childhood when I was having trouble making friends at school, and experiencing some bullying, as most people have at one time or another. I remember feeling genuinely comforted by the idea of someone being a sort of friend, looking out for me and protecting me. This is a disappointing glitch in my tale, but the honest truth is that I can’t remember how this phase ended. All I can say is that the interest was intense but brief, and unlikely to have ended dramatically. I think it probably just ebbed away as my social skills improved and I learned to fit in better with my peers.

When I was 13, my older brother was 17 and my younger brother 5, my mother died suddenly of a heart attack. She was 49. I remember a heated exchange of words that very night between my father and my uncle, who said “God needed her”. My father replied “no, her children needed her”.

During the bereavement, I did not consider the validity of religion or its claims in any detail, but I certainly wanted to believe in an afterlife where I may one day be reunited with my mother. As I passed through my teenage years my religious standpoint grew to be one of agnostic indifference. I knew that I rejected organised religion, but was proverbially ‘at sea’ with my own beliefs. Whenever the topic of religion was raised I nearly always expressed my view in the same way, as if I’d learned it by rote, which I suppose in a way I had. I’m not ashamed to have held this view, but with hindsight I see it as ill-informed and naive. It went something like:

“I’m not an Atheist because I think it’s arrogant to assert that there is no God. I don’t know if there is a god or not and I don’t think we’re supposed to know. What I do know, is the difference between right and wrong, and I’m confident that if I go through my life trying wherever possible to do what is right rather than wrong, then if there is an afterlife, I should be treated ok”.

When I was 18 I decided to take a gap year before going to university. I went to work for a pharmaceutical company, where I made friends with a Jehova’s Witness in my department. We got on very well, but had many discussions about his views. I honestly didn’t know that anyone still seriously doubted evolution before I met him. And I was horrified to hear that he would rather see a child die than receive a life-saving blood transfusion. At the time, I was not armed to debate the topics as effectively as I might now. Although his faith was strong, he had never completely committed to the cult, as the rest of his family had. The year passed, I left for university and we agreed to stay in touch.

We did stay in touch while I was some 90 miles away (that’s a lot in Britain), through email, but the subject of religion never really arose during that time. It was in 2004, not long before I left my studies that I was back for a weekend and went shopping (in a manly way) with my older brother and my religious friend. Or so I thought. The topic happened to come up over lunch and he told me that he was now an atheist. There are very few things that distract me when I’m eating, but this stopped me in my tracks.

I was amazed that someone could go from one extreme to the other. To say I was fascinated would violently understate the matter. I quizzed him at great length for the details and he was only too happy to provide them. I won’t elaborate on what he told me, he may one day choose to tell his own deconversion story. Suffice to say that certain websites had made cracks in his faith, which grew over time, culminating in complete collapse. Also, of great significance, was the revelation that had he made the decision to commit to the cult, it would almost certainly have been the end of our friendship, as contact with outsiders was strongly discouraged. I was angry that a religious dogma had come dangerously close to stealing a treasured relationship from me.

He told me about the websites he had read, but it wasn’t until early 2005 when I was back at home and working full time that I finally got to view them for myself. The first of them, was The Skeptic’s Dictionary, about which I have already written. I spent a great deal of time reading here, and this was where I learned and honed my critical thinking skills, as well as making the first steps towards shedding some paranormal beliefs.

The next resource my friend gave me, and perhaps even more importantly than the Skeptic’s Dictionary, was Ebonmusings, the parent site of Daylight Atheism. I intend to write a piece reviewing Ebonmusings at some point, but for now I will just say that I devoured it, every single article, in just over a month. It greatly accelerated my education in theology and atheism, as well as giving me a grounding in the basics of evolution, which I had previously lacked.

Finally, I made my way to The Secular Web and began to debate on the Internet Infidels Discussion Board. Interacting with atheists and theists alike consolidated my knowledge and helped me to make sense of what I had learned. There were, of course, many other websites and resources I used at this time, but the three I have named were ‘the biggies’.

I honestly cannot remember at what point I actually ‘became’ an atheist. I don’t remember the first time I referred to myself as an atheist or thought of myself as an atheist. It was gradual. I had found the experience both enlightening and liberating, but it was not entirely seamless. It was certainly not as traumatic for me as it was for my friend, or other fundamentalists who have to watch an entire world view crumble before they can build a new one. However, I had to let my tentative belief in an afterlife go, once and for all. This was not easy, I felt as if I were grieving for my mother all over again. What I came to realise, over time, was that just because she didn’t have a soul that was still alive somewhere, this did not make her life on Earth any less significant, nor the time that I spent with her any less special or meaningful. If anything, it made them more so.

Now, two years on, I’ve read a lot more and have taken the step of writing my own material and publishing it on the internet. Although I was never really a theist, I’m happier, and more confident as an atheist than I ever was before. I can only imagine the contrast that people like my friend, who make a bigger leap must feel! I am extremely grateful to him for his friendship and guidance, as I am to my other friends and family whose support was invaluable. I know I’m not accepting an award, but I truly feel that the worldview I hold is the most rewarding that any human being can adopt. I may be wrong, but I cordially invite any theist to give atheism a fair hearing. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.