From: jwest@wisc (Jeff West)
Subject: What brought you to atheism?
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: 6 Oct 92 17:16:13 CDT

After reading the postings here the past few weeks I've noticed some
similarities in many of your comments.  I would like to know how you
came to the beliefs you now have.  It's been refreshing to read posts
from others with beliefs much like my own.  I would like to explore
how much alike many of us are in the way we look at the world and life.

Myself I was raised in a Protestant church with the usual Sunday school,
vacation bible school and summer bible camp.  I even spent two years in
a Lutheran grade school when our public one burned down in my hometown.
My family was never what I would consider fundamentalist or fanatical in
nature.  Just your "average" family of four that went to church on
Sundays.

As I grew older though many troubling aspects of "my" religion began to
bother me.  And always I was told: "There are just some things you have
to take on faith."  It didn't make me feel any better about it but I
swept in under my Christian rug.  I mean why buck a system that
stands for such high ideals and promises everlasting life in heaven,
especially when denying it has such an ugly stigma to it?

Eleven years ago I was diagnosed with a cancer that at the time had
roughly a 3% cure rate.  My odds of living to see the 4th of July in
1981 were very slim.  I've always heard that times of great stress in life
either make your faith stronger or break it.  It wasn't even so much my
own illness that bothered me.  There was a 4 year old little girl who was
taking chemotherapy at the same time I was.  She didn't know why, all she
knew was that she got very sick whenever she came to the clinic.  We
became very close.  She finally lost her battle.  I was crushed at the
incredible unfairness of it all.  Why would a loving and caring god torture
sure a beautiful and innocent little girl?  All my former questions came
rushing out from under the rug, and they brought friends!  When I was told
that: "It's all god's will."  I knew that this was a god I could no longer
worship.

Denying my religion was not an easy thing to do.  It still isn't to this day.
It was like telling my sister that I never want to see her again or cutting
off an arm.  It had been around as long as I'd known me.  I did continue to
go to church for awhile and keep all of this to myself.  It was a very tough
time telling my family that I would no longer attend church with them.  I
will always remember the sadness at watching them leave for Christmas services
without me the first time.

I wish to no end that someone could someday prove to me that a loving and
caring god exhists but I doubt anyone ever will.  On the other hand though
my life and eyes to the world have been opened in a way that I'd never
imagined.  So much became very clear to me about how the world works and
"uses" religion to contol the masses.  A very large part of the suffering and
stupidity in this world is due to these "Institutions of God". (To be fair
much relief to the suffering in this world comes from people that believe
in organized religions also.)

But I no longer have silly quilt trips nor let a "religion" dictate how I should
run my life.  The ironic thing is that I truly believe that I'm a MUCH more
humane person now.  I live each day as full as I can and I'm more willing to
help others do the same.  I'm also much more tolerant of other people.
 
I'm sorry for the this being a long post.  Being one who very seldom reads one.
If you've read this far I thank you and am very interested in hearing your stories
and points of view.  Many of you seem very openminded and have a peace of mind
that many people do not know.  But I also sense a "longing" for something more.
Is there something about humans that we long to have something to believe in,
or is it just an outdated cultural thing that will take many more generations to
disappear?  How did you get to where you are?
 
Thank you for you time,
  Jeff West