> I think it would be interesting for non-believing
> list-members to share their stories of how they came
> to outright reject, or, as is the case with me, simply
> (without sturm und drang and snarky, anti-belief super
> irony) find no place for, religious belief.
It must have been in early high school, since I was still hanging with the church youth group for the good company. I had taken the business seriously enough to go through the rigamarole of confirmation in and with good faith, and my parents had at least gone through the well-intentioned motions of giving me a moderately religious upbringing. I guess at some point (undramatically enough that I don't remember when) I just thought, "This means nothing to me." So at some point in my early teens I found myself having to fend off the youth group leader's suggestions that I become a priest, while avoiding telling him what I was thinking: "The real problem is that I don't buy any of this."
Strangely enough, the computer program at the college career counseling center suggested the same path several years later. Priest, or rabbi. The latter almost makes more sense.
I have no idea where the unbelief came from, or where the belief went.
My extended family are all either moderate to liberal practicing Catholics, or socially conservative (but mostly pragmatic) churchgoing Prods. I had an insatiable reading habit for history and science, but nothing philosophical per se. There was no rebellion involved -- to most of my family I'm effectively in the closet.
For a number of years I switched between the so-called honesty of agnosticism and the certainty of atheism, until at some point I found the whole thing kind of silly. Nobody bothers to insist on the non-existence of the tooth fairy.
Yet I find myself in the curious position of being the opposite of a common line in personal ads: "non-religious, but something's out there." My view of faith is so light that I have to make an effort to remember that there are people who take the whole Jesus thing quite seriously, but I can't quite toss out religion as a cultural touchstone and social focal point. You may call it Festivus, but you celebrate it nonetheless.
> In all probability the airplane is banked and is turning, although your sensations make you feel it is in straight and level flight. Don't act according to your sensations. Check and cross check your instruments."
>
> – Pilot's Information File, 1944
Brilliant.
-- Andy