quote:Originally posted by Catchfire:

I've never felt threatened about being an atheist.

Define "threatened".

As a young teenager (around 12), I never felt more alone and uncertain than the day it occurred to me that all the God stuff was bullshit. I had never really believed the supernatural stuff, despite my very religious upbringing and extensive religious education. But one day I thought: "If I were born next door, I'd believe in a different God." That was it for me, and I have never looked back.

But I couldn't talk about my feelings. I tried once, to a classmate. Result: I was called into the vice-principal's office and very gently and kindly interrogated about what I was saying to the other kids. Never threatened.

Then, at around the age of 14, I chanced upon and read Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not a Christian. I felt thrilled, alive. I felt like some of the wonderful testimonials M. Spector cited. Russell was one of my heroes, and he made it ok to be an atheist.

Re-reading that text, with decades of hindsight, I realize:

1. I wasn't even a Christian to start with.

2. Russell's account is not very profound.

But it made no difference. The title fascinated me. And it was the courage, the openness, and the in-your-face iconoclasm of the whole exercise that overpowered me.

No one can read a book and stop believing in God. That can only come from your own life-experience and introspection. But thank God for Russell and Dawkins. One day I hope science is able to count how many lost souls they have liberated.

ETA: For what it's worth, here it is:

quote:Introductory note: Russell delivered this lecture on March 6, 1927 to the National Secular Society, South London Branch, at Battersea Town Hall. Published in pamphlet form in that same year, the essay subsequently achieved new fame with Paul Edwards' edition of Russell's book, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays ... (1957).

[ 20 December 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]