Neville (South Africa)

My grandfather was a Methodist minister. So were three of his four sons, my Dad being one of them.

Young Life just was church. Dad had his office at home where he counselled members of the congregation. Mom held Women’s Auxillary meetings in the lounge and taught at Sunday school. Graduated to church as a teenager and attended the youth guild on Friday nights, replaced soon by Youth for Christ. I was soaked in the stuff.

Naïve parents did not give me the opportunity for a broad education at home. I was not entirely a nerd at school – vice-captained the cricket team. But boy oh boy was I innocent. I thought the gentle petting with my girlfriend was going further than anyone else was going and was torn between enjoying the loving and praying for forgiveness for my weak resistance. Masturbation tortured my mind.

With two schooling years left I was ripped out of this gentle day school when the family moved town (yet again :-\) and placed in a larney boarding school. Immediately fell in with the church crowd and 9 months later was elected leader of the Church Youth Guild. But – my innocence had been tarnished by what I was learning from my new wealthy, worldly-wise schoolmates. Doubt had gotten a toe in the door. I thought that the responsibility of the leadership role would strengthen my faith. Six months later I acknowledged to myself that I was no longer sure about what I was publicly professing. Off to the school chaplain “Sorry Sir, but I can’t be a hypocrite. I resign” I would rather be an honest unbeliever than a dishonest Christian. I have never looked back.

The following years were enjoyed philosophising about the nature of existence with a new type of friend. No more church. No more sycophantic old ladies sidling up to my Dad (the minister) or fawning over his ‘lovely’ children. I despised them. Leonard Cohen and Alice Cooper were now my friends, helping me get through times of late teenage confusion and despair. I expressed myself in pages of typewritten musings. Amazing stuff to read now. My mother begged that I should “just have faith”. The concept was simply stupid and illogical.

A light airplane crashed into the top floor of a block of flats in Johannesburg, killing the pilot. I was astounded when reading the announcement of a church service to give thanks that the occupants of the flats were not at home. Why didn’t that stupid god of theirs simply make the plane fly 2 meters higher? The selfish fools!

Yes – I married in a church, Dad performing the ceremony, knowing full well that I had walked away from church 7 years prior. I cannot remember if I insisted on any changes to the ceremonial words, but participated in the rites in deference to my then cautiously religious wife and the expectations of the wide family circle. But when it came to the baptism of my son, I insisted that the questions that are directed at the parents - getting their public avowal to raise their child in the church - were directed only at my wife. My Dad had said “And do you, Elma, promise to …”. At the ‘after-party’, an aunt said she had noticed I was not included. When I simply gently said that I did not believe in what the promise was about, she was visibly taken-aback – in fact, she was stunned into silence, nothing more said.

I considered myself an agnostic, but was not particularly concerned what I was called. I was not zealous in my stance, but neither kept it a secret. I discovered thirty years later that a work colleague used me as an example of how a non-believer could even be a good person.

I wrote my own rough credo which more eloquently said “Be honest to your brain - don't pull the wool over its eyes”.

My son grew up without Sunday school, although Mom did teach him to pray but his infant religion went the same way as the tooth fairy and Father Christmas. He was not pressured from either of his parents. His mother became more intensely religious later which was one of the straws that broke the camel’s back - we divorced. My son does not want to experience the same lonely, philosophical incompatibility with a life partner and has difficulty finding religion-free girlfriends.

My disgust at how religion had contributed to my divorce, seeing similarly induced fractures amongst so many other couples, and meeting a girlfriend who had been psychologically battered by Catholiscm as a young woman, prompted me to become more vocal in my anger at how religion warps young minds. I was made of aware of The God Delusion. I needed no convincing. The content resonated perfectly with my experiences, sentiments and formulated ideas. I admired the dedication and intelligence of Dawkins and others who could so comprehensively and clearly present not only the idiocy of religion, but also the dangers it presents to individuals and mankind.

Do I call myself an atheist? Well – I am an atheist, but prefer to be described as something I AM, as opposed to something I am NOT. I don’t know of a single descriptive term. ‘Rational Thinker’ is a clumsy attempt. ‘Caring Human’ another. Any suggestions?