BoogieMonster (South Africa)

When I was a little boy my mom would often read us stories for bed time. Sometimes there were dragons and knights. Sometimes there was David and Goliath. The clear difference was that my mother told me the stories from the “Bible story book” were true. And I took her word for it, even though, I have to admit now some decades later, that even at the time it seemed a bit unreal and fantastical.

My parents never really attended church that much when I was a little tyke. They were very religious, but didn't seem to gel well with our local church. I do recall however, starting in the first grade, being dropped off at the NG church in time for Sunday school, learning about the Bible, and then being picked up again to go home. For the most part, much like any kid, I never liked getting up on a Sunday morning for this particular chore. It always ended the same, being bored out of my skull and sitting on the sidewalk in the hot sun waiting to be collected. And then they started asking us to write tests on this stuff. I'd scour the Bible for hours looking for correct answers to questions, and started to loathe the whole exercise. Then came the most dreaded of all.... “Kinder-krans”. Now not only were my Sunday mornings a trial, but Fridays too? We'd collect in a hall and sing the same boring songs and got told to “invite Jesus into our hearts this very day”, and had to testify how we felt having Jesus in our hearts. Even to a little boy this was all a bit silly, but if it was what God wanted, I'd have to do it.

Then things changed. We left the NGK and joined the NHK, my parents were also getting a bit tired of the local NGK's emerging quirks: They were starting to sing songs, silly childish songs, not traditionally sung in an Afrikaans church. The minister also started initiating strange rituals during the service. On this me and my parents agreed, this bunch was getting a bit loopy. So off we went to the NHK. This was better, a lot better. For one, no “Kinder-krans” and no exams. There was no kneeling or lifting of hands or any of that. I would contend that even as a Christian I thought those kinds of activities were a tad crazy.

The minister we had was more scholarly, more serious, and I started to really get into this religion thing. I consider myself a scientific type, but, on a philosophical level, I could truly bind with religion. I still didn't overtly enjoy attending church, but I thought it was the right thing to do and at times the services “reached” me. I have to admit though, I've spend many an hour in a church thinking about other things, or trying not to fall asleep. But as time went on and I became deeply religious. I continued Sunday school and eventually was confirmed as a member, being described as “deeply insightful” by our minister. I had a knack, a gift I would say, for rationalizing religion in the face of criticism.

I was pressured at high-school to attend the CSV (Christelike Skole Vereeniging), but I never felt the need to give up my precious lunch breaks.

So there I was, out of school, in University, a conservative, bigoted, Christian, young Afrikaans man. Just like the parents had ordered. I just continued on the same, attending church and doing my thing. I was taking astro-physics class in the week and attending church on the weekend. And this I could easily rationalize in my mind as not being contradictory. It was after all just natural to study God's creation, God's evolution, and so on....

Then it all got a bit murky... When I started working I was still on the same Christian path, and it would take years for me to totally leave it. But things were afoot. My mind was working on a problem I'd only started to dimly appreciate.

I'd like to say I had an “Aha!” moment at some stage. But it never happened. I started thinking deeply about religion and the logical consequences, about the history and the likelihood of it being true. I remember watching documentaries on TV about the ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians had this vast empire, stretching over such a great deal of time. They'd studied the stars in-depth, and gone quite far scientifically speaking. But here's the thing. Thousands of years later they were all dead. As was their religion. This entire society believed something, and here we were digging up the remains of their “immortal” kings, knowing quite well they were deeply mistaken. Was I mistaken? Would I be dug up two thousand years from now, noted for believing in a defunct religion?

This needed a lot more thought, and it got a lot of the brainpower I could muster. I started reading about the history of the Bible. Could we prove there was really a Christ? Were the historical texts in the Bible confirmable as true? It would seem, in retrospect, the more brainpower you devote to trying to answer this question, the more the logical pieces start to fall into place and the more the cracks start to emerge in Christianity, and all religion.

My belief was slowly breaking down. I was evolving into an Agnostic. I stopped attending church altogether, much to the consternation of my parents, siblings, and other family members and friends. I merely explained it as “I don't feel I need it to cement my faith”. That was far from the truth, my religion was almost gone at that point, I only believed in God as an abstract entity, not so much in the stories of the Bible.

That also dragged on for quite a while, my leftover faith being lost inch by inch over time. I started to lose my fear completely. And upon finally reading “The God Delusion”, I realised that I hadn't been an agnostic for quite some time. I'd already become an atheist, I just hadn't taken the time to re-label myself. It kinda happened at some stage while I was asleep. In the very least, Richard's book made me feel a lot less alone.

I don't put my de-conversion down to a single input. That is too simple and very wrong. The Bible is a big book, the rationalization for God is a long and tedious one. It took many tiny inputs, little logical and factual breakthroughs here and there, and lots, and lots of thinking, and observing the religious.

I consider myself a smart person and my reasoning for abandoning faith eventually had to cover every angle, cause mistrust in every little crevice. This wasn't easy, it took time, it took a lot of research, and it took soul searching, facing deeply buried fears. Realizing those fears were irrational and letting go of them. Then feeling the breath of fresh air, the new start of a life I hadn't realized I was missing. Finally, clarity. For the first time, absolute, unshakable clarity set in.

I also lost my bigotry. I could no longer disapprove of gays, of people who had pre-marital sex, of people who'd had separations, or of other races. We were all just homo-sapiens trying to get through life alive, in futility. I started to pity people. I started to see pain running as a constant under-currant to our world. I could see fear all the time. I don't know if this sudden transparency of people was caused by my de-conversion, but I mention it anyway.

I guess in my life atheism brought me freedom greater than I could have ever known. Fear is a word mostly gone from my vocabulary (some fears are rational), it's been replaced by a sense of purpose, clarity, vision, and a joy in life: I'm not in this world to run God's gauntlet and prove myself worthy anymore. I'm in this world, just because. And I have to make it worth every second because at the end I will be stone cold dead. A thought that actually does make me at peace, and does give me drive. I may have lost the reward of a heaven, but I've also lost the punishment of a hell. I feel liberated in being able to see the truth for the first time. But I also feel sad that it had to take so much for me to get there. Christianity is deeply entrenched in our western society. To be the one doing the thinking is hard, to be the one reaching the “wrong” conclusions is harder.

So for me, for now, I'm in the closet. Some of my friends know, but I find, in business as in family life, it's better to just shut up. It's not a pleasant thought, but I think it's mostly, the truth. I'd be lying if I said I don't find the prospect of breaking the news, quite enticing though.