I have a friend who doesn't hesitate one bit in telling me when he thinks I'm wrong. A part of me admires that about him, another part just wants to explain things. He, as myself, is an atheist. But he believes that I live by a radical atheism, that I take things too far, that my "hate" towards religion is limitless.
Maybe he's right. Maybe he isn't. The thing is: my atheism and his are completely different and that is what I think he fails to understand.
I don't know the reasons that led him to be a non-believer. Maybe his family are sceptics as well, maybe he didn't have to put up a fight.
I did.
Being raised in a catholic family and having your own doubts towards religion is not easy. The time comes when you have to decide what you choose to believe. That time came for me at the age of thirteen.
Since then I have had countless fights and debates with my father regarding the existence of God. He believes. I don't.
You see my friend, my atheism comes from fighting. It comes from rebellion. It comes from a feeling of oppression that keeps you on your feet for years and years of unanswered questions.
That is why, I believe, my atheism is as strong and defiant as it is.
Because it is a response against something.
It is a cry for freedom.
It is a part of me. I can't change it.
And most importantly: I don't want to.
Paula.
I believe I've had doubted the existence of God (and destiny and all kinds of superstition) only once in my life.
ResponderEliminarSince I was five, I've been in a catholic school until graduating from baccalaureate. Even though my parents didn't baptize me, I believed in Jesus, in some kind of God that exists and veils for our happiness. I prayed every night so that he could help me, well, not me, but a friend who had a lethal desease, hoping he could get well. He didn't. And that was when I was seven.
I ceased to believe in him. I thought everything was unfair, that that friend of mine didn't deserve what had happened to him. I couldn't be more right. Unjustice will exist despite people believing in such gods or entities or whatever people may call them. Sometimes, these beliefs are the roots of wars, and other times, the source of human kindness.
Ever since, I don't deny the existence of Gods (maybe deep inside of me I do), but rather, I don't care if they do exist or not. Maybe it's a global lie, maybe we're the ones totally blinded; but I believe, their arguments don't hold water. Everytime I had argued with my religious teachers, I had the feeling that they were taking me for a ride like swindlers do. I do respect people who believe, but I won't accept those who look me down just because I don't.
Just my two cents.