Stopped believing at the age of four

sent in by Colin Benson

As far back as I can remember, my Mother would always take my brother and I to church on sundays. (My Dad was lucky, he was not forced to go) Both my brother and I never really wanted to go, we protested a little here and there but Mom still forced us to go to church anyway. We felt this was the way we had to do it, much like you had to go to school. So we sat in the youth group while Mom and everyone talked about the bible and all other boring topics. Every sunday I would lay down on the couch, stare at the walls and wait for it to end. *Yawn* If I was asked a question, I would answer it, but basically I did not participate in it. Youth group felt a lot like a classroom.

Some out-of-church youth group activities I actually enjoyed a bit. Hayrides, picnics, Trips to other churches and so on. But they were few and far betteween. Not enough to make me want to go to church of my own free will. One of the youth group organizers enforced these new rules that you couldn't go on an outing unless you spent a certin number of days participating in the boring Youth group classroom. I mentioned that all the rules this organizer was making up, was sounding more and more like an insurance policy. Even my Mother agreed to that. A few people dropped out of youth group after the "rules" came into effect. No surprise there.

After several years we (Mom, my brother and I) started going to the "main" area of the church for services. Again, I was bored out of my mind and unintrested. I sang the idiotic songs if my Mom told me to, prayed like an idiot, ate those tasteless disks and sipped the wine and you know how all that church stuff goes.

Eventually, we went through confrimation. Which was something like graduating from school. Mom took us to the city to buy us some new christian junk. Bibles, robes and some other stuff. I twice told my Mom not to waste her money buying these items, as I would never use them. My words fell of deaf ears and she bought the stuff for my Brother and I anyhow. The next day, when my Mother was at work, I wrapped my new bible up in a bag and pitched into the dumpster in the apartment building behind our house. The robe went into the corner on the floor of my closet to collect dust. (It's gone today, I don't know what happened to it. I can't remember throwing it away.)

A few days later Mom said she won't be taking us to church anymore if we don't want to. That was a happy day for me. My brother and I never returned to the church again.

This very well may have been the end of my story but some years later, the church and christanity a fading memory. I rented a book from the library. It was a novel about Sabrina the teenaged witch going back to the dark ages for a history report or something. Half way through the book some pesants realise Sabrina's a with and try to burn her. My blood boiled as I read. Eventually I became so angry, I had to stop reading. How could christains be so bloody evil? That book opened my eyes to the evil side of christanity. I started seeing more and more the darker side of the religion. Same thing happened when I read "Carrie" book later on. Recently, I saw in the news about a scout master who was kicked out for being an athiest. Simply because the scout manual says "I promise to do my duty to god" or something stupid like that. Very recently, i noticed that many christians are opposing gay marriages. Why? Because it says homosexuality is a "sin" in their "bible" and they say it is the undisputable word of god. F*cking retards, it also says the earth is flat in their little holy book, how many belive in that? One starts to wonder what would happen if eating food was a sin according to the bible. How many christians would belive that and starve themselves to death? Quite a few I would guess.

All in all I never really was a christian. Though I DID belive in God when I was very young, the belief went out the window the same time I realized Santa Clause and the Tooth fairy were just stories. Think of this: If a 25 year old man belives in god, nobody thinks that's strange. But if a 25 year old man belives in the tooth fairy, people start to wonder what is wrong with him mentally. I hope that some day in the future, mankind will finally wake up and see that christainity is nothing more than a big fairy tale and leave it at that. It would certinally make our world a better place. We are intellegent beings, we do not need a 2000 year old book to tell us how to run our entire lives.



City: Selkirk

State: MB

Country: Canada

Became a Christian: When I was born basically

Ceased being a Christian: Four

Labels now: Atheist

Why I joined: Forced into it by my mother

Why I left: Started thinking for myself and using my braincells.