A Short History of My Disbelief

Honestly, if someone told you they believed in Thor. What would you think? More importantly would you take them seriously? How would you respond?

I was never ever infected with the religion gene. In my formative years it just wasn’t mentioned. My Mother could best be described as a loose Christian and My father as some sort of deist. But while I was very young religion just never came up or if it did I wasn’t aware of it. I do vaguely remember going to Sunday school once only because my sisters went. I had no idea what Sunday school was but there was a trampoline. So I went, it was prize giving day and everybody got a book, everybody that is apart from me. After a lot of swearing and cussing I resolved never to go again.

It wasn’t till I started school that I really encountered religion and for me that just entailed singing boring songs and pretending to pray at assembly, not that I knew what praying was I just copied what everyone else was doing

It was only when they started to cast for my infant school nativity play that I had any real idea who Jesus was supposed to be. They were casting and if there was a chance of an audience then I wanted in. So my infant school teacher (who I’ve no idea what her name was now) was telling us the story of what we were going to perform. This wondrous story of a young Mary and Joseph, a little donkey, three kings, Shepherds and Angels…..Hang on a minute!… A what? …. An Angel? Magic with wings? Even then at the age of 5 my young mind was wondering why my teacher the font of all knowledge was lying to me. I was nowhere near old enough to think through my logical objections to what she was telling the class but one thing I did know, I had two older sisters, and I knew a bloody lie when I heard one. I didn’t object I wouldn’t have dared I wouldn’t know how to. The rest of my young school friends were taking all this in. It was just me, I felt alone and isolated. I couldn’t go home and tell my mum my teacher was lying to me, she was my teacher the most authoritative person in my young life. So I stayed silent played along with their little games. Still pretended to pray, would sing along to the hymns when I felt people were watching. I say people I mean Mrs Gloria who would prowl the assembly hall looking for those who weren’t singing with gusto and those she found would be cast into the pit of having to spend playtime with her as punishment. It was all a charade I Knew it was all rubbish I just kept playing their game and kept silent.

A few years past and I carried on pretending to join in with their Hymns and praying to god all the while not quite understanding why I was the only person I knew who didn’t believe this rubbish. Then it happened. We were watching as a family some ropey old Sunday afternoon television or maybe a film and one of the characters declared they were an Atheist, much to the shock and horror of the rest of the cast. I asked what an atheist was, and my eldest sister said quietly “someone who doesn’t believe in God.” Halleluiah It wasn’t just me; there were other people out there, grown up people who could see through all this garbage as well.

The rest of my school religious education took a downward swing. Once I was old enough, when I reached Grammar school and felt confident enough to call out my Teachers on the absurdity of what they were telling us I routinely found myself outside the class in the corridor ordered to copy text from the bible. This so called punishment meant that not only was I more familiar with scripture than my classmates but it also gave me more ammunition to throw at my exasperated teachers. This ended with one of the most terrifying moments of my school years (and believe me I had some Hairy moments) I’ll call the Teacher Mr Jones, just for the sake of the narrative. Mr Jones had found me in the corridor with my desk and chair which is where I invariably ended up during religious education. He asked me why I was there. I explained I had been ejected from the class for being disruptive. This man a tall tall man with little glasses, perched on the end of his nose, he looked the spitting image of the teacher from the video of the Pink Floyd single Another brick in the wall, asked why I had been being disruptive. I replied “Well sir…I don’t believe in god” well, he was already a good 6ft 6 and he seemed to grow a couple of feet taller. He went crimson.. Then exploded like a volcano I have no Idea what it was exactly he was screaming at me but it wasn’t good. My teacher appeared from inside the classroom and ushered Mr Jones off down the corridor. I was shell shocked, It was my first ever encounter with the violent reaction that can be provoked from men of god merely for not joining them in their delusion.

R.E. and Me parted ways I didn’t want to be there and they didn’t want me. School assemblies I spent smoking just outside the back gate on Hewett Rd.

I went through my teenage years and into my adult life just not thinking about god in the same way as I didn’t think about botany. It was of no interest. If anybody asked I was agnostic, I didn’t know. Which is a cop out position because nobody truly knows; nobody not even the bloody Pope knows whether there is or is not a god. His holiness might truly believe with every fibre of his being but he doesn’t know. He has no more knowledge about the existence of god than a plant pot, so in those terms everybody is agnostic.

We in Western Europe were living in a post Christian age. We had tamed it. The pious could no longer set fire to us. No longer make the dissenting suffer trial by ordeal. We had reduced them to holding bring and buy sales and tea dances for the Derby and Joan club. “More tea vicar?”

9/11 the world changed. You could no longer just say “religion? No thanks” When those airplanes slammed into buildings religion slammed its ugly poisonous way into all of our lives. You could almost feel the glee from the ultra-Conservative Christian Right across the Atlantic in America. They knew a revival was coming. Their quest to infiltrate the powerbases in Washington was given a new urgency. A portal had been opened and here came the godly.

In Britain immigrants had brought with them their strange faith that we knew little of and didn’t understand. It’s a religion what harm could it be? All religions are the same. They all preach goodwill to all men. Don’t they? Short answer to that is no. No they don’t. Christianity is to Islam as Crown green bowling is to cage fighting. They at their core are not the same.

This pushy demanding new faith soon elbowed its way into our national consciousness assisted by the PC brigades who so understand minorities and their rights. It wasn’t long before the new faith cheered on by their more subdued Christian cousins were demanding more and more privilege, demanding that we change our society’s norm s and customs to accommodate them so they would not be offended. Imposing their religious practices on the rest of society. If you eat in any public building the chances are you will eat food that is prepared to their religious practice. Not yours. Theirs. If you complain out comes that word. You know the one. The faithful of all stripes have gained strength and they will use it. They will use it to affect the way you live. The choices you can make, it is happening and the secular have to stand up to these people and say NO I will not put up with this

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It was after 9/11 that I began to think of myself as an Atheist and Anti-theist. I can see the danger of organised religion. The clear and present danger that men of faith pose to us all. We defeated them once; we will do again because reason always wins out over faith. It just takes time. Those of us with no faith or just the secular have to now take a stand against a madness that is finding its feet again in the Western World.

I asked a question at the beginning of this piece. I feel the same way about people who believe in Jesus or Allah or indeed Shiva as you feel about people who believe in Thor.

Good God did he put his head in a Lions mouth?

Cuckoo