Since Arwen/Elizabeth added me to her links (squeal!), I’m getting a lot more traffic. Yay! But this means I’m feeling a lot more pressure to produce interesting blog entries. Boo!
So I thought…if y’all are coming from Elizabeth’s place, probably some of you are interested in religion, right? And since Elizabeth writes so well about her faith, I thought I would try and write about my lack of faith. Because, well, obviously I’m not about to proselytise about atheism, but I think whether or not you believe in God, its quite an important thing about you, and it can be interesting to others to hear how you got there.
Well, I hope it will be interesting.
I went to church pretty much every Sunday, with my mother, and brother, until I was 14. It was a nice, low, Church of England place in a lovely building stolen from the Catholics during the Reformation. The vicar was a whip-smart, slightly sarky, but incredibly kind man, who preached snappy, thought-provoking sermons – even when I was little, I preferred listening to him over going upstairs to Sunday School.
My gosh - I was even an altar girl. Every fourth Sunday I would get up and dash off on my bike to be at Church an hour before the service started. I would put on my big white cassock and carefully remove all the silver from the safe – two chalices, the offertory place, the candlesticks. They went on the altar, after I’d given any dull spots a buff with my breath and my sleeve. I’d light all the candles, assemble the bread and wine for later, and make sure there was a pen next to the book where people could request prayers.
At the same time, I went to a Roman Catholic primary school for 11 years. (American readers should know that you can be a ‘church school’ in the UK, and still be totally state funded). You were supposed to be of the faith specified to attend, but the school had a substantial minority of other faiths, and I’m not sure most of the Catholic kids in my class had ever been inside a church.
My head mistress for my first three years there was a picture perfect nun – elderly, kind, infinitely patient (my headmistress for the last four was a bitch on wheels, but, hey, bygones). She loved me because I knew all the Bible stories better than anyone else in the school, and I loved her. She left the school when I was seven, and on her last day I sat on her lap and cried for so long she must have wished that being a nun didn’t sort of rule out murder. To this day, I remember my horror at finally climbing off her and realising I had left a snail-trail of snot all over her wimple (is that the word?). Yes, I still feel guilty about that.
I was baptised when I was eleven. My mum would have had me ‘done’ long before that, but my Dad, an atheist and ‘lapsed’ Catholic, was uncomfortable with standing up in church and doing the whole ‘I renounce the devil’ bit. At least – I think that was the reason. Maybe he just couldn’t face the thought of having to wear a suit. But I nagged and whined and even cried (my school had been pretty strong on the whole ‘God loves everyone, but you’re not part of his family until you’ve been baptised’ message. Waaah!) until it happened.
It’s hard to remember thoughts and feelings from such a long time ago, but I really believed in God then, and I believed Jesus was his son. I enjoyed reading the Bible – on Easter Sunday, my brother and I would jump into bed with my mum and she would read us the story of the disciples finding the tomb empty. I even went to the hardcore three hour service on Good Friday. At Christmas, I loved the carol services, and the Advent Candle. I felt esceedingly smug about knowing the ‘true meaning’ of Christmas, and disdainful of those who thought it was all about the presents. Oh, unbearable child!
Then, when I was 14, my Confirmation was approaching, and I was attending classes every week to prepare. And there I was, sitting in the church loft, talking about the importance of sacrifice or something, when it hit me:
‘I can’t do this. I can’t be confirmed if I don’t believe in God. I have to get out of here now!’
I managed to curb my dramatic impulse to knock over my chair and run from the church, but it really was dramatic in a way. I didn’t go back and I never got confirmed. And I’ve never really been to church since. I used to joke that I had received a vision from the Devil. But honestly, it was like a religious experience in reverse – I suddenly knew, with absolute clarity, that I didn’t believe in God. That’s part of the reason that I don’t harangue people that do (another part being that it would just be plan rude). Yes, I believe my atheism is a rational stance, but its not like I came to it rationally, any more than someone comes to faith rationally. I used to think that I had subconsciously realised that my faith had sort of stalled around the age of about seven - that Jesus was still just a baby in a manger to me, not the crucified, and risen, Son of Man. And that a babyish faith has to be let go, if it doesn't grow and change. But frankly, I think I made that up to sound interesting. Ironically, my atheism, is just something I feel, and my account of how I came to it is no more likely to convert a believer, than their account of witnessing a miracle, or realising God exists will convert me.
Whew! Was that at all interesting? It was long, anyway. By the way – I’m really not looking to be converted, but I know nobody would try, right? And, please, no comments about how it’s ‘arrogant’ to be an atheist, as opposed to an agnostic. I’ll be cross, and when I’m cross I’m mean.
