I remember when my parents first found out about my lack of faith that there is a God. I was a junior in high school and my sister told them that I didn't take communion during mass at school. When asked why, I had no choice but to come clean. My dad called me a "fucking heathen".

I was raised Catholic all my life, baptized without consent and confirmed without choice. My disbelief started when I started attending public school. See, I went to a Catholic private school from pre-school until fourth grade. There, I learned the ways of Catholicism and was led to believe that nothing else existed, that the Catholic faith was absolute truth and even that there was no opposition (because I was never exposed to any going to a Catholic school in my own neighborhood). So when I first went to a public school in fifth grade because my mom was popping out babies like the stereotypical Catholic woman and could no longer afford a private school for her children. I said the word "pray" in class, as was so common a response when asked about solving worldly problems, and was taken aback when the teacher seemed flustered with her response: "Sure. You could... pray... if you believe in that sort of thing." WHAT?! If you believe?! I didn't understand. I thought that was THE belief. Well, I learned more about real life in the fifth grade than I ever learned at that damned Catholic school.

I graduated from elementary school and went to another public school for middle school, where I met even more opposition to the Church and to God him-/her-/itself. I began thinking more autonomously about the subject the more I learned about other faiths and beliefs out there. By middle school graduation, I had decided that I didn't want to just believe in God because I was told to. I entered a state of atheism going into highschool, if anything as a way to discover myself. But that high school sucked and I learned little to nothing about anything. So I transferred to the school my family all went to: another Catholic private school where I was forced to attend Mass every week and pray and pledge my allegiance to a flag under a God in which I did not believe every day. This just plain pissed me off. But it did afford me the opportunity to a better education than what I would have otherwise had at that dumb vocational high school (no offense SkweRLy), including classes on the faith I had denounced.

My sophomore year (first year at this new school) I had to take a theology class introducing the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament of the Bible). It was interesting what I learned about the Bible in that class. I had come to realize that the Bible was written merely by men of the faith, not even by the priests or clerics or what have you... just men. And I think a woman or two. Anyway, I learned a lot about the shit that was/is done in the name of this "all-loving, all-caring" God. Murdering, wars, rape, genocide... not much sign of mercy in the Old Testament. I learned then that there are two major views of this one God: the patriarch of the Old Testament (punishing and justifying those against) and the Matriarch of the New Testament (the all-loving, comforting image of God commonly accepted today). Well, how can this same God be both merciful and just? It's not possible. More reason not to believe. I began seeing that God was merely a perception of different people to explain how and why we are here... the hardest question to answer in the entire universe... in all probability unanswerable. Also, all of those stories in the Old Testament, as well as the commandments and laws, are merely stories to explain why things are or to help govern a body of people--much like when your grandpa ascends to the soap box to tell you how babies come from birds and bees or other stories to answer tough questions. This was really the first double take I took of my denounced faith. I still didn't believe, but now I was starting to find out why I don't, but also considering why I could or should.

The next year, my junior year, I had to take Christian Scriptures (the New Testament). This class was by far more interesting and more educating than the Hebrew Scriptures class. The teacher tried to teach us how to argue and how to develop sound arguments, I suppose to help us rebute when asked about our faith. However, it ended up causing every person in that class to question their faith, which he considers a successful class (and I agree). That was the first time I openly challenged the Church, and to a bright individual at that. I learned a lot about how everyone percieves God and the entire world differently, that me questioning things as I was isn't as wrong as I was once told it was, but was the way one should come to be in order to be more content with his/her life, knowing that he/she hasn't just accepted what was given to him/her. As far as faith goes, my junior year theology class has affected me the most.

My senior year I took a theology class that I assume was to prepare us for our lives as Catholics or Christians, like how to spread the word and how to live in Christ. We learned about vocation and love and intimacy and marriage etc. However, that was the boring stuff. That was the stuff I think about in different ways than Christians and Catholics so I did the homework to the humor of my teacher. But what a wonderful teacher he was. The way he listened to me and allowed himself to open up to differing views was one I had not ever experienced. I was more confident to challenge thanks to my junior year class, and my challenge was accepted by my senior class. I had discussions with my senior theology teacher outside of the confines of the classroom a few times, and the papers I wrote for the class that only he would read reflected just what I felt, with his comments reflecting his take on the same topics (again, something I had never before experienced... a teacher reading past my words and finding the true meaning behind my writings). He signed my yearbook with a messege thanking me for teaching him and causing him to reflect upon himself so much. He was the one to guide me on a path of spirituality, and he showed me that people could be just as if not more spiritual than the faithful even if they have no faith themselves.

My senior advanced biology course offered me a rather uncommon way of thinking. The book was written through the eyes of Darwinistic Christians (sounds like an oxymoron, I know). It taught me that both ways of thinking can indeed coexist--that one can accept evolution as fact as well as God and creation as truth. More questions for me came about. More soul searching was necessary. I began accepting the possibility that God created science which governs the universe. I mean, there is no doubt in my mind that science governs the universe. I am sure that everything that has ever happened and ever will happen has a scientific explanation. Whether we have discovered or will discover such explainations is beyond me. It has always fascinated me how perfect the universe is... how everything is so in sync with each other. Everything seems to have both a cause and an effect. The most miniscule of occurrences can wield the greatest of impacts... I mean, look at the whole journey of evolution throughout the universe! And that pretty much happened by chance! I degress... So here I am, weighing the possibility that God created such a perfect thing as science. Then I thought about perfection, and how everyone who believes says "God is perfect." I challenged this eventually, by the way, but we aren't there yet. At this point, I thought, "If God is perfect and has always been, will always be, and always is, then why can't science be God? Science is perfect. Science always has been, always will be, and always is." (That's another retort I like to ask Christians. How can their God always be, but they find it so hard to accept that science and the whole universe can carry the same attribute? That's a huge double-standard, and a fallacy to say the least.) So I pretty much claimed science as my God, though I don't worship it nor even think of it as a god of any sort.

I entered college for Computer Science and Computer Engineering. Part of my engineering degree requires courses in physics. I have learned so much about the workings of the universe through science from that course (and I have much more to learn as I embark on physics II next semester). I can now explain much more in terms of science, and that is way more satisfying to me than stating that things are the way they are because of some fablistic being meant them to be. In fact, I think that maybe the biggest reason I have no faith is that I find it unsatisfying to not wonder beyond God. I find it an easy way out to not question everything, or to question things and accept "because God made it that way" as the answer. Maybe that isn't the best reason to lack faith, but then again give me a good reason to believe. And telling me that if I don't believe I will be damned to Hell or whatever isn't a good reason to me, as I don't believe in Heaven and Hell. Which brings me to the only reason I remain agnostic and not full-fledged atheist: I don't know what happens to us after we die. If you've read my article on the meaning of life, then you already know my take on life and death, and how we won't 100% know the meaning of either until we die. I believe that something MUST happen when we die and that there MUST be a reason for the existence of the universe, but am not sure what it is. The only way I can explain that at this point is that there IS a higher power and a greater meaning for everything, but as I said before, I will not just accept that as my answer without further probing the question. Hence, I am agnostic.

I do have a theory of what may happen to us when we die, however. You see, it is accepted in science that there is a fixed amount of matter in the universe, and that you can neither destroy nor create matter. In fact, these are laws of science. We all know that when we die, our bodies decompose and become part of the soil or whatever, so the matter that makes up our bodies is thus preserved and not destroyed... put to a new use if you will. Now, it is also known that everyone has an electical current of sorts throughout our body, and that our brains transmit electrical signals to the rest of our body and vise versa. Well, and here's the theory, it would make sense to me that the soul that many speak of is the electricity that flows throughout every one of us. And what happens to that soul when we die? Well, it's electricity, matter that cannot be destroyed, so it, too, leaves our body and finds a new use--whether it be combine with other electical currents or shoot off into the universe and combine with other forms of matter to weild new objects or whatever. It kind of explains the radiation emitted by dead bodies, too. But it's just a thought that hit me one day while discussing God and religion with a friend of mine. But I have yet to discover anything to answer the question of why this universe must exist at all.

Well, I hope that answers a lot of our questions as to why I don't believe in God and what I do believe in. If not, you can always e-mail me and ask. Soon I hope to put up what I think about religion in general, and some common problems and questions I run into when discussing them with Christians.