i kind of remember when i became an atheist

I was a kid and I hated church. We would go to church on many Sundays, and then have religion class on Monday nights. Yeah, during Monday Night Football. WHAT THE FUCK. At least Sunday church was done by noon.

My mom still tells the story of how one Sunday my brother and I were being taken to church, and we got there, parked, and as we walked across the street, then into the church, we both limped - in a very exaggerated fashion - the entire way. We told my mom that the bottoms of our feet hurt. And as we limped, I guess another lady looked at my mom like, "why would you bring these horribly injured kids out to church, let them stay at home and heal!"

Obviously, my mom knew we were faking it. But we tried to get out of going every time: crying, hiding, making injuries up, fighting, probably everything.

As a kid, I was mad at God for church being a thing, so he was my enemy. The whole production was kind of weird to me, the Pastor's robe, the idea of communion, the lifeless off-key mumbling/singing of hymns, all kinda strange. The kneeling in the pews was so annoying. It was boring. There are a million reasons for kids to hate going to church.

I remember watching the Dragnet movie as a child. That was back in the late 80s when we were big Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters!) and Tom Hanks (almost every movie around that time period) fans. Anyway, the bad guys in the movie were pagans, and not knowing what that meant, I asked my parents, and they said something like, "people against Christians". That stuck with me, and the next Sunday, not wanting to go to church, I secretly became a pagan.

A couple years later, still hating church, one day it occurred to me that the best way to piss God off was to not even acknowledge his or her existence. Childish? Yeah probably, but I was a child then. Since maybe fifth or sixth grade, it just stuck with me: there is no God. I should note that I'm no longer at war with having to go to church, or trying to piss of an imaginary being; I just think the likelihood of there being a God is approaching zero.


Mind you, this was before I knew what atheism was, or how annoying many actual atheists were. This was before I realized many atheists were all, "OMG if it says "Democrat" or "science" on it, I'll suck it". Had I known that as an eight year old, I mighta never converted, ha.

Funny little side note here. I went to Catholic school from first to third grade, and my final year there, I participated in the Christmas play. You'll never guess my role. Shout out to my dad for making me a huge, bad ass cardboard staff.

So what's the upshot here? I was an atheist before you, and more importantly, before it was cool.

I was also punk before you, but that's a different story for a different time.