Through Skeptical Eyes

Evening all,

I figured I'd use tonight's post to share a little of my own story and how I came to the inevitable conclusion regarding a lack of god/s and that follows unbiased self reflection and inquiry into reality. I was born in Durban South Africa to a Roman Catholic father and Methodist mother. Neither were particularly religious, though I was baptized Roman Catholic. Parental guidance in terms of religion pretty much stopped there, (for the (ex)Catholics out there, I didn't even have my first holy communion.

Fast forward around nine years to a rather rebellious little shit at age 16. My mom had recently had a stroke and my whole family was learning to adjust ourselves to having to care for her, it was most definitely a difficult time in my life and I grasped for anything that would give meaning to what had happened to my mom and so I researched. Anyone that knows me knows that I have a lot of difficulty with half measures, for me it's all or nothing.

As a result I researched every religion I could think of (other than Christianity funny enough) and found nothing that felt right except LaVeyan Satanism. For those of you who don't know, LaVeyan Satanists do not believe that either Satan or God are actual beings, they see Satan as more of an idea representing pride, carnality and enlightenment, they do however practice magic. For the South Africans among you it will come as no surprise that I kept my newfound "faith" very much to myself.

This stage of my life did not last long, it was at around this time that I first came into contact with marijuana, something that helped me deal with the realities of having to help care for a recently disabled mother. Combined with the fact that none of my spells ever came to fruition, the fact that the use of illicit drugs is forbidden by the Church of Satan made me re-asses my beliefs again and became atheist almost by default.

The next few years were fairly troubling, both for myself as well as my family, I became more and more rebellious, caring less and less for those closest to me. My school work suffered, at one stage I was an A student, though dropped out of high school without finishing. Eventually my parents could no longer deal with me and I was shipped off to a christian rehabilitation center.

I would be lying if I said that Christianity had no part in me managing to grow up enough to realize that being constantly stoned was not a solution to my problems. In my typical fashion, after embracing the idea of Christianity, I threw myself at it with vigor. Once leaving rehab I quickly found a church and became a regular, I attended at least three church related events a week, studied my bible, and genuinely believed every word. I was the kind of annoying christian who would happily debate anyone and everyone who had a different point of view and would dismiss scientific data out of hand if it did not agree with my opinion.

It was around this time that I met my wife (we are separated), and moved to England. My wife and I had a beautiful daughter and life couldn't have been better. It took around four years for the romance to wear off (we had known each other for little over a month before getting married). That last year in England was both the best and worst time of my life, I was a young single man in England and took advantage to my new found freedom. Partly by visiting various clubs (I remember the crowbar, just off Tottenham Court Road fondly) and partly by giving myself the opportunity for honest self reflection and research. It was during that last year in England that I finally got what all the Atheists I had previously debated were trying to tell me.

It broke (and breaks) my heart when I was forced to leave England because I could not renew my VISA, but here I am, back in sunny, (though bloody cold at the moment) South Africa and finding an anger building inside me. Colonialism has a lot to answer for but the Christian faith is certainly one of the worst. It seems almost every day we see stories in the news about con-men *cough*preachers*cough* who are stealing from an already impoverished people. So I decided to see what I could do to help. If I am able to do nothing else, hopefully I will be able to help as many people as possible see reason and logic.

Anyway, that's my story, I hope I haven't bored anyone to death, to lighten the mood I'm posting another Tim Minchin video, this time entitled "The Good Book":



As always, please feel free to comment and follow, also remember to like the facebook page.

Ta,
G