Declaring My Atheism
Part Two of a Multi-Part Series “Towards Religion and Meaning”
Note: This is a multi-part series, if you haven’t read the previous posts, I highly recommend checking them out to catch-up before proceeding, here.
As much as I wanted to believe in Judaism, the things I was being taught in school were going unaddressed in both Sunday and Hebrew School. Neither evolution nor the dinosaurs which we were currently learning about were incorporated into my Jewish schooling and I never received any good answers when I asked about them.
In bringing this up to my father, I learned that he was ‘agnostic’, or that he neither believed nor disbelieved in a G-d. This seemed reasonable — not taking a side until something convinces you, otherwise. So, at eight years of age, I took that same stance and decided to identify as ‘agnostic’.
But despite identifying as such, I couldn’t just opt-out of Sunday or Hebrew School. I was living under my parents’ roof, after all. And over time, my skepticism continued to mount — which led me to questioning nearly everything which I was being taught in those institutions. At the age of ten, I felt as though I had had enough of the fairytales and declared myself a staunch Atheist. I figured it was much better to be something (Atheist) than nothing (Agnostic).
As the next few years passed, it seemed to me that everyone I met who identified as religious didn’t have a leg to stand on in terms of justifying their beliefs. That it was all rooted in faith — what I perceived to be primordial and the nigh antithesis of science. This disgusted me — how can someone claim religion to be a part of their identity but not fully understand it nor seem to care to?
It wasn’t until my high school years that I would begin to see my peers, en masse, turning away from religion and faith.
